Separatist movements, notably the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) and the Southern Cameroons Peoples Organization (SCAPO), call for the separation of the two English-speaking regions from French-speaking Cameroun in response to the dismantling in May 1972 of the federation formed in 1961 and subsequent marginalization of the Anglophone minority by the Francophone majority and its political leadership.

[3] In November 2016, after a law was not translated, Anglophone lawyers began a protest in Bamenda against the central government for failing to uphold the constitutional guarantee of a bilingual nation.

[4] Protesters have also been accused of violence, however, the government's heavy-handed crackdown has revived calls for the restoration of Southern Cameroons' independence gained on the 1st of October 1961.

[4] Various protesters were arrested, including Nkongho Felix Agbor-Balla, the president of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, and Fontem Neba, the group's secretary general.

[4] The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium was declared illegal by the government on 17 January 2017 and "any other related groups with similar objectives" were prohibited.