Kamerun (as it was known at the time) became a League of Nations Mandate Territory and was split into
French Cameroons and British Cameroons in 1919.
An important stage of the mass mobilisation programme came in the form of the 44th edition of the Youth Day Celebrations on 11 February, which incidentally is the date commemorating the plebiscite in which the British Southern Cameroons voted en masse to re-unite with the French Cameroons. In acknowledgement of the role of the youth in the independence and reunification movements, the theme for the 2010 edition was "Youth and the Consolidation of 50 Years of Independence and Reunification".
Unlike the other African countries with specific independence dates, Cameroon's "independence" is perceived more as a movement, which started with the independence of French Cameroon on 1 January 1960 and ended with, some might say, "another" independence made possible by the "reunification" with the British Southern Cameroon on 1 October 1961.
We the French Cameroons living in the British Cameroons in our humble petition, beg that we too should enjoy the same advantage of education and for the tax we pay in this land of our sojourn and also we should have representatives in the government to voice out the difficulties of the sprinkling, population of French Cameroonians (Monono, 2001:75)
French Cameroon immigrants refer to the inhabitants of the British Southern Cameroons whose birth places, homes of origin or ethnic bases were in the French administered Cameroon.
While
French Cameroon had her independence in January 1960 and Nigeria in October 1960, the British Southern Cameroon was to decide in a plebiscite either to join
French Cameroon or Nigeria.