In 1991, a popular student movement arose in the grounds of Cameroon's sole university, The University of Yaoundé. It united the ranks of Cameroon's different ethnic groups and brought together English-speaking and French-speaking Cameroonian students in a manner that had never been seen before. But besides its across the board strength, it stood for something most pundits at the time considered to be altruistic---It called for the convening of a Sovereign National Conference to bring together Cameroon's civic society, the newly formed opposition parties and the Biya regime in order to work out a new constitution that would be the harbinger to free elections and an end to the anachronistic French-imposed system.
Many wondered why the students made the demand for the decentralization of the country's Higher Education secondary. The reason was because Palement was the only body at the time that could rally the Cameroonian masses to bring down the system. And it almost did. Why did it fail?
