NIGERIA’s RETURN TO THE ICJ AND POWER RELATIONS IN CAMEROON: How to Punch a Fallen Adversary.

In 2012, I wrote a long essay about the ICJ ruling on the land and maritime border dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon and how it compares to the Badume conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ten years afterwards, the area continues to be critical to research on state legitimacy and its adherence to international law. Eritrea has minted cooperation with Ethiopia and has even cooperated with it in the latter’s war in the Tigray regions, this has earned Eritrea some legitimacy from Ethiopia, a life-support which Eritrea badly needs since being branded a pariah state. Cameroon and Nigeria since the 2006 Green-Tree agreement have taken active efforts to demarcate their borders and implement the ICJ verdict which largely favoured Cameroon, a bitter pill to swallow by Nigerian public and popular opinion.

Nigeria’s continuous thirst to re-assert sovereignty over the Bakassi peninsula is what brings stalemate to the Cameroon-Nigeria Mix Commission’s tasks for the implementation of the ICJ resolution of the territorial disputes between these two states, condemned by geography and demography to eternally live beside or with each other. Asking for joint rights to exploitation of natural resources in the area, seriously throws away the Nigerian argument that their prime interest is about the welfare of the ethnic groups in the area who are of the same stock as those in the adjacent federated Cross-River and Akwa-Ibom states, a premise which also holds valid for neighbouring tribes in the Cameroon divisions of Ndian and Manyu. The federal governments resource governance record for local communities in the Creeks-Rivers-Niger Delta region, is an antithesis to this professed love.

What gives optimism despite the unmatched states’ capacities for disruptive unilateral action is their recourse to international mediation instruments. If a more nationalist regime helms power one day in Nigeria, the populist rhetoric could radically change the dynamics of Nigeria’s regional power identity projection. By African standards, Cameroon is an emerging middle-power, whose external political philosophy is pacifist. This external soft-power projection is a curtain to shade its internal shortcomings from external amplifications. Major internal fragilities such as its violent suppression of political dissent and public liberties, bad governance, rent seeking, a civil-military relation with loyalty to the regime than to the state institution and a hybridized judiciary system rendered as an executive appendage. Lack of political and economic accountability, inequitable distribution of natural resource proceeds, uneven infrastructure development between the regions and the misrepresentation of state power’s equity among ethnic communities.

With Nigeria on the eve of a general election, not only is the political destiny of this aspiring hegemon in the balance, the political and economic stability of West and Central African economic blocs holds its breath with crossed-fingers that all goes well at the polls, that political factions refrain from any forms of post-election violence which given Nigeria’s subnational entities could flare into widespread civil strife. For a state like Cameroon whose largest trading partner is Nigeria, this will lead to a cataclysmic disruption of value and supply chains, sending Cameroon’s political economy deeper into an uncertain abyss. Cameroon is several attritive conflicts; fighting separatist militias in its two restive English-speaking regions, wading-off incursions from the Boko Haram terror group from North East Nigeria along with an influx of refugees, armed robbery, cattle rustling and ransom kidnapping from its porous border with Chad into the Sudans. An air of insecurity and humanitarian crisis looms in the East region, following rebel activities in the Central African Republic. The South region experiences stability except for emi-immigration tensions against Cameroonians by its southern neighbours.

A steady inflation and increase in commodity and basic necessity prices is not helping the narrative either for the Cameroon regime, which often uses national sports as an instrument for national cohesion and dispersion of civil discontent. Apart from currency issues, Cameroon can probably withstand ruptures in its Central African bloc but will not remain afloat if its giant neighbour Nigeria goes burst, though this may not hold vice versa for Nigeria. It is in the national and survival interest of both and Cameroon especially, that civil-military cooperation between these two states remains strong. Concessions may be made if political elites in both states will it for the peace, although Cameroon diplomatic posture on the matter is discretionary, the issue in Nigeria is spoken from the streets in Calabar to the presidency in Abuja. Hopefully the successor regime in Nigeria after February’s election may follow the 2002 Obasanjo foreign policy doctrine.

Nwanatifu Nwaco, 2023

The Political Economy of Conflict: The Merchants of the Cameroons War 2017-2019

Résumé:

Wealth inequality and political under-representation are drivers of conflict. Once a crisis has morphed from civil disobedience into an armed insurgency, all aspects of regular political and economic activity are disrupted. As the belligerents build ideology and firepower, the audience costs and competition for the control of human capital, natural resources and the means of wealth production in the conflict zone give rise to war entrepreneurs. These can be government agencies and policy makers, non-state armed actors and corporations with deals. A case in which the game theory can be applied to.

In the case of Cameroon, the war being prosecuted in the North West and South West regions has established a conflict economy in which government agents are making lucrative earnings from stillborn conflict resolution commissions and security strategy committees. The tradesmen of war who are regular armed forces and paramilitary contingents are seizing on the complacency of state elites and frail institutions to embark on campaigns of arbitrariness and impunity.

The wanton killing of non-combatants, use of sexual violence as a war strategy, looting of civilian businesses, arrests and extortion for liberation and the preference to use the scorched earth tactic on civilian populations is not only criminal but wrestles away legitimacy from state forces.

On the part of the non-state armed actors, competition for the hearts and minds of the civilian population and local resources is rife. Marred by infighting among militia groups, counter propaganda among liberation movement group leaders. Purges are held to sort out regime apologists or persons collecting and passing intelligence to adversary forces. Amateurism and believe in the occult accounts for many an avoidable deaths on the revolutionary camp. They’ve been serially shooting themselves in the legs.

In the absence of ready made or open cast natural resources which can be smuggled unto the international black market in exchange for arms, landlocked with unsympathetic neighbours has left militia groups to rely on ever diminishing cash inflows from diaspora based funders, hence the emergence of warlords with economic spheres of influence who out-rightly supplant organized economy with a rudimentary and subsistence economy to fund their status and insurgency. Thus kidnapping, hostage taking, ransoms and outright armed robbery on the civilian population gain normalcy.

Elsewhere, rebel groups have had to preserve the local agricultural economy and businesses just so they and the civilian population do not slide into hunger and famine, or as a source of maintenance by in kind contributions and security tributes where they have rooted out state institutions. Controversially, the militias in the Southern Cameroons have enforced a ghost town and stay in doors ultimatum in their areas which has put the whole zone at the risk of famine and further impoverishment yet they still demand ransom from these collapsing businesses, fleeing entrepreneurs and start-ups.

As the conflict gains sophistication in logistics and the correlates of war characteristics, we should expect to see a political economy built around but away from the initial causes of the conflict. Even the macroeconomics of the parent state Cameroon, famed for its corruption and rent seeking, means the resource curse has not had a spillover and the possibility to open up the spread of more civil strife and new conflict theaters remains likely if it experiences cuts in aid or access to exclusive reserves and earth minerals, multilateral financing or domestic inflation, loses its revenue from resources or taxation from rebel held territory.

However Cameroon does not yet suffer from the Dutch disease as its economy though commodity based enjoys a degree of diversity. This could mean armed groups may command local support and diversify financing into the production and sale of natural resources, agriculture, provide civil administration and render public services to the population for a token as central government authority recedes. In the midst of all this anarchy and post traumatic stress is sheer human resilience, quite Darwinian indeed!

Nwanatifu Nwaco, March 2019

DIALOGUE: WITH WHO? ON WHAT AND WHERE?

Nwanatifu Nwaco 

This is the conundrum the Cameroun authorities now face. However, only Francophone Camerounians hold the key to peaceful coexistence or separation! Only they can call their government to stop the ethnic cleansing, the unlawful arrests, extra judicial killings, mass detentions, harassment and extortion of Southern Cameroonians and protect minorities, if only they make a U-turn on their political indifference and tolerance of hate speech is renounced.
…as for the Southern Cameroonians the struggle remains a constitutional, a republican and identity based question.

After the mass civil disobedience march of September 22 and the unilateral independence declaration turn out of October 1 that led to civilian massacre by Cameroun government forces; Cameroun government cut off electricity, disrupted phone lines, blocked internet access once more, tearing down external radio and TV antennas and satellite dish receivers… They’ve gone for the transport and communication infrastructure. With the quarantine in place on information dissemination, house to house checks, the targeting of youths for arrest and brutalization is going on under the cover of this blackout. Several weeks after this massacre, corpses of civilians killed or missing are still being fetched from the bushes or unaccounted for.

The Minister of Lies Telling: Cameroun republic’s minister of communication is a very dangerous man! This man with the support of other government and community elites have been enjoying a free mass media ride with their venomous hate speech. He has branded Southern Cameroonians as terrorists meriting summary executions. He has manipulated public and popular opinion in French Cameroun to celebrate military excesses in their on going repression campaign in the Southern Cameroons. With reports of more than a hundred civilians killed by soldiers, countless others physically, materially and psychologically hurt by his propaganda. It is now clear that his intention is not dialogue for peace.

Tchiroma is a liar, a blood thirsty person. In case Camerounese haven’t got the memo yet, Anglophones are not the enemies. Tchiroma is an opportunist, an ex convict enjoying presidential pardon for his role in the April 6 1984 failed coup d’etat. He has seized of this ongoing crisis to cause an implosion of the system that jailed him for seven years before reintegrating him. While the nations of the Cameroons will be fighting, just then is he going to reveal his true plans, which are to wrestle power away from the Christian south back to the predominantly Muslim north. The greater the outrage and conflict escalation, the better it serves Tchiroma and his accomplices plans to delude and delegitimize Biya. None of his actions are patriotic, all are intended to incite open hate and civil violence. The post Biya succession crisis is just beginning to select its camps and fronts.

…that’s how national unity is constructed by Biya and his supporters. When you deprive and alienate a population with such levels of cruel and degrading treatment, when you’ve radicalised the last legion of moderates and unionists, whom shall you then negotiate veritable peace with when you get nauseated by the blood you’ve spilled with much vigor and enthusiasm? 

It’s time Southern Cameroons dissidents, community leaders, opposition politicians, clergy and nationalists meet and find a collective plan for the future of the people just so they aren’t taken unaware when the UN asks for a good office to broker a dialogue if we want a Foumban part 2 or the sovereign option!?

To all those trigger happy army and police officers of Cameroun amplified by civil administrators, tribal leaders and elites stoking xenophobia and hate speech, unlawful arrest, incommunicado detention, torture, extortion and killing of civilians indiscriminately on pretext of national security and territorial integrity, your are not just following your ‘ superior’s orders’ , you’re an accessory to murder and ethnic cleansing.

Nuremberg Principle IV:” The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his government or superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. ” 
This principle is expanded by Article 33 of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

CAMEROON: ON THE TRIAL AGAINST THE CLERGY

Nwanatifu Nwaco

I didn’t see any Catholics or Presbyterians nor Baptist denominations! All I saw outside the courts in Buea and Bamenda today were CHRISTIANS singing praises and praying, united by one creed, one belief and a common purpose. 
I wonder about the sanity of those members of the Cameroon government who in their inertia have allowed a civil-political crisis to take on a religious cause calling. That same government is finding it hard to deal with Islamist sectarian militants in the north of the country and as if that alone isn’t enough, they have now succeeded to unite Christian groups in the Southern Cameroons against their oppressive ways.
It’s easy to repress secular ideologies and people in a quest for material possessions but when you start targeting church leaders, BEWARE OF THE FAITHFUL, these category fights for the unseen. Whether you kill them or they die in defense of their faith, they still belief they have won the victory after and over death-eternal life! Chose your enemy wisely.

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: On May 24, the leaders and emeritus civil activists who have been in incommunicado detention in Camerouns dungeons, were once more be paraded before the military court of injustice in Cameroon for demanding the full emancipation of English speaking citizens and a federal state system. 
Their continuous detention on fictitious charges of treason and terrorism, the serial adjournments of their trial have made all Yaounde government’s peace efforts fall in discredit. People want these men of valor released, people need to see government manifestation of civil humility and responsiveness before they can feel if justice is being served. Political will is what this government needs to kick start dialogue and identity reconciliation.
The more it relies on demagogues, bigots,regime apologists and open corruption to rent crowds, the more people will get desensitized and resolute in advocating for a statehood of their own. National unity is not achieved by decrees but is attained by negotiated consensus between the elements that define a state: territory, population, government and sovereignty.
Justice for Agbor, Fontem, Ayah, Mancho and all Southern Cameroonians deprived of their rights, freedoms and liberties.
#NoToJusticeDelayed
#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners

INTERNET RESTORED IN ANGLOPHONE CAMEROON: Why am I not excited about it!?

Nwanatifu Nwaco

 

It’s been a gruesome 93 days without this communication utility. The Yaounde cabal in its typical and expected show of presidential totalitarianism spat out an executive order to its telecom accomplices of abuse and deprivation to switch on internet access in Southern Cameroon. It has finally yielded to the pressure driven by its Diaspora community of activists online and through petitions and demonstrations at international organizations, embassies and media outlets.

It has restored internet not out of love for citizens but out of shame from ridicule. The audience cost on the regime will impact its implication in the governance and peace building process,that is if it has learned or acknowledged any wrongdoing yet. Our people must not out of excitement for the renewed connectivity forget why and how we got to this violation in the first place. I am sure the government will resort more to social media monitoring and its suspension, not a total shut down as it has set a world record for the longest blackout already.
The government is trying to solve secondary issues without addressing the root causes. The problem of Southern Cameroon is not internet, it is against unrepresentative government and its policies of exclusion and marginalization of minorities. The core problem is a constitutional and republican one.

Before our overzealous elites and persons with social amnesia start sending motions of support and thanks to the regime, the following issues must be cross examined:

– Why is the regime still still detaining activists and leaders arrested in the struggle? If its claim that there is no Anglophone problem persists?
– When is the regime going to convene a national conference on dialogue and constitutional review or bring to book those who carried out hate speech and violence against lawyers, teachers and ordinary citizens? – Will the ban on media broadcasting this topic as well as the Consortium be lifted?
– What is going to be done to repair material and property damages suffered by businesses and individuals from arson?
– Internet service providers are yet to tell their customers and clients what indemnities they have prepared to compensate the losses inflicted by their compliance to bad government policy on the digital based economy? How do they plan to win back customer loyalty?

These are just a few highlights of many issues at hand. Unless the government in Yaoundé develops a stronger political will to act in the interest of political stability and national cohesion, these superficial measures it’s rolling out will only prolong the spectre of suspicion that has stalled debate and solution oriented dialogue. Ghost towns and state of emergency hurt, Education is a human right, no child should be deprived of it because of government pride. 
Give us justice and freedoms or else our STRUGGLE WILL INTENSIFY

#freeAllArrested

UNDERSTANDING THE LEGALITY OF THE KAMERUN UNION AND THE LOST STATEHOOD OF SOUTHERN CAMEROON

Neither of the capitals Yaounde nor Buea can claim to be the sole legitimate heir to the successor state that represents former German Kamerun. As a matter of international law, German Kamerun had ceased to exist as the many small city states it had annexed to form itself. The First World War had created new subjects under international law, these were the successor states to this defunct Kamerun, split between British Nigeria and French Equatorial Africa. To begin to claim true reunification will mean a reconstitution of Kamerun as it was in 1911. This will mean 5 neighbouring countries of today’s Cameroon will have to cede back territories belonging to the defunct German Kamerun.

The 11 February 1961 Plebiscite was just a sampling tool as to whether British Southern Cameroonians WISHED to one day enter a union with “the Republic of Cameroun” or Nigeria; reason why the Plebiscite questions were simply to achieve independence by integration with the independent Federation of Nigeria or by joining the independent Republic of Cameroun. Contrary to wishes, there was no third option for complete independence. The post-plebiscite conference held at Foumban should have been where the ‘birth certificate’ of the Union was established and later ratified by the parliaments of both entities as was the procedure between the countries Tanganyika and Zanzibar done later in 1964 (available here http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/tz/tz027en.pdf )

But what happened instead was that the 1960 Constitution of the already independent former French Cameroon was simply amended on 1st September 1961 to a federal constitution meanwhile the Southern Cameroonians was still under British colonial rule which as of 1st October 1961 officially came to an end. Without even enjoying seconds of sovereign statehood and its accompanying attributes or symbolism, the former British Southern Cameroon was automatically declared part of the Federal republic of Cameroon.The hoisting down of the British Union Jack was never followed by any Southern Cameroon flag but was succeeded by the hoisting of the new two star flag adopted by the parliament of the Republic of Cameroon one month earlier to that historic day.

The reason why a “Union treaty” does not exist in the Cameroons union is because the 1961 reunification between the Southern Cameroons which was not yet a sovereign state and the independent Republic of Cameroon was a union founded on uneven bargaining terms because the still colonial status of Southern Cameroons effectively disqualified it to enter an international treaty with an already a sovereign state. As such it came into the union by incorporation (absorption and annexation) and not by treaty. The Southern Cameroons acquired autonomy not independence, by becoming the appendix of an independent country. If the de facto state of Southern Cameroon was independent just for one day from the UN or from Nigeria and Cameroun which were already de jure states and exhibiting by it self all the attributes of a sovereign state as defined by Article 3 to 6 of the Montevideo Convention of 1933, then it could have been able to negotiate a treaty for itself and get both parties to submit and register it in accordance with article 102 of the UNO charter (available here https://treaties.un.org/xml/db/MSDB/pageRegulation_en.html ) 
At the time of “joining” the Cameroun Republic, the Southern Cameroons did not have an anthem, a seal of state, coat of arms, a flag or ability to formulate and execute foreign policy, mint currency or wage war. Those in use belonged to the British foreign and commonwealth office. Worthy of note is the fact that Nigeria gained independence on 1st October 1960 while former French Cameroon gained independence on 1st January 1960, So within this window period from October 1960 to October 1961, the Southern Cameroons was never an independent state but was an internal self governing trust territory of the UN under British administration. It should be retained at heart that it joined on October 1st 1961, that is exactly one month after La Republique du Cameroun had revised it’s constitution to accommodate the ‘newcomers’: the stateless Southern Cameroonians who had refused Nigerian citizenship and who had also been denied the right of choice to their own independence and sovereign statehood.

As long as this paradise remains lost and the reunification dream remains worthy to sustain and prosper it, government inertia, non-provision of judicial remedies to victims of state violence and deprivation and general poor conflict management are the things that will lead the sub-national identities in Cameroon to get more polarized and feel marginalized, hence the challenges to state legitimacy and leadership will only gain sympathy and following. It therefore becomes incumbent and urgent on the successor state of Cameroon to embark on a nation-state building process project in which the PEOPLE of the former Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun will be able to enjoy their identities, rights and freedoms as a nation without a jeopardy of human welfare, security and territorial integrity. The regime in Yaounde must decriminalize expressions in political discourse, discussion and dissent, it should convene a national dialogue conference and a constitutional review act to establish a stronger social contract in which all citizens regardless of linguistic expression, ethnicity or political affiliation will all feel as first class citizens and patriots of a common homeland with shared aspiration for the future.

Nwanatifu Nwaco, April 14, 2017

CAMEROON: PEACE WITHOUT SOCIAL JUSTICE AND NATIONAL SOLIDARITY EQUALS SUPPRESSION

We are yet to see “national prayers” organised for those who died from medical negligence, who got killed by rebel and terror groups, who died from neglected transport infrastructure, who died or lost their liberties from participation in pro-democracy movements at the hands of abusive state security agents, who died for being excluded the opportunity to contribute in the nation building process…

If you are one of those or know anyone who goes about under government sponsorship and rhetoric calling for peace to reign in Cameroon without ever acknowledging or speaking out about the root causes of the current political and social conflict in which Cameroon has been embroiled in, then your call to peace is not credible or sincere enough. Peace and social cohesion thrive were there is national dialogue, where there is political pluralism, the rule of law and safeguard for civil liberties and human rights.

Peace thrives not by the calls we make from ivory towers but flourishes when we are in solidarity for our fellow citizens, when we tolerate dissenting opinions instead of dismissing them and advocating for the status quo. Peace is negotiated with concessions and inclusive policy reforms. Peace is not just the absence of armed conflict but is much more the presence of social justice and participatory governance.

In this libertarian era, he who wants peace must not necessarily prepare for war, suppressing political dissent in Cameroon by violent and degrading means will only achieve compliance but will not attain social order. Cameroon does not need to sacrifice the the education of a whole generation just because political elites are obsessed with regime security above human security. The problems will only be postponed if time is used as a toy and the solutions and grievances that feed conflict will only get complex and replicated in successor generations and regimes.

#BringBackOurInternet
#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners

THE NEW MASQUERADE IN TOWN

The government of Cameroun, not my Kamerun, is a pathological liar and fraudster. The tactics used by this tribal cabal and its political mob to resolve the constitutional and republican crisis in Southern Cameroon are akin to techniques used by stone age men and late feudal lords to find solutions to daily issues: brute force and morale blackmail.

To hear that a national ecumenical service has been organised and broadcast on national TV to “thank God” for his health is the most occultic thing that has happened lately. A national prayer has not been organised to pray for peace and change of moral conscience for the country’s leaders and all killed by state sponsored violence or transnational organised criminal groups even. In the mid 1990’s, Rigobert Song was famously welcomed to the North West province in the company of his team mate Geremi Njitap, when they traveled the bumpy-muddy road from Bamenda to Nkambe town to promote a football tournament organised annually by an elite of the locality called George Weya.

Personally, I find it morally appalling for a man of status such as the former captain of the national football team to accept being used by the government as a mascot to foster their bravado and conquistador agenda in West Cameroon. It has been announced that he will be touring the English speaking regions to ”thank them for their prayers for his health” after he was medically evacuated to France on a presidential privilege last year, while many of ordinary Cameroonians like him just had to die of treatable diseases because their lives were not as valuable as his or more realistically due to the absence or dilapidated state of health care facilities and services.

The government seems to want to relocate all public events such as the Fenasco school games in the volatile regions in desperate attempts to cheer the world that it is still exercising legitimate authority over the territory but not the people anyway, but let that farce not deceive you. After failing and persistently shying away to dialogue with English speaking Cameroon leaders, the Yaounde political cabal is using every publicity stunt and coercion to bend the political resolve of the people in these regions. It has even begun to plagiarize the ideas posited by the anglophone leaders it jailed without appropriate reference.

The government cabal is ready to spend millions in a few weeks to organise national tours for the militarized football national team, but is unwilling though able to spend such amounts instead on public health and infrastructure development or even pay hotel bills for its players when they’re playing abroad. The government of Cameroun is a reckless human rights abuser, a nepotist cartel, a regime where political corruption and elite impunity is the moral standard to be upheld by its leadership corps. Only in a dysfunctional and people disoriented government will you find xenophobes fascists still keeping their jobs after ordering the arbitrary arrests, detentions and killing of civilians and failing to resolve a national crisis for many months.

There is a new ”juju” in town: Rigobert Song is the new ‘Nkoh’, the new ‘Mabuu’ that will be thrilling us in the days ahead as we commemorate 78 days today since government violated our rights online and offline by shutting down internet connection and arresting citizens in English speaking regions.

#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners
#BringBackOurInternet

By Nwanatifu Nwaco

MEDIOCRITY AT ITS BEST: The Bilingualism and Multicuturalism Commission

To show how out of touch the Cameroun regime is with the sociological realities of the country, the regime shamelessly dodged the core question on Anglophone minority marginalisation which needed a robust republican and constitutional reform, it rather buried its head in the shallow sands and decreed into being an infamous commission which like many others before, along or after it lacks a clear cut mandate, competence, credibility, autonomous policy formulation and enforcement mechanism for whatever recommendations or directives shall tasked to it. A retirement comeback for former state ministers.

The Yaounde regime with its characteristic top-down governance approach has yet again torn off the page in their tattered dictionary for the entry on the meaning of the word “INTEGRITY”. I am seriously disgusted and appalled by the content of the character of some of the people appointed to man this supposed panacea of a commission to bring about dialogue, public order and social cohesion to the divided nations of the Cameroons. What on earth motivates a leader to appoint as team lead the self-proclaimed xenophobe and hoarder of several public office positions such as PM Mafany and other regime sycophants and lackeys!?

Even if one was willing to let this commission see the light of day, many of its members have a huge “Integrity” deficit. Most of them claim to be elites from the oppressed minority English speaking regions but the reality on the ground is that they have lost every moral high ground or legitimacy to represent the will and aspirations of the people of West Cameroon as demonstrated in their rogue handling of the ongoing unrest in the afflicted regions.

Does the President not know that the real persons of integrity have been arrested and jailed incommunicado without fair trial or have simply taken off into political exile abroad? Does he not know that there are dynamic youth leaders in Cameroon who can better articulate and aggregate the vision of youths for the country they want to inherit, live in and leave on for posterity?

The sovereign “People” in whose name regime patrons are being rewarded with appointment favours, have bled, died, abused, tortured, maimed, raped, deprived of human rights, public liberties and civil freedoms, they have been subjected to the disproportionate use of state approved violence, cruel and degrading treatment endured and exactly TWO months of internet shutdown et al, they have sacrificed and endured livelihoods in ghost town operations and an undeclared state of emergency just so that these old vanguards can sweep in and jubilate the moment on the ”Peoples” excruciating misery? Are students and teachers being coerced now to resume education work for long hours and put in extra hours and days of unpaid work just to feed the ego of an unbending gerontocracy?

The struggle for political pluralism and people oriented governance in Cameroun is now in the hands of the people, if they choose to yield to this disoriented vision-less misgovernment, then they will be accomplices to more years of obedience and tolerance of oppression, hence effectively encoding in their genes and character a political culture of political apathy and celebration of impunity.

#LetTheStruggleIntensify
#BringBackOurInternet
#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners

By Nwanatifu Nwaco

À NOS COMPATRIOTE DU CAMEROUN ORIENTALE, DIT FRANCOPHONES:

Quand il est dit avec toute l’arrogance que le Cameroun est un et demeure indivisible, je me pose alors la question si l’unité nationale est obtenue par décret ou par le dialogue sociale? Est-il obtenu par la tyrannie de la majorité ou par la sauvegarde des droits des minorités par le consensus politique? Comment pouvons-nous faire une telle déclaration si affirmative et en même temps gardant l’indifférence totale aux abus des droits humains fondamentaux de nos dits concitoyens du Cameroun Occidentale, les Anglophones?

Certains sont meme allés loin sur les réseaux sociaux pour louer l’armée, le BIR, la police et les gendarmes a continuer ce travail “bien fait” sur cette bande “d’extrémistes” selon le president et ses ministres qui veulent déstabiliser le Cameroun. Est l’Etat fait pour protéger le citoyen ou éterniser le pouvoir du régime gouvernmentale?
Tres cher compatriot, nous devons nous éduquer politiquement, l’ignorance n’est pas la félicité! Le fédéralisme n’est pas la sécession! Il ne faut pas donc confondre le fédéralisme avec le système administratif qui a present ne sert que les élites politiques et l’hégémonie ethno-tribale.

La décentralisation prévue dans la constitution de 1996 est un quasi fédéralisme, mais sa non-mise en œuvre 21 ans après son adoption est la preuve que les problèmes qui nous ont poussé à voter cette constitution demeurent ou ont même empiré. Voila pourquoi il nous faut une forme d’état dans lequel le systeme d’administration et de la gouvernance sont en ligne avec notre évolution politique et en parité avec notre réalité juridique, sociologique et culturelle en gardent l’unite du pays. Où est la trahison dans cette revendication? Il est temps de passer à la quatrième république.

En choisissant la violence, l’intimidation au-dessus du dialogue, nous ne parviendrons qu’à une paix fragile, Nous nous arrêterons à la surface sans guérir le cœur du problème Anglophone, où le passage du temps a révélé être un cancer grandissant de generation a generation du peuple marginalise. La suppression de ces revendications légitimes ne fera qu’aliéner davantage ces citoyens et, avec la nostalgie du statut de la pré-réunification du Cameroun, elle poussera les gens vers l’extrême réel qui est la sécession très redoutée.

Le Prince Eyango avait chantait que “Aujourd’hui c’est ma peau,demain c’est la tienne!” Selon L’Italien de la renaissance Dante Alligieri “Les endroits les plus sombres de l’enfer sont réservés aux indécis qui restent neutres en temps de crise morale.”

Excusez la mauvaise grammaire de mon Ewondo

#BringBackOurInternet
#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners
#NoToJusticeDelayed

Par Nwanatifu Nwaco