DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i09.006

Pages: 1745-1757

The spirit of liberalism that animated the political landscape in Africa in the 1990s produced varied and confusing reactions especially in states whose governments hitherto, provided little or no space for the functioning of the basic components of rights and freedom (democracy).In the Republic of Cameroon a central African country governed from independence by a tight dictatorial rule, this liberal age combined with home realities and incidentally gave both the governing and the governed sufficient reasons to engage in a chain of an interesting power contest. In effect, all of this brought forth a kind of turbulence which registered serious impacts on other political developments in Cameroon thereafter. In the North West region of this country, this turbulence emerged mostly from the circles of the unemployed and underemployed youths including a bug of people who had lost their jobs following the structural adjustment programme that was ostensibly adopted as a therapy for these crises. In any case, turbulence emerged and expressed itself in form of mob actions, gangsterism and civil strife and disobedience.