RESOLVE NETWORK RESEARCH BRIEF
NO. 1 | LAKE CHAD BASIN RESEARCH SERIESFEBRUARY 2019

Islam, Higher Education,
and Extremism in Cameroon
Brandon Kendhammer and Adama Ousmanou

Key Findings
ABOUT THE RESEARCH• D
 espite the growing influence of Salafism on campuses, there islittle evidence of extremist ideologies or of intra-Muslim ideologicalconflict. The need to maintain cordial relations with the stateprovides a strong incentive for Muslim student activists to maintaina united front.
• The perceived “securitization” of university campuses as part of
the Cameroonian war on terror has already had consequences for
Muslim students, who feel surveilled, targeted, and harassed. This
perception is worse on campuses where Muslims are not in the
majority.
• Cameroonian students and key university stakeholders largely agree
that higher education institutions can and do serve as a bulwark
against the spread of violent extremism in the region.
• Muslim students and faculty largely accept the “status quo” of
Cameroonian state secularism; nonetheless, many see the need foruniversities to take on a greater role in facilitating campus religiouslife.
• While many Muslim students are satisfied with the religious
opportunities offered by student organizations like the Cameroon
Muslim Students Union (CAMSU), there is a widely held belief thatat the national level, university campuses are more open to Christiansymbols and activities than to their Muslim counterparts.
• Students and faculty see significant barriers to improving Muslims’
access to higher education. The quality of primary and secondary
education in northern Cameroon is a concern, as is the perceptionthat universities are “Christian spaces” that do not offer adequate
support to the religious needs of Muslim students.

In July 2017, the RESOLVE
Network launched a research
project in the Lake ChadBasin to assess the role ofthe state, civil society, andother non-state actors inshaping the political divides
over the role of religion in
education
and

and

state

community

responses

toextremism in Chad, Nigeria,
and Cameroon. The RESOLVE
Network offers an innovative
means

of

helping

USAID

and other U.S. government
partners interested in testing
assumptions
theirembeddedtheoriesofinchangeabout the effectiveness of
P/CVE interventions in the
educational arena.
For more on the project,please visit:https://resolvenet.org/

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

Executive Summary
BACKGROUND
As concern grows over the presence of violent extremist groups in the Lake Chad Basin,
greater insight is needed into the factors driving the emergence and spread of those groups
to facilitate the crafting of more effective and proactive interventions to prevent andcounter violent extremism (P/CVE). In West Africa, research indicates a complex web offactors, including local and regional political dynamics, economic inequality and lack ofopportunity, environmental degradation, and religious ideology; however, it offers little
specific guidance for policymakers seeking to identify concrete areas for intervention
and investment. Both Boko Haram’s own statements and actions, and the longstanding
assumptions of CVE-implementing organizations, have drawn attention to the role of
the region’s educational system in combating or fostering extremism. The best available
evidence suggests that improving access to quality education may be an important way
to combat extremism,1 but it provides little guidance about how to overcome barriers toquality education, or about what types of education are in demand and likely to yieldpositive outcomes.
NEED FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Universities in the region are important sites for negotiating Islamic identities andmobilizing religious activism; however, further research is needed to understand how
higher education institutions and the policies that shape them might either “incubate orchallenge extremism.”2 Drawing on in-depth interviews with over 40 student leaders,
campus activists, professors, administrators, and religious leaders, this RESOLVE Network
research brief, part of a series of publications on similar dynamics in the region,3 examines
the politics of religion, higher education, and extremism in Cameroon specifically.
Few publications address the religious and political dynamics that shape Cameroonian
Muslim students’ campuses experiences and how these experiences compare to those of
students across the region. Even fewer address how universities in Cameroon address or
are affected by violent extremism. Officially, the country’s colonial legacy of Frenchstyle secularism (laïcité) has kept religion off the official university curriculum — astark contrast with regional neighbors like Nigeria and Sudan, where public universities
offer prestigious programs in Islamic studies, jurisprudence, and theology. Increasingly,
however, university administrators and state officials face pressure, if not teach religion
outright, to at least make it a greater part of campus life.

See United Nations Development Programme, “Journey to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives, and the Tipping Point for
Recruitment,” United Nations Development Programme, 2017, http://journey-to-extremism.undp.org/content/downloads/UNDPJourneyToExtremism-report-2017- english.pdf.

1

Alexander Thurston. “Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin: Violent Extremism and the Politics of Religion in Higher
Education.” RESOLVE Network Research Report no. 1, 2018, Lake Chad Basin Research Series, p. 6.

2

3

2

For additional research from this series, visit: https://resolvenet.org/index.php/projects/lake-chad-basin

RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

SALIENT FACTORSThis pressure is not uniquely Islamic — Catholic, Pentecostal, and evangelical Christian
student populations make similar demands — but two factors have played especiallykey roles in shaping the attitudes and experiences of Muslim students. The first is that
Muslims have far greater access to universities today than 30 years ago. Created in 1993
and 2008, respectively, the Universities of Maroua and Ngaoundére are the first to serve
Muslim-majority student bodies, with combined total enrollments of nearly 50,000. The
second is the growing influence of external Islamic actors, including governments andnongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These entities support Islamic studies in primaryand secondary schools and fund scholarships and student services at the university levelto the Islamic universities that train an increasingly large number of Cameroonians who
return home to teach on campuses.
However, this study finds little evidence of extremism on Cameroonian campuses.
Participation in and engagement with the Cameroonian state remains the safest and mostimportant pathway to career success for most university graduates. As a result, most
key campus actors —Muslim and non-Muslim — accept the principle of laïcité as acommitment to state neutrality in religious affairs; they desire to work with and throughthe government to improve educational access and quality.
This study also found important barriers to expanding Muslim access to higher
education; these barriers are shaped by popular perceptions that university campuses are
not sufficiently attentive to the needs of Muslim students. Given these concerns, it is
not surprising that much of the religious activism present on campus supports students
struggling to balance academic demands with social and spiritual pressures to deepen
their faith. The most important actor is the state-recognized Cameroon Muslim Students
Union (CAMSU), a student organization offering a wide range of activities, educational
programs, and student services. Although CAMSU is officially nonsectarian, many of
its members have a Salafi tilt that occasionally brings them into conflict with parents
and religious authorities in their “host” communities. Despite these doctrinal differences,
there is little evidence of serious religious conflict on campuses or concern that it is likely
to worsen.
Instead, many Muslim students expressed concern over the ramp-up of state surveillanceon campus as part of the Cameroonian government’s growing focus on domestic“extremism,” political violence in both the Far North and the Anglophone regions, andharassment —particularly of veiled female students — by other members of the campus
community and by local authorities.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The threat posed by violent extremist (VE) actors across the Lake Chad Basin remains
significant, but there is relatively little reason to think that university campuses posea major risk for extremist activity. Still, left unaddressed, evolving conflict and power
dynamics and grievances could open space for more extremist ideas and actions to exploit
conditions. It is essential for P/CVE policymakers and practitioners to consider how they
can best partner with university students, institutional resources, and government actors in
3

RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019the context of Cameroon’s laïcité system and its legacy of heavy management of religious
affairs.
Recommendations for proactive engagement include the following:• S upport Muslim student access to university education, and diversify the class,ethnic, and educational backgrounds of Muslim students on campus.
• Engage with religious student organizations on campus as key P/CVE partners,
particularly around programs promoting nonsectarian civil engagement.
• Support additional research, specifically on the educational backgrounds of VE
participants in the Lake Chad Basin, with an emphasis on improving access to higher
education for otherwise marginalized communities.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

Introduction
The rise of Boko Haram, a violent Nigeria-based extremist group based with significant
reach across the Lake Chad Basin, has renewed scholarly and policymaker interest in
the drivers of violent extremism in the region. Although Cameroon has experienced
less violence than its Nigerian neighbor, it has been a key battleground in the war on
Boko Haram, suffering over 1,600 civilian casualties and receiving tens of thousands ofNigerian refugees.4 Widespread evidence suggests that Cameroonian Muslims have been
recruited by the group; both demographically and politically, many of the same factorsthat made northeastern Nigeria vulnerable to violent extremism are present in Cameroon’s
Far North and North regions. A combination of growing interreligious tension between
Muslims and Christians, and growing political uncertainty associated with Cameroon’s
aging leader, poses political challenges to adopting a comprehensive and effective P/CVE
strategy, particularly one that addresses the needs, concerns, and interests of the country’s
Muslim minority — an estimated 20 percent of the population.5
As the RESOLVE Network’s May 2018 report suggests, university campuses havebecome increasingly important potential sites to consider for P/CVE actors in the Lake
Chad Basin for several reasons.6 First, the region offers substantial higher education
opportunities, including the newly created University of Maroua in Cameroon. Thesehigher education opportunities serve overwhelmingly Muslim student bodies. Second,
the potential drivers of violent extremism include high unemployment for graduates;
frustrations with the quality of programs and their ability to cater to Muslim student
interests; and perceived influence on campus of external religious actors, particularly from
the Middle East. In northeastern Nigeria, evidence suggests that some university students
have become violent extremist actors.
In line with issues raised in “Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin,” thisresearch brief focuses on two closely related research questions.
The first explores the role of the government in regulating religious affairs and education.
Although the Cameroonian constitution promises a secular state that is neutral in religious
affairs, it lacks a clear legal definition for what this commitment means.7 In practice, thestate is heavily involved in regulating and managing religious affairs, including those on
university campuses. Understanding how Cameroon’s colonial legacy of laïcité impacts
the experience of Muslim university students and faculty members provides an important
starting point for identifying possible risk factors or sites of leverage for promoting
peacebuilding and toleration on campuses. This report focuses on Muslim students, given
Hans de Marie Heungroup, “In the Tracks of Boko Haram in Cameroon.” International Crisis Group, September 2, 2016,
https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/cameroon/tracks-boko-haram-cameroon.

4

See “Cameroon,” Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/countries/cameroon#/?
affiliations_religion_id=0&affiliations_year=2010&region_name=All%20Countries&restrictions_year=2016.

5

Thurston, “Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin: Violent Extremism and the Politics of Religion in Higher Education,”2018. The report, also part of the RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Series, explores the evolution of higher educationin Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria; the role of religion on university campuses and intersections with violent extremism; andtrends warranting further attention from P/CVE policymakers, practitioners, and researchers moving forward.

6

C. M. Fombad, “State, Religion, and Law in Cameroon: Regulatory Control, Tension, and Accommodation,” Journal of Church andState 57, (2013), no. 1: 30-32.

7

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

their expanding enrollment in higher education in Cameroon, their grievances created byperceptions of favoritism toward Christian students, and the extent of external Islamic
influences on university campuses.
The second examines the attitudes of key campus actors about violent extremism and its
impact and influence in universities.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

Methodology
This report draws on a synthesis of locally produced scholarship and a collection of new
in-depth and group interviews conducted from February to May 2018. In all, 57 individuals
involved in Muslim campus life across four universities — Yaoundé I and II, Ngaoundére,and Maroua, including the only two Cameroonian public institutions serving Muslimmajority student bodies — participated. Interviewees included current and former student
leaders in national and campus positions in CAMSU; the staff and leadership of civilsociety organizations providing services and scholarships to Muslim university students,
faculty, staff, and administrative personnel; officials in the Ministry of Higher Education;and imams and other religious leaders serving student populations.
The team adopted a qualitative approach for two reasons.
 irst, despite a relatively rich body of existing research on Islam and Muslim• F
communities in Cameroon, the relative dearth of research about religious affairs
in Cameroonian universities and state regulation of religious affairs on campuses
necessitated a more inductive and flexible approach; this approach included asnowball sampling process as the team identified key stakeholders and gained accessto interview them. Research designed in this way requires caveats about the lack ofa random sample and the need for care in generalization from the data presented, but
it is also an important first step in creating the groundwork for future studies oriented
to narrower hypothesis testing.
• Second, given the nature of the questions posed in the report, a qualitative, interviewbased strategy produced a wealth of data suitable for teasing out processes andpathways of influence, as well as for triangulating the impact of key variables on a
range of actors and institutions.
In addition to individual in-depth interviews, the team conducted four peer groupinterviews (with five to six participants each) on three campuses — Yaoundé I,
Ngaoundére, and Maroua. Unlike traditional focus group interviews, which are generally
larger, conducted among strangers, and highly directed by the facilitators, peer groupinterviews are designed to elicit minimally guided conversations among participants whoare comfortable with one another. Particularly when dealing with politically sensitive
or complex topics, this format is intended not simply to produce a series of responses
to questions, but insights into the process by which participants grapple with sensitive
issues about which they may not have settled or consistent opinions. The study team used
this format specifically to probe students’ views on secularism, the drivers and causes ofviolent extremism, and their own experiences on campuses.8
One further caveat is that while the interviewees frequently spoke candidly and evencritically about the status quo in Cameroon, the interview process coincided with amarked rise in violence around the political grievances of Anglophone Cameroons in the
Northwest and Southwest Regions, and the increased deployment of security forces acrossthe country. It is likely that this overall climate had at least some impact on participants’willingness to be interviewed and on their responses reported here.
For additional background on the peer group interview, see Brandon Kendhammer, Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam,
Democracy, and Law in Northern Nigeria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016): 185-87, 235-39.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

Context
VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN CAMEROON
Most of the attention on violent extremism in Cameroon is focused on Boko Haram.
The group’s influence in the country dates back to 2004, when certain members of thegroup fled over the border from Nigeria in search of refuge.9 Since then, the group’s
attacks, kidnappings, and recruitment of Cameroonians, particularly in the Far North andNorth of Cameroon, have raised concerns and driven increased efforts to counter violent
extremism in the country. While recent reports suggest that Boko Haram may be weakened
in Cameroon,10 the continued threat of attacks and worsening communal relations in BokoHaram-affected areas suggest that the threat still looms large. Moreover, the costs interms of human lives, livelihoods, and economic and food security have destabilized large
swaths of territories and could breed conditions conducive to the rise of additional violent
extremist actors and sentiments.
CONNECTION TO HIGHER EDUCATIONThe connection between violent extremism and education is primarily rooted in anecdotal
evidence. Most literature on the subject focuses on primary education, with emphasis on
the role of religiously oriented education and madrassas in radicalizing youth. Fewerstudies, however, focus on the role of universities as facilitators or mitigating factors inthe spread of violent extremist sentiment and recruitment.11
The university experience for students in the Lake Chad Basin region today is definedby the rising public religiosity, the growth of religious student organizations, and the
expansion of religious educational opportunities at the secondary level.12 In Cameroon,
understanding the relationship, if any, between violent extremism and the role of religion
in higher education is increasingly critical, because of Boko Haram’s influence, as well
as because Cameroon boasts the highest percentage of enrollment among its neighbors.
In 2015, 17.5 percent of college-aged Cameroonians were enrolled in universities, andopportunities for higher education continue to expand.13
COMMON ASSUMPTIONS: INCREASING RELIGIOSITY AND
INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCES
The dominant working assumption in recent policy-oriented research on religion, politics,
and education in Cameroon and across the Lake Chad Basin is that the growth of public
Hans de Marie Heungroup, “In the Tracks of Boko Haram in Cameroon,” International Crisis Group, September 2, 2016,
https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/cameroon/tracks-boko-haram-cameroon.

9

For example, see International Crisis Group, “Cameroon’s Far North: A New Chapter in the Fight Against Boko Haram,” August
14, 2018.

10

For more on this, see: Thurston, “Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin: Violent Extremism and the Politics of Religionin Higher Education,” 2018.

11

8

12

Ibid.

13

UNESCO, “Gross Enrollment by Level of Education,” http://data.uis.unesco.org/index.aspx?queryid=142.

RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

religiosity — Christian, but especially Muslim — over the past several generations posesa significant threat to the public order. This analytic trajectory notes with trepidation the
decline of “traditional” Sufi Islam and its influence on religious affairs, the rising influenceof transnational actors and resources in domestic religious life, and the prospect of greater
conflict over who will be able to speak authoritatively for religious communities as precursors
to the emergence of violent extremism movements capable of gaining mass support.14 As
a result, much of the attention from P/CVE practitioners in the higher educational sector
has focused on two primary issues — the impact of rising Salafism on campus and theinfluence of international actors in shaping education experiences and priorities.
These dynamics merit attention. There is a paucity of data, but a recent International
Crisis Group report suggests that as many as 10 percent of Cameroonian Muslims
identify with Salafi or “Wahhabi” ideology.15 If anything, this number underestimates
Salafism’s broader social impact. While a rise in Salafi or Wahhabi ideologies should by
no means be associated rising violent extremism in itself, social and cultural dynamics
within communities in which new interpretations of religious thought are on the riseand perceived as threatening can incite conflict. Anthropological research in northern
Cameroon notes a sea change in how many Muslim communities engage with questions
like which languages their children should learn,16 the veiling of girls and the separationof boys and girls in educational spaces,17 and the erosion of traditional hierarchies ofreligious authority — all hallmarks of similar patterns of influence and change in Muslim
communities across West Africa.
Moreover, transnational resources — including support for Islamic nongovernmentalorganizations and media, funds for the construction of mosques and schools, training ofIslamic instructors, and other development projects impacting Cameroonian Muslims —have played a crucial role in driving these changes. Although the full impact of theseresources is difficult to quantify, as one example, Cameroon received over US$1 billion in
cumulative project financing from the Islamic Development Bank, a small but substantial
proportion of which was devoted to educational initiatives.18 The influx of Middle Easternand Arab money in northern Cameroon had driven a cultural turn as well; many of theregion’s political and religious elites are increasingly looking to the Arab world in theirtravel habits, media consumption patterns, and even the names they give their children.19

For example, see International Crisis Group, “Cameroon: The Threat of Religious Radicalization,” September 3, 2015: 1,
https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/cameroon/cameroon-threat-religious-radicalism

14

15

Ibid, 6.

L. C. Moore, Change and Variation in Family Religious Language Policy in a West African Muslim Community.” Language
Policy 15, (2016), no. 2: 125-39.

16

J. C. M. Van Santen, “‘My “Veil” Does Not Go with My Jeans’: Veiling, Fundamentalism, Education and Women’s Agency inNorthern Cameroon.” Africa 80, (2010), no. 2: 275-300.

17

Islamic Development Bank, Annual Report 2017, https://www.isdb.org/irj/go/km/docs/documents/IDBDeviolent extremism
lopments/Internet/English/IDB/CM/Publications/Annual_Reports/43/Annual%20Report%202017.pdf: 108.

18

19
G. L. Taguem Fah, “The War on Terror, the Chad–Cameroon Pipeline, and the New Identity of the Lake Chad Basin.” Journal ofContemporary African Studies 25, (2007), no. 1: 101-17.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE: DOMESTIC DYNAMICS
What is missing from these analyses, however, is the equally significant impact ofdomestic politics and local institutional legacies on the educational sector. Like many of
its neighbors, Cameroon inherited a set of contradictory impulses from the colonial era. On
the one hand, it retained an institutional commitment to secularism — and indeed, at leaston paper, to French-style laïcité — a strict separation between “private” religious affairs
and governmental policy. On the other hand, it inherited an impulse to regulate and manage
religious actors and authorities. This latter was the case for Christian missionaries, but
especially within Muslim communities, where colonial policy depended on the legitimacy
and authority of local actors to govern effectively and securely, and where administrators
feared the emergence of Islamic dissent movements.20 The desire to manage religious
affairs through top-down governmental authorities remains as strong today as in the past,and it has played a central role in shaping how the national government has responded toheightened religious consciousness on university campuses.
A second important domestic influence on shifting the relationship between the
education system and Islam specifically is the era of political turmoil that began withthe resignation of president Ahmadou Ahidjo — a Fulani Muslim from northern
Cameroon — in 1982. Efforts to “break up” Ahidjo’s political base in northern Cameroon
following his resignation exacerbated existing ethnic and religious tensions alreadypresent across the region, and it played a key role in empowering “reformist” (in manycases, Salafi) voices who would later demand a greater role for Islam in public andprivate education.21 Similarly, the onset of a national economic crisis and the adoptionof structural adjustment policies in the late 1980s led to reductions in national education
funding, clearing the way for new actors demanding an expanded range of private, Islamic
offerings to serve Muslim communities.22
Finally, the national political crisis of the early 1990s, including the Villes Mortes
general strikes,23 the 1992 presidential election, and over a half-decade of student protests
and disruptions at the University of Yaoundé — at that time, the only university in the
country — led to the loosening of restrictions on civil society organization and the creationof private schools, as well as the institution of the 1993 university reforms that establishedthe first university campus, Ngaoundére, in a Muslim-majority community.

On colonial cooptation of Muslim elites in northern Cameroon, see T. M. Bah and G. L. Taguem Fah, “Les élites musulmanes etla politique au Cameroun sous administration française: 1945-1960.” In J. Boutrais (ed.). Peuples et cultures de l’Adamaoua(Cameroun) (Paris: ORSTOM; Ngaoundéré-Anthropos, 1993): 103-33.

20

Philip Burnham, The Politics of Cultural Difference in Northern Cameroon (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1996): 147-50.

21

T. Takou, “Les Nouvelles Offres d’Éducation Privée Islamique au Cameroun: Etat des Lieux et Perspectives.” Danibus, 28 (2010):
104.

22

The “Villes Mortes” (“ghost towns”) were a series of general strikes across many Cameroonian cities in 1991 that effectively shut
down economic activity (and the governmental revenue that accompanied it) in protest against state security crackdowns on peaceful
opposition demonstrations. Since the early 1990s, the “Villes Mortes” protest model has been returned to frequently by the Biyaregime’s various opponents, including during the recent Anglophone crisis.

23

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Religion and Higher Education in Cameroon:
Tensions and Activism
Just as with its regional neighbors, the relationship between religion and education in
Cameroon is in flux. New actors, institutions, and participants play an increasingly
assertive role in shaping the relationship between Islam and the state and in attempting
to meet the needs and demands of local Muslim communities. Many of these newly
influential actors are either Salafi in orientation or at least represent Salafi ideas and values.
Flocking to university campuses since the system’s expansion in 1993, they have led thepush for a greater role for Islamic learning and education in their training and campus
life. University and Ministry of Higher Education officials have responded, in turn, fromwithin the administrative framework of laïcité by allowing the expansion of undergraduate
and graduate programs in Arabic languages, cooperating with student organizations toaggregate student concerns and demands, and allowing these organizations to take thelead in offering Islamic education and enrichment programming on campuses.
However, the tensions that exist around Islam, access to higher education, and campus
climates have older and more complex origins. The roots of contemporary Islamic activism
in the educational sector lie not only in the spread of Salafism, but also in the domestic
and foreign policies of the Ahidjo administration (1960-82), which faced fierce opposition
from “traditional” Muslim political and religious elites in northern Cameroon. In aneffort to counteract and erode the influence of local Islamic authorities, Ahidjo pursued
a policy of promoting domestic exchanges with the Arab world that would help to createa returning class of so-called “arabisant”24 scholars and educators loyal to the regime.25
These returnees played a central role in attempting to “modernize” the Islamic primaryand secondary educational sector, a long process begun with the creation of the first“franco-arabe” schools to offer instruction in both French language and “secular” subjects
alongside lessons in Arabic and Islamic religious knowledge. Classified as “private” butrun under the aegis of the Association Culturelle Islamique du Cameroon (ACIC), a quasiofficial Muslim interest group established in 1963 that favored arabisant scholars over the
local Tijaniyya Sufi authorities, these schools were staffed heavily with instructors trainedat the Islamic University of Medina (IUM) and other international Islamic universities.
The schools also endeavored to facilitate the modernization and regularization of religious
curriculum and to train Muslims to enter the civil service and public affairs.

The term denotes scholars who are fluent speakers and readers of Arabic, rather than simply able to pronounce and recite theQuran.

24

25
H. Adama, “Islam and State in Cameroon: Between Tension and Accommodation.” In Clarke, K.A. (ed). Local Practices, Global
Controversies: Islam in Sub-Saharan African Contexts (New Haven, CT: Yale MacMillan Center, 2006): 54.

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EARLY ACTIVISM AND DIVISIONS IN EDUCATION
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, the ACIC became increasingly disconnected fromlocal dynamics and vulnerable to disruption as the institutionalized Muslim “voice”
within the state sphere. Indeed, despite nearly 30 years of efforts, by 1990 the ACIC’s
franco-arabe schools were serving less than 3,000 students; the vast majority of schoolaged Muslims remained either within the public secular system or, more commonly,
in informal “traditional” Quranic schools.26 Ahidjo’s exit from power in 1982 saw the
new administration return to a more cooperative relationship with traditional religious
authorities. The collapse of state funding for education under the structural adjustment
and the protest wave of the early 1990s pushed for a more decentralized approach to
managing the relationship between Islam and education. In 1990, the Biya government
approved legislation allowing the registration of new apolitical religious organizations. In
the years since, several new Islamic groups have entered the field with an explicit mandate
to improve the quality of and access to religious education for Muslims.
Since the early 1990s, new types of Islamic schools have proliferated, most tilting heavily
toward Arabic language and religious studies.27 These new schools range from madrassastyle schools that offer Quranic memorization and more updated pedagogies in Arabic
language instruction, to specialized private “arabo-Islamique” secondary schools thatoffer structured religious training in preparation for advanced work in Islamic universities
abroad. While these institutions remain relatively small players overall, their sociocultural influence as both an option for students and parents and a symbolic alternative tothe secular system is significant.
Even more important has been the development of what is known locally as “la double
scholarité” (double schooling), which updates the curriculum and schedule of traditional
Quranic school instruction to accommodate students who are already enrolled in secularpublic instruction. Although parents and teachers in both systems have been critical ofthis arrangement — public educators because it undermines their curriculum with theintroduction of a “passive, non-analytic learning style,” and Quranic instructors because it
represents a compromise with a system they believe distracts from the “social, moral, andspiritual development of their children”28 — interviews on campuses conducted for thisresearch brief suggest that more and more Muslim students reaching the university havepursued both paths, and that they expect their new institutions to be able to accommodate
their “double” interests.29
INCREASING RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL
Initially, domestic religious organizations devoted much less energy to advocating on
behalf of Muslim students at the university level. In part, this was because many of the26

H. Adama, “L’enseignement privé islamique dans le Nord-Cameroun.”

13 (1999), 13:19.

Two new organizations, l’Organization Nationale de l’Enseignement Privé Islamique (ONEPI) and the l’Organization desEtablissements Scholaries Privé Islamique (OESPI), founded in the late 1990s, having taken over much of ACIC’s work, including
soliciting international funding and support for Islamic education.
27

12

28

L. C. Moore, “Learning by Heart in Qur’anic and Public Schools in Northern Cameroon,” Social Analysis 50, (2006), no. 3: 114.

29

Group Interview with Muslim students at the Universities of Yaoundé I and II, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 22, 2018.

RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

most engaged and qualified students were already leaving for religious training outsideof the country. Additionally, with a single national university based in Yaoundé, higher
education was simply out of the reach of many Cameroonians. Still, as early as the late1980s, Muslim students at the University of Yaoundé were already part of the campus
protest infrastructure, seeking many of the same concessions and changes that motivatedthe spread of private Islamic education and “la double scholarité,” including halal foods,
space for prayers and activities, and course schedules compatible with prayer times.30
The most important developments in the university space, however, were the 1988
founding of CAMSU — an Islamic student organization with extensive reach and impact,
discussed at greater length in the following section — and the 1993 university reforms thatlaid the groundwork for seven new campuses across the country. The new universities haveessentially localized Muslim students’ university experiences. While Muslim students andstudent organizations are present on all eight campuses, the curriculum, programming,and faculty hiring in Ngaoundére and Maroua have emphasized the interests of local
Islamic communities. The local focus of these new universities has led to the developmentof “Arabic language” programs and the recruitment of faculty trained in Islamic studies
in Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, among others. Although no official statistics
exist on the religious affiliations of students, the University of Maroua currently enrolls
21,000 students and the University of Ngaoundére enrolls over 30,000; the majority ofthese students is drawn from Muslim-majority communities in northern Cameroon.

H. Adama, “Islamic Associations in Cameroon: Between the Umma and the State.” In B. Soares and R. Otayek (eds.), Islam andMuslim Politics in Africa (New York: Palgrave, 2007): 227-42.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

Findings: Testing Assumptions and Identifying
Enduring Issues
While the evolution of religion and legacies of secularism in the Cameroonian education
sector are well documented, the impact — real and/or potential — of these dynamics onviolent extremism on university campuses today — as a driver, neutral party, or mitigatingpresence — is less studied. In line with RESOLVE’s “Campuses and Conflict” report, theresearch findings in this brief provide some much-needed insights on the assumed impactof religion-campus dynamics on violent extremism in Cameroon. Further, the findings
identify issues that merit greater attention by researchers, policymakers, and practitioners
moving forward.
VIOLENT EXTREMISM AND CONFLICT ON CAMPUSES:TESTING ASSUMPTIONS
Violent Extremism on Cameroonian Campuses: A Phantom Threat?
There is little evidence that particular kinds of educational institutions — particularly
the madrassas, traditional Quranic schools with memorization-based pedagogies — areespecially prone to fostering extremism, and equally little that others are especially strongat countering it.31 Nor is it correct to assume that the spread of internationally trained
and Salafi-oriented faculty or of Salafi-inspired student organizations is consistently
associated with the emergence of extremism. In Nigeria, for example, the rise of Salafiinspired student activism on university campuses in the 1970s clearly contributed to an
atmosphere of growing religious tension and politicization that eventually produced awave of violence between Muslims and Christians beginning in the mid-1980s.32 However,to link it even tenuously to the development of Boko Haram in the 1990s is much moredifficult. In Cameroon, there is even less evidence that the increasingly Salafi tenor ofIslam on campuses today is related to the religious ideologies and narratives held by local
participants in the Boko Haram insurgency.
While it is hardly impossible to imagine that at least some students and community
members have participated in or supported the Boko Haram insurgency, none of theparticipants interviewed for this report claimed to have seen the spread of violent extremism
ideologies on Cameroonian university campuses or to consider it a major problem. Instead,nearly all of the interviewees argued that institutions of higher education can and do serve
as a bulwark against the spread of violent extremism in the region.
It is important to note, however, that many university stakeholders interviewed seem toview the drivers of VE — and thus their potential role in preventing or mitigating it — ina very specific light. Across nearly all of the interviews, campus stakeholders emphasizedAlexander Thurston, “Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin: Violent Extremism and the Politics of Religion in Higher
Education.” RESOLVE Network Research Report no. 1, Lake Chad Basin Research Series, May, 2018.

31

32
See, for example, J. Ibrahim, «The Politics of Religion in Nigeria: The Parameters of the 1987 Crisis in Kaduna State.” Review ofAfrican Political Economy 16, (1989), no. 45-46: 65-82.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

the power and importance of education, and specifically of religious education focused on“correct” interpretations of Islam, in preventing the emergence of extremism. This finding
mirrors those of other studies in the region in which community leaders and educators
noted that religious ignorance, “broken homes,” and illiteracy motivate participation inviolent extremism.33 Several times, interviewees for this research brief offered blanket
statements akin to that of one imam from Maroua, who asserted that while traditional
Quranic education might be responsible for extremism “elsewhere,” it was categorically
untrue that it could ever have such an impact in Cameroon, since he and his colleagues
only offered correct religious instruction.34
Without dismissing the perspectives of local actors, it is nonetheless important toacknowledge the gap in how university stakeholders and international P/CVE actors
assess the drivers of VE. For one, it speaks to the importance of building networks ofresearch and practice that bridge diversified views and encourage knowledge exchange
between local and international experts. Few interviewees in this project spoke directly
to experience or interest in primary research on VE drivers beyond religious ideology,
suggesting a need for greater dissemination of alternative theories. Many participants,
nonetheless, expressed interest in expanding the sort of activities that universities ingeneral are well-positioned to provide, such as workshops and seminars on P/CVE-related
topics for academics and activists. However, doing so would require tapping university
resources to facilitate effective P/CVE programming, which could prove challenging.
Religious Divides on Campuses and with Local Communities: How Great of a Concern?
At least some evidence indicates that a portion of the early community that would coalesce
into Boko Haram included students at the University of Maiduguri in Nigeria. As Andrew
Walker argues, these students were influenced by a combination of disenchantment andgrievances with university culture, the availability of extremist rhetoric in Maiduguri itself,
and access to local mosques.35 On Cameroonian campuses, however, interviewees for thisstudy expressed mixed reactions to campus life and varying degrees of grievances toward
it. In all of the student group interviews, there were mentions of encounters with lecturers
or university staff with “anti-Muslim” attitudes, reputations for making derogatory remarks
about Islam, or an unwillingness to work with Muslim students on research or special
projects.36 Nonetheless, most saw Muslim-Christian relations on campuses as relatively
peaceful; most reported few of the sort of clashes and confrontations common in Nigeria,
often around evangelical rallies or overt efforts to attract converts among students.

For an example of this tendency, see Freedom Onuoha, “Why Do Youth Join Boko Haram?” United States Institute for Peace
Special Report 348, Washington, DC, June 2014. For more information on what former participants actually say about their experiences and reasons for joining, see Mercy Corps, “Motivations and Empty Promises: Voices of Former Boko Haram Combatants andNigerian Youth,” April 16, 2016.

33

34

Interview with senior imam, Maroua, Cameroon, April 16, 2018.

Andrew Walker, ‘Eat the Heart of the Infidel’: The Harrowing of Nigeria and the Rise of Boko Haram, (London: Hurst, 2016):
142-43.

35

Group interview with CAMSU leadership, University of Yaoundé I, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 19, 2018; group interview with
Muslim students at the Universities of Yaoundé I and II, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 22, 2018; and group interview with students
at the University of Ngaoundére, Ngaoundére, Cameroon, March 25, 2018.

36

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

When asked about relationships between Muslim students and the broader Muslim
communities of Ngaoundére and Maroua, interviewees offered two perspectives. The firstemphasized that, overall, relationships between the two were peaceful, although occasional“generational” conflicts arise. The second noted that, as researchers in the region havealready observed, Muslim activists and scholars on university campuses sometimes havedifferent religious and social backgrounds from those of local Islamic communities andthat these differences can lead to real conflict, although not necessarily violent.37 Students
and faculty interviewed often presented these conflicts in terms favorable to their own
positions. One participant argued that an imam who had left his position in a mosquenear campus some years earlier had done so because “the Muslim students knew the
Quran better than he did.”38 However, when probed further, interviews revealed that theissue driving student-community tensions is often doctrinal conflict —that is, between
local imams with a Tijaniyya Sufi background and Salafi-oriented “reformist” students
affiliated with CAMSU.39
Although student religious activism on campus is having at least some impact on the“host” communities, most student interviewees described such tensions as a secondary
issue. Instead, students interviewed for this research brief expressed greater concern
about their daily struggle to just get by — as students adapting to a new and challenging
university environment, as Muslims away from their home communities, or as young
adults searching for job prospects and concerned about the trajectory of their future lives.
While Muslim students clearly desire and seek out religious engagement and education on
campus, the fact is that, for most, the real opportunity afforded by a university educationis the possibility — albeit far from certain — of accessing one of the few stable, highpaying jobs in civil service, politics, or business. Such jobs require networks and personalconnections, at times even more so than academic merit. Female students additionallyface pressures to navigate persistent cultural biases about educated, employed women;some turn to religious education and visible performances of piety to avert criticism that
their newfound status will make it harder for them to marry and have families.
These dynamics suggest that, when looking at higher education, those interested
in pursuing P/CVE policies and practice in Cameroon need to be mindful of potential
sources of grievances post-graduation, given social and cultural divides. This aligns with
reports conducted outside of the Lake Chad Basin region that suggest that lack of accessto respectable, high-paying, and stable employment may breed grievances that, in selectcases, can be exploited by extremist actors.40
Enduring Issues in Religion and Higher Education
Findings from this research suggest that, despite religious diversity and demands for greater
religious education, violent extremism and religious conflict are not necessarily clear and
immediate concerns on university campuses in Cameroon. Still, the enduring legacies

16

37

M. S. Umar, “Education and Islamic Trends in Northern Nigeria: 1970s-1990s,” Africa Today, 48, (2001), no. 2: 127-50

38

Group interview with students at the University of Ngaoundére, Ngaoundére, Cameroon, March 25, 2018.

39

Group interview with students at the University of Ngaoundére, Ngaoundére, Cameroon, March 25, 2018.

40

See Mercy Corps, “Motivations and Empty Promises.”

RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019of secularism via laïcité, and the grievances its implementation in the higher education
system has and will likely continue to engender among religious student populations,
could prove problematic in many aspects. In addition, the spillover effects to university
campuses of military responses to Boko Haram in Cameroon risk demonizing and further
marginalizing Muslim student populations from social and political structures and from
efforts to counter violent extremism.
Enduring Legacies of Laïcité: Regulation of Religious Actors and Opportunities
on Campus
Nearly all of the interviewees who participated in this project noted a continued andgrowing demand for opportunities for students to develop their spiritual lives alongside
their studies in the classroom. However, there was little consensus on the most effective
way of meeting those demands.
Underlining this debate is the Cameroonian experience with laïcité, which has had aprofound impact on not only the institutional dynamics of state-religion relations, but on
how Muslim actors themselves imagine what is possible within public spaces. In the Frenchcontext from which Cameroon (mostly) inherited it, laïcité is a doctrine that demands thestate take on an “assertive role” in excluding the mobilization of religious identity fromthe political sphere.41 In Cameroon, laïcité has never really functioned in that manner —in no small part because of colonial efforts to manage, contain, and coopt religious actors
for their own ends. The Cameroonian state heavily regulates religious organizations andassociations by requiring they register with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and
Decentralization. New organizations are rarely authorized — currently, there are only
47 — leaving many new evangelical Christian and Salafi Muslim groups technicallyoutside of the law. Much of the government’s support for religious activities is funneledthrough registered associations. These associations have taken on roles formerly playedby the colonial administration and its adjuncts in providing services like facilitating thehajj, surveilling imams, and siting and constructing new mosques.
In this sense, perhaps the best way to think about laïcité in Cameroon is not as stateneutrality toward religion, but as an insistence on the primacy of state interests in dealings
with religious communities.42 Those who work with the government on university campuses
Ahmet Kuru, Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge University Press,2009): 11.

41

Although this point emerged organically in our interviews, this particular conception of secularism is widely embraced by anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists. As anthropologists and religious studies scholars like Talal Asad (1993) and Timothy
Fitzgerald (2007) have long argued, the emergence of secularism as a concept allowed early modern European states to define
religion as a separate sphere of human activity apart from politics and state power, a matter of private belief and action rather thanpublic interest. As anthropologist Hussein Ali Agrama (2012) argues in his study of Islamic law and state power in Egypt, contemporary states regularly use that power not simply to ban some religious groups and favor others, but to draw the line between where
religious expression stops and where state power begins in ways that give the government power over what sorts of religious expressions are allowable in the public sphere and which are not. In Cameroon, we found that our interviewees were often hyper-awareof how the Cameroonian state had drawn these lines in the past, often in ways that placed “Christian” activities like religious music
performances in public places on the allowable side, while “Muslim” activities like group prayer and holiday commemorations were
defined as intrusions into secular public space. See Hussein Ali Agrama, Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Ruleof Law in Modern Egypt (University of Chicago Press, 2012); Talal Asad, Geaneologies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons ofPower in Christianity and Islam (Johns Hopkins Press, 1993); Timothy Fitzgerald, “Encompassing Religion, Privatized Religions
and the Invention of Modern Politics,” in Fitzgerald (ed.) Religion and the Secular: Historical and Colonial Formations (London:
Routledge, 2007).

42

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019and in recognized organizations are highly sensitive to the need to cultivate a relationshipwith state interests. As one interviewee from the Ministry of Higher Education noted,
religious organizations want to be present on university campuses, since that is where
many of Cameroon’s most dynamic youth are already present and active.43 This means
adhering to the state’s policies, even if, as in the case of an organization like the World
Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in Cameroon — a Saudi-funded organization thatprovides significant financial assistance to Muslim university students and programmingfor university-bound Muslim youth — their actual theological commitments are in
opposition to the Cameroonian educational system, which they consider to be a Western,colonial imposition.
As a result, civil society, faculty and staff, and student interviewees who participated inthis study expressed strong support of at least a thin version of laïcité, which they describedas “administrative tolerance” of faith communities,44 the absence of state coercion inreligious matters and a commitment to coexistence,45 and “the state’s recognition ofreligion and their recognition of each other” in a peaceful context.46 Most noted that, atleast formally, the state places few or no restrictions on the practice of Islam in public
spaces, recognizes religious organizations like CAMSU that provide valuable services for
Muslims, and provides the opportunity for Muslims on campus to participate in university
life as Muslims.
For its part, CAMSU is, by far, the most important Muslim-led organization on
Cameroonian campuses; its former leadership occupies important roles in government andcivil society, which may be cause for its appeal. CAMSU’s creation in 1988 coincided withthe unprecedented wave of university protests that eventually shut down the University
of Yaoundé for much of the period between 1990 and 1996. These protests reflected deep
dissatisfaction with the quality of university programming, but they also reflected the
deeper social divisions around the Villes Mortes protests and the 1992 elections. While
many Muslim students were left out of the most divisive of these conflicts — between
Anglophone and Francophone students, and between those of Beti and Bamileke ethnic
backgrounds — the politicized environment created strong incentives for CAMSU toavoid politically charged public messages or stances that might disrupt their ability towork with university and ministry administrators.
In practice, like other Cameroonian student organizations, this means that the groupis careful to obtain permissions, vet statements, and emphasize programming that does
not overlap with what the university itself already provides. Instead of advocating forthe creation of new Islamic studies programs or instruction through formal channels,
they have emphasized providing it themselves, through a combination of informal, selfdescribed “remedial” and more advanced instruction in “Islamic sciences” (that is, hadith,fiqh, tawhid) that resembles the standard curricula in Islamic universities across theregion.47 This care also extends to CAMSU’s relationship within the Muslim community.

18

43

Interview with senior official, Ministry of Higher Education, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 18, 2018.

44

Interview with Arabic language instructor, University of Maroua, Maroua, Cameroon, April 28, 2018.

45

Interview with senior imam, Maroua, Cameroon, April 16, 2018.

46

Interview with Abdoulakarim Abbo Yerima, President of WAMY-Cameroon, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 19, 2018.

47

Group interview with CAMSU leadership, University of Yaoundé I, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 19, 2018.

RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

In interviews, current and former CAMSU leaders and affiliates often downplayed thepossibility of intra-Islamic conflicts on campus. In practice, however, the group was
founded on and continues to espouse a sort of “soft” Salafism, focused rhetorically on
eliminating “superstition” and emphasizing “correct” religious education as a means ofuniversalizing Islamic practices among its members, which can lead to social divisions.
CAMSU also emphasizes the participation of female students — especially via educational
programming — and outreach to Muslims with Sufi backgrounds and non-Muslims.48
CAMSU and other Muslim student activists remain an important force, not only on
campuses, but also in the national conversation around Islam. Despite Cameroon’s laïcité,
religious programming appears regularly on Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) networks.
Christian programming has generally received more airtime, but Muslim organizations
and activists have taken on a major role in producing religious media content for an eager
public.49 CAMSU has been at the forefront of these efforts, offering engaging, interactive
radio programs that competed (usually successfully) with the ACIC and state-sponsoredbroadcasts featuring local Sufi leaders doing little more than offering Quranic recitation.50
During an interview in February 2018 with members of CAMSU’s University of Yaoundé
leadership, project researchers encountered CAMSU students actively engaged in
producing video and podcast content for student and general audiences.
The Limits of Laïcité: Divisions, Grievances, and Implications
Although interviewees acknowledged that laïcité did not necessarily restrict religious
engagement and the activities of religious organizations on campus, probing beneaththe surface led to more complicated responses. Many Muslim participants spoke toconcerns—seemingly widely held — that whatever laïcité might mean in theory, inpractice the Cameroonian state often privileges Christian groups and organizations with“tacit” recognition — in the scheduling of classes and activities, holidays, and accessto formal spaces. Several interviewees with long memories noted that Christian student
choirs regularly received access to the University of Yaoundé auditorium for performances,while Muslim groups seeking to hold prayers there had been denied. Although these sorts
of grievances can seem trivial, in the aggregate they can also add up to significantly
undermined credibility for state actors claiming a commitment to religious neutrality
when a more substantial issue arises. When combined with a more aggressive anti-Westrhetoric, these grievances also have the ability — as they did in Nigeria over the courseof several decades from the 1970s to the late 1990s51 — to transform into demands for
Muslim autonomy to adopt much more aggressive policies, like state-funded religious
schools or even Sharia (Islamic law).
48
H. Adama, “Islamic Associations in Cameroon: Between the Umma and the State,” Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa, (2007),
227-41.
49
Interview with former student activist and co-founder of Islamic radio station in Ngaoundére, Ngaoundére, Cameroon, March 24,
2018; and interview with Ibrahim Shérif, former director of CRTV in charge of Isamic programming, Maroua, Cameroon, May 9,
2018.
50
H. Adama, H. “Islamic Communication and Mass Media in Cameroon.” In R. J. Hackett and B. Soares, New Media and Religious
Transformation in Africa (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015): 144-45.
51See, for example, Brandon Kendhammer, Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy, and Law in Northern Nigeria(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

More pointedly, according to interviewees and despite the presence and activities ofgroups like CAMSU, in practice, Cameroon’s laïcité makes it difficult or unattractivefor Muslim participation in campus life or in public life more generally. As one group
discussion of students framed the issue, for even many of their most committed stakeholders,
Cameroonian universities like those in Ngaoundére and Maroua are still perceived as“forms of social organization produced by the Christian West” that struggle to produce
knowledge truly relevant to the Muslim communities in which they are embedded.52
Many of the campus activists interviewed noted that while religiosity — and demand forreligiously-oriented academic programs of real interest to the local Muslim community —seems to be growing, there is simply no means for formally accommodating that demand
under the current rules.53
Both the Universities of Ngaoundére and Maroua have found partial workarounds
to these restrictions involving their departments of Arabic Language and Civilization.
These departments are not allowed to hire faculty with training primarily in theology
or associated fields — such as Sharia jurisprudence or Quranic translation. In practice,
however, they have been able to skirt these rules by recruiting graduates of Islamic
universities abroad who combined that training with other academic disciplines. These
efforts speak to the demand from Muslim students for this material, even if it must betaught primarily in courses focused on linguistics or history.54 Other interviewees notedthat more explicitly Islamic subjects and courses are offered without problem in Nigeria,
Sudan, and elsewhere in the region, which only strengthens the reputation and appealof universities in Kano, Khartoum, Maiduguri, and Zaria as destinations for budding
Cameroonian Islamic scholars.55
For at least some interviewees, laicité’s prohibition on university faculty and formal
curricula providing Islamic education poses an additional problem in the fight against
extremism. Graduates from franco-arabe primary and secondary schools are able toacquire credentials on par with those issued by the secular state system and are eligible
to seek university admissions. However, those who attended private Islamic primary andsecondary schools receive only a certificate sponsored by the ACIC. This certificate isdesigned in coordination with religious authorities in Egpt, Nigeria, and Sudan, but it
does not quality graduates for entry into Cameroonian universities or Cameroon’s public
service. As such, the structure effectively puts higher education out of reach for a significant
number of Muslim students whose families either fail to understand the system, prioritize
religious education, or are unhappy with the quality of the secular public alternatives.
While this alone tells us little about whether they are likely to become involved in violent
extremism and the ideologies that promote it, the fact remains that there is no real place
for them in the domestic higher education system. This reality may, in turn, limit their
future career prospects, which eliminates a potential point of leverage in addressing
grievances that may lead to violent extremism. At the same time, it shapes the Muslim
52

Group interview with University of Maroua students, Maroua, Cameroon, April 25, 2018.

Group interview with CAMSU leadership, University of Yaoundé I, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 19, 2018; and group interview
with students at the University of Ngaoundére, Ngaoundére, Cameroon, March 25, 2018.
53

20

54

Group interview with senior faculty, University of Maroua, Maroua, Cameroon, April 2, 2018.

55

Group interview with University of Maroua students, Maroua, Cameroon, April 25, 2018.

RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019student population that does arrive at universities, providing a market for other actors tofill that gap informally once they have arrived on campus.
The Impact of Counterterrorism Policies on Campuses
In addition to perceived obstacles related to restrictions and limitations imposed by laïcité
in practice, Muslim students and activists interviewed for this research brief also expressed
concern about growing government surveillance on campus in the context of Cameroon’s
new anti-terror initiative and its impact on Muslim students across the country. Notably,
these complaints echoed those of journalists and other activists across the country, whohave alleged that the country’s 2014 “suppression of acts of terrorism” law, ostensibly
passed to facilitate the fight against Boko Haram, can be utilized as an all-purpose tool topolice political dissent.56
Others observed that in Ngaoundére and Maroua, Muslim students were generally able
to move through their equally Muslim-majority host communities with few problems.
However, they also noted that they had heard or, in the case of student leaders who regularly
work with colleagues across the country, seen first-hand that in Yaoundé, Douala, andelsewhere, local officials harassed female Muslim students wearing veils. Similarly, they
noted that Muslim students generally, but especially women, faced negative attention offcampus.57 Most of the activists interviewed expressed frustration and even powerlessness
to confront these issues, which they saw as driven by a political conversation in which they
had little foothold. Such perceptions are problematic, for they can serve to marginalize
Muslim populations and may engender or further negative perceptions of the state andvalidate narratives spread by violent extremist actors.

Committee to Protect Journalists, “Cameroon Uses Anti-Terror Law to Silence Critical Press.” September 20, 2017.
https://cpj.org/2017/09/cameroon-uses-anti-terror-law-to-silence-critical-.php.

56

57

Group interview with Muslim students at the Universities of Yaoundé I and II, Yaoundé, Cameroon, February 22, 2018.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

Recommendations and Gaps in Knowledge
While the impact of the Boko Haram insurgency is evident across much of the Far Northregion of Cameroon, most Muslim university students in the country have been touched
only indirectly by the conflict. This research brief cannot rule out the possibility thatformer university students or community members have participated in Boko Haramrelated VE, but it also finds little evidence of mounting Islamic extremism on campusesthat could be easily tapped by that group or others. What it finds instead is a growing bodyof Muslim students, faculty, and other stakeholders that broadly accepts that governmentrun universities serve a secular purpose and that recognizes the wisdom of “getting along”
in a system where working with and through the state is essential to preparing for careers.
These stakeholders are eager to position themselves and their institutions as bulwarks
against extremism, and they see improved access to higher education for Cameroonian
Muslims as a means to accomplish that goal.
Yet there is also growing dissatisfaction among many Muslim campus community
members that, despite their desire for access, the state does not do enough to make beinga Muslim on campus easier. Their most pressing concern is not the absence of religious
educational opportunities within the university curriculum, but rather a sense — and onethat is not entirely unfounded — that laïcité is not as neutral as the state has claimed andthat Muslims remain at a disadvantage across the higher educational system.
In light of these findings, moving forward, P/CVE policymakers and practitioners
concerned with the spread of violent extremism actors across the Lake Chad Basin should
consider the following: lthough the connection between exposure to higher education and the prevention• A
of extremism is unclear and in need of further research, promoting Muslim student
access to higher education, and providing those students with support once they
arrive, on campus can be valuable P/CVE programming. This support can help
to combat the real and perceived disadvantages that undermine Muslim student
confidence in the Cameroonian government’s commitment to religious equality,
making them, in turn, more willing future participants and leaders in P/CVE efforts.
• Credible reports of bias and discrimination against Muslim students, particularly
those on non-Muslim-majority campuses, suggest an immediate need for greateraction to include them in P/CVE conversations and programs that promote andinclude concrete steps to build community trust, cohesion, and religious equality. This
programming could take the form of campus interfaith dialogues; however, it also
must highlight the unique social and academic contributions of Muslim students andfaculty at religiously plural universities, their importance to the campus community,
and the damage done to that community by discrimination against Muslims.
• As a recent report notes, P/CVE programs have had a tendency both to assume
that certain religious groups (Salafis, notably) are especially “predisposed towards
violence” and that officially-recognized and credentialed religious leaders are the best
local partners for P/CVE work.58 However, on Cameroonian university campuses,
58
Peter Mandaville and Melissa Nozell, “Engaging Religion and Religious Actors in Countering Violent Extremism.” United States
Institute for Peace Special Report 413, Washington, DC, August: 9-10, 2017.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019

Salafi-inclined student activists—and particularly those in CAMSU—are the mostcredible actors in promoting religious co-existence and countering extremism.
They possess deep local knowledge, have a national presence, and already interact
extensively with the Cameroonian state. CAMSU student activists interviewed forthis research brief expressed a clear desire to partner with international P/CVE
programs, both as an implementing partner and a potential beneficiary of training
and expertise.
• Most Muslim university stakeholders interviewed during this research expressed
an interest in engaging in activities to counter extremism on campus and in thesurrounding communities, yet many held attitudes and beliefs about the natureand causes of VE that are not supported by evidence. There is a need to connect
these stakeholders with ongoing research and practitioner efforts on P/CVE in theLake Chad Basin, and to provide training in research methods that will facilitate
equal partnerships in efforts to identify drivers of and solutions to address violent
extremism.

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RESOLVE Network Lake Chad Basin Research Brief No. 1 | February 2019Conclusions and Areas for Further Study
This report’s top-line findings — that there is little evidence of growing violent extremism
on Cameroonian university campuses, as well as significant potential resources forcombatting it — are encouraging for anyone invested in P/CVE in the Lake Chad Basin.
Yet there are also important signs of trouble. Muslim students and campus stakeholders
perceive that they are treated unequally when it comes to state acknowledgement andrecognition of their faith, that they face mounting state surveillance tied to the national“war on terror,” and that they are often harassed and discriminated against when they areminorities on campus. Moreover, it remains difficult for many Muslim students to satisfy
their own desires for a religiously mindful education on campus.
In addition to suggesting important areas for immediate action by P/CVE funders andpractitioners, these findings also highlight important areas for further research, including
the following: here is little evidence of support for or participation in violent extremism on campus.
• T
Is this because campus environments are effective at countering extremist narratives,or because the students who have access to them are simply less likely to be impacted
by drivers of violent extremism?
• What are the implications for Muslim students’ careers and future social and politicalengagement of their participation in campus religious organizations and activism?
Do these experiences equip them for later success and engagement, or sour them tothe prospect of participating fully in Cameroonian society as Muslims?
• What strategies are most effective for improving Muslim students’ access to higher
education and supporting their success on campus? What types of programs andopportunities can best engage and empower university stakeholders in designing andimplementing local P/CVE activities?
• Beyond the finding that most Muslim stakeholders are aware of the threat of extremism
and are interested in countering it, what do local conversations and debates look like,for example, around the nature of extremism, the impact of Boko Haram, and therelationship between state security force activities and extremism?
These are sensitive and complicated questions and require ongoing investments ofresources to pursue. This research brief has filled a crucial gap by providing locally derived
information on the impact of historical legacies and politics surrounding the treatment ofreligion on campuses in Cameroon. However, without further investigation, the means ofcreating impactful P/CVE programming aimed at the higher education sector are likely toremain elusive.

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Local Practices, Global Controversies: Islam in Sub-Saharan African Contexts,
edited by K. A. Clarke, 54. New Haven, CT: Yale MacMillan Center.
———. 2007. “Islamic Associations in Cameroon: Between the Umma and the State.” In
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France, and Turkey. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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About the Authors
Brandon Kendhammer is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director ofInternational Development studies at Ohio University. He is the author of two books
on Nigerian politics: Muslims Talking Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2016) andcoauthor with Carmen McCabe of Boko Haram (Ohio University Press, 2018).
Adama Ousmanou (University of Maroua, Cameroon) specializes in the political, socialand religious history of the Chad Basin. He earned his PhD in History at the University of
Ngaoundéré in 2012 with a thesis bearing on Islam, Ethnicity and Power in Chad Basinfrom 1960 to 2000: a comparative study of Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria. In connection
with this project he was a visiting fellow at the Centre for African Studies Leiden and at
Nagoya University, Japan.

Acknowledgements
RESOLVE would like to thank the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
for its generous support for this research brief and RESOLVE’s research initiative in theLake Chad Basin. RESOLVE would also like to thank the U.S. Institute of Peace for its
continued support for RESOLVE Network initiatives.

Making Peace Possible

The views in this research brief are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of
the RESOLVE Network, its partners, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the U.S. Agency forInternational Development, or any U.S. government agency.

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INSIGHT INTO VIOLENT EXTREMISM AROUND THE WORLDThe RESOLVE Network is a global consortium of researchers and researchorganizations committed to delivering fresh insight into the drivers ofviolent extremism around the world. The Network provides access to
open-source data, tools, and curated research to ensure policy responses
to violent extremism are evidence based. Members of the Network
work in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East to promote
empirically driven, locally defined responses to conflict and to support
grassroots research leadership on violent extremism.
Our partners operate in more than 25 countries where challenges withconflict are an everyday reality. We are passionate about amplifying
credible local voices in the fight to mitigate the destabilizing risks ofsocial polarization and political violence.
To learn more about the RESOLVE Network, our partners and how
to get involved visit our website, www.resolvenet.org, and follow us on
Twitter: @resolvenet.

RESOLVE is housed at the U.S. Institute of Peace, building upon the Institute's
decades-long legacy of deep engagement in conflict-affected communities.