Never underestimate your enemy and never hold that old ways will always deliver the same results. This is the lesson the Yaoundé government is learning after realizing that the military violence which had put an end to the Marquisard movement which rocked the country shortly after independence cannot roll back the massive rebellion staged by the country’s English-speaking minority.

When the issues in the two English-speaking regions of the country started, the government thought it would resort to its old ways to roll back the uprising. It did not know that times had changed and a change in attitude was necessary.

For more than five years, the English-speaking parts of the country have been transformed into an open killing field for both soldiers and civilians. The government had underestimated the anger that had been eating up English-speaking Cameroonians and its poor choice of outdated solution has only made matters worse.

For close to six years, Cameroon has been bleeding. Thousands of its sons and daughters have been sent to an early grave. A protest, designed to draw the government’s attention to the sorry plight of the English-speaking minority, has been poorly managed and it has today become a millstone around the government’s neck. Many children are out of school because they are being denied their right to education by separatist fighters in many towns and villages in Southern Cameroons.

Sex has become a weapon of war, with women being raped and young girls impregnated by people they do not even know. Soldiers who are supposed to protect honest and ordinary citizens have themselves become a major threat to the people they are supposed to protect. The Southern Cameroons crisis has become their stock in trade and their bosses in Yaoundé are doing their best to ensure that the war does not come to an end anytime soon.

The Amba fighters, whom many people thought would protect the population in their poorly organized war for independence, have become the law onto everybody. They have turned against their own people, using the war to earn fast cash. Uneducated gun-totting rascals have become judges, lawyers and even archbishops.  They settle disputes they know nothing about, and their decisions are never based on any sentencing guides. To them, anything is just an opportunity for them to demonstrate their newfound power, power exercised through the barrel of the gun.

The Southern Cameroons crisis is a real disaster in its superlative degree and there is no end in sight. Many lives have been lost and people’s livelihoods have been ruined because the government’s poor decisions. This is a war which could have been avoided through dialogue and negotiations if the government had embraced new and innovative ways of dealing with conflicts.

The government, especially its extremist members, who thought that violence was their weapon of choice to crush the rebellion, is now seeking to find new ways which will help the country heal. The talk in Yaoundé now is how to bring in moderate Southern Cameroonians into the government so as douse some of the fire which is destroying the country. 

Any Southern Cameroonian who has some leverage over some of the people in Southern Cameroons and abroad is today being wooed to play a key role in the country’s government. According to a secret service agent in Yaoundé who spoke to Cameroon Intelligence Report on condition of anonymity, human rights activist, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, had been contacted for him to join the government as a way of demonstrating that the government was warming up to the idea of an inclusive government. 

Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, who has been a key player in the socio-political events playing out in the two English-speaking regions of the country, tactfully declined the proposal brought to him by a Beti Minister whose identity the Cameroon Concord News Group has decided to protect.

According to the secret service agent who received the minister’s report and feedback, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla told the minister that he was focused on the post-Biya era, as the government had demonstrated a lot of bad will when it comes to dealing with the main issues Southern Cameroonians have presented to the government. The government is clearly stranded, and it is now using any means to find a lasting solution to a problem it said did not exist.

For months, the Unity Palace has been struggling to put together a government of national unity which will include a brand new and neutral prime minister who does not belong to a political party and has extensive leverage over the separatists who have demonstrated that they are made of the stuff which can destabilize the Yaounde government. 

According to a secret service agent who operates within the Unity Palace, government officials are losing sleep because of the chaos which is playing out in Southern Cameroons. They have run out of solutions and even the most zealous among them are now eating a massive humble pie. Their threats and intimidation have not cowed Southern Cameroonians who are more determined to address many issues now rather than later to spare future generations the pain of dealing with a decades-old problem. 

The Unity Palace has been talking with non-CPDM members for a possible replacement of the current prime minister, Dion Ngute, who has fallen short of the ruling Mafia’s expectations. He has not succeeded to disconnect the Southwest region from the rebellion as expected and he is even accused of killing his former henchman, Kenneth Nanji, because of money.

It is being reported that the leading candidate for the post of Prime Minister is insisting on the government releasing all Southern Cameroonians arrested during the conflict which is tearing the country apart. To the candidate, such a gesture will demonstrate that the government is honest and serious about bringing peace to the country.

The candidate, an international civil servant, who, according to sources at the Presidency, clearly stands for an American or a Canadian-style federal system, is also calling for a general amnesty for all those who have been directly or indirectly involved in the war which has already consumed more than seven thousand lives as evidence that the government wants to walk away from this conflict which has cost much money and ruined the economy.  He has also advised the government to rapidly deal with the issue of dual nationality which will be a demonstration of its willingness to work with its expanding Diaspora. 

The government is stuck, and it wants to relief itself of its self-imposed pain. Its arrogance has brought more pain than gain and if it really wants to put the country back onto the path to peace and development, it must make peace with the various factions which disagree with it, especially its English-speaking minority which has proven that winning a war does not depend on the size of the military. If peace must really return to Cameroon, Biya regime must change its ways. It must consider English-speaking Cameroonians as citizens of Cameroon in their own right, and it must learn how to live up to its own commitments. 

There is no issue in Cameroon that cannot be addressed if the political will is there. For more than five years, the government has been chasing shadows. It must learn how to focus on the objects, if not its issues will continue to stalk it like a stubborn shadow. The Southern Cameroons crisis will not go away until the government adopts new ways. Silence and arrogance have not cut it for five years. This demonstrates that the wrong solutions have been adopted and the results leave much to be desired. The government cannot be trusted. It has always been speaking on both sides of its mouth and that is why reasonable Southern Cameroonians are reluctant to be part of any solution engineered by the government.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with correspondent files