The Honourable Shirley Botchwey, Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations
By Jennifer McChriston
International Legal Analyst and Fellow of the Centre for Post-Colonial Justice
London- July 2025. In February 1961, the people of British Southern Cameroons cast their votes in a United Nations-organized plebiscite that would change the course of their history—but not in the way they had expected. More than six decades later, the consequences of that vote have left a people in legal limbo, stripped of their autonomy, and trapped in a conflict that might have been avoided had Britain—then the administering authority—fulfilled its post-colonial obligations with legal clarity and constitutional safeguards.
This article revisits the legal and moral contradictions surrounding the 1961 plebiscite, explores Britain’s role in its aftermath, and asks a simple but urgent question: can a people truly be bound to a union that was never legally completed?
Plebiscite vs. Referendum: A Matter of Legal Substance
A common misunderstanding about the 1961 event is the nature of the vote itself. What occurred in Southern Cameroons was a plebiscite, not a referendum. The distinction is not academic. A plebiscite, as defined under international law, is an advisory or consultative expression of will, often conducted in colonial territories under UN supervision. It differs significantly from a referendum, which typically results in a binding constitutional change, ratified through domestic legal instruments.
In the case of British Southern Cameroons, the UN-organised plebiscite gave voters only two options: join Nigeria or join the already independent Republic of Cameroon (La République du Cameroun, LRC). Notably absent was a third option—independence, which was supposed to be the gold standard in the era of decolonization. The vote, then, was a restricted exercise in political alignment, not a full expression of sovereign will.
The Missing Legal Framework
On 11 February 1961, a majority of voters in British Southern Cameroons opted to join La République du Cameroun. But what followed was not a structured federation, as the UN General Assembly had anticipated under Resolution 1608 (XV). Instead, there was a complete absence of legal ratification.
No treaty of union was signed between the two territories.
No act of parliament in the United Kingdom ratified the result.
No new constitution was co-authored to protect the autonomy and rights of the Southern Cameroons people.
In diplomatic terms, the transition lacked what legal scholars call the instruments of union. There was no documentation—no bill, no accord, no enabling legislation—underpinning the new relationship between the parties.
And yet, despite this glaring omission, the United Kingdom withdrew as the administering power on 1 October 1961, allowing Southern Cameroons to be absorbed into a union that existed only in political rhetoric, not in law.
What Did Britain Know—And What Did It Do?
It is worth asking: what did Britain know at the time, and what did it do to uphold its responsibilities?
Archival records show that British officials were uneasy about the limitations of the plebiscite and the absence of constitutional guarantees. Yet instead of pressing for clarity and enforcement of UN stipulations, they chose expediency over accountability. The decolonization of the British Empire was reaching a crescendo, and the impulse to disengage quickly—without entanglement—proved stronger than the moral obligation to secure the legal and political future of the Southern Cameroons.
In the decades that followed, Britain offered diplomatic support to Cameroon’s unity and maintained relations without acknowledging the eroding rights of the people it once governed. Not once has Britain offered a public explanation of its failure to ensure the implementation of a legally binding union.
The Fallout: From Federalism to Force
The situation worsened in 1972 when Cameroon’s President Ahmadou Ahidjo held a referendum—this time only within Cameroon’s framework—to abolish the federal structure and replace it with a unitary state. This move, orchestrated without the consent or participation of Southern Cameroonians, erased what little remained of their autonomy.
No British protest was issued. No Commonwealth body raised concern.
Since then, what was supposed to be a two-state federation has become, in the eyes of Ambazonians (as the people now call themselves), an annexation. The Anglophone regions have suffered disproportionate underdevelopment, systemic discrimination, cultural erasure, and now a bloody conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and displaced over half a million people.
A Balanced Look at Britain’s Role
To be clear, the tragedy in Ambazonia is not Britain’s alone to bear. The Republic of Cameroon bears primary responsibility for violating the spirit and substance of the plebiscite outcome and dismantling the federal guarantees that were expected to follow.
But Britain’s silence has been deafening. The country that once preached the rule of law and parliamentary sovereignty failed to uphold those same principles for a people it once governed. As the administrative authority under the UN Trusteeship system, Britain was not merely a passive observer—it had a legal and moral duty to ensure that any change in political status conformed to international law and protected the rights of the people concerned.
That duty was never discharged.
Is There a Legal Path Forward?
Today, international legal scholars and human rights advocates argue that Ambazonia’s continued claim to self-determination is not only morally justified—it is legally sound.
The absence of a ratified union makes Cameroon’s sovereignty over the region contestable under international law.
The exclusion of an independence option in the plebiscite violated decolonization norms set by the United Nations.
The unilateral shift to a unitary state nullified any implied federal arrangement.
These defects form the basis for mounting legal challenges—not only at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but also in appeals to the United Nations Decolonization Committee.
The Commonwealth Must Speak
More than sixty years later, the Commonwealth—an organisation that claims to promote democracy, human rights, and rule of law—has offered no formal response to the Ambazonian question. It continues to list Cameroon as a member in good standing, despite persistent reports of human rights violations, arbitrary detentions, and extrajudicial killings in the Anglophone regions.
Can a club of nations that prides itself on shared values turn a blind eye to the unfinished decolonization of one of its former territories?
Surely, Britain and the Commonwealth owe more to the people of Ambazonia than silence and ambiguity.
Conclusion: What Conscience Requires
The time has come to ask not just what Ambazonians voted for in 1961—but whether they were ever given a legal and enforceable choice.
Britain must reckon with this history—not out of guilt, but out of principle. A people who trusted the British Crown to guide them to self-rule now find themselves stateless, voiceless, and under siege. Their children are being born into a conflict born not of rebellion, but of abandonment.
If there is to be a peaceful and just resolution to the crisis, it must begin with an honest reappraisal of the 1961 plebiscite and the legal vacuum that followed. Britain must lead—not as a former colonial power, but as a nation that still claims fidelity to law, liberty, and conscience.
Jennifer McChriston
