He was born AKO EDWARD OBEN on 18 May1951 in Ossing village, Eyumojock Subdivision in Manyu, Cameroon. He is of the BohAko clan of Ebarensi QuarterOssing.He is happily married with four children. He attended Basel Mission Primary School in Ossing and obtained his First School Leaving Certificate in 1963. Talking to some of his former school mates, his intelligence, honesty and dedication was evident from a very early age. He proceeded to Bilingual Grammar School, Man O’War Bay where he obtained his General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level in 1969. While in secondary school his love and dedication to reading was evident and encouraged by the teaching staff. In 1971, he obtained his General Certificate of Education Advanced LevelfromThe Cameroon College of Arts, Science and TechnologyBambili.

He obtained a BA (Hons) in English and French (Bilingual degree) from The University of Yaoundé in 1975. After his studies in the University of Yaoundé, the young AKO EDWARD wanted to test himself on the international academic stage. He travelled to the USA in 1976 and obtained an MA in 1978 in Afro-American Studies from Atlanta University, Atlanta GeorgiaU.S.A. His area of concentration was on African American, Afro-French and Caribbean Literatures.Upon completion of his MA, the young Ossingintellect elected to attain a terminal degree. He obtained a PhD in 1982 inComparativeLiterature,UniversityofIllinois, U.S.A.

While researching for his PhD from1979 to1982, he was aJunior Lecturer at the University of Illinois,USA. After completing his studies in the USA, Dr Teddy Akomade a decision to give back to his country of origin. In 1982, he returned to Cameroon and was recruited as aSenior Lecturer in the University of Yaoundé from 1982–1992.

He has served as the Technical Adviser to the Secretariat General, Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon. At the University of Yaoundé 1, Prof Ako held several academic positions amongst them; Vice Rector in charge of Research and Cooperation, Vice Rector in charge of Academic Affairs, Dean of Student Services, ChairDepartment of English and Associate Professor Department of English. In 2005, Dr Teddy Ako became Full Professor of American and Commonwealth Literatures.

Scores of outstandingly prosperous men and women excelling in their professions around the world credit Prof Teddy Ako for their foundation and accomplishments. His fortitude, decorum and educational gravity laid a foundation for many who had the fortune of sitting through his lectures and benefiting from his tutelage.To date, he has supervised more than 20 PhDs and over 40 candidates for the Master’s degree and more than 30 for the Diplômed’EtudesApprofondies (DEA) or Certificate of Advanced Studies.

Between 2008-2017, he served as the Rector, the University of Maroua, Far North Region Cameroon. Since 2017, Prof Teddy Ako is serving as the Pro-Chancellor of the University of Buea, South-West Region, Cameroon.Chief ProfAko is a member of many distinguished national and international academic organisations. He has published hundreds of articles, papers and books extensively in his area of expertise. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish, Kenyang and Keaka languages.

He has served as the Branch President of Ossing Development and Cultural Association(ODCA) and has also served as Assistant Secretary General, Manyu Elements Cultural Association (MECA) Yaoundé branch.

Following the transition of Nfor General James Tataw to the land of our ancestors in July 2019, the chieftaincy stool of Ossing village returned to Ebarensi Quarter and specifically to the BohAko clan. The decision for the elders and kingmakers was less than daunting following the résumé of Prof TeddyAko.He finds himself on his throne by clear grooming and preparation.

In choosing Prof Ako as the new chief of Ossing, the Kingmakers have demonstrated wisdom, vision and regard for village unity and progress. They have also shown that they intend to inspire a generation of Ossing progenies with someone to look up to. Their pick is a chief who can reach out to all the twelve quarters of Ossing to foster the unity, development and the progress needed in the twenty-first century. He represents an extraordinary and safe choice for the village.

Chief Ako possesses the utmostintegrity and commands respect outside his village. At a time of huge political and economic uncertainty facing the Cameroons, Chief Prof Teddy Ako is a man touse his intellectual exposure and academic blessings to tilt his people in the right direction. It is known in the village that prior to the current political turmoil; he was planning to retire to the village to spend his days with his people. Chief Ako has the ability to articulate the problems plaguing his subjects with empathy and honesty and possesses the skills to seek solutions to these problems.

His induction radiates promise to the young and old with different expectations from either group.His enthronement is crucial for the children and young people in his village who would see a man born in a village with nothing but brains and made use of his intellectual blessings to rise to the top of his profession. His enthronement is a lesson for all Ossing children to carry themselves with humility and determination. Chief Teddy Ako is not driven by primitive material accumulation and consumption and the youths of Ossing have a solid foundation to learn from.

Enthroning Chief Ako doesn’t solve all the problems of Ossing but it acknowledges that the Kingmakers were endowed and inspired to stay true to the values of justice, peace and progress. Being fluent in Kenyang and Keaka, the two languages of the bilingual village, the Chief would articulate, sympathise and empathise with his subjects without any barriers.

Given his position as the most seniorEkpeSessekou in Ossing, the kingmakers have enthroned a man who can step up when traditional matters arise. Chief Ako has not emerged by accident and must lead by being led by the aspirations of his people.

In traditional matters, the new chief has shown that he has a grasp of the facts and customs. Having worked closely with former Chief GeneralTataw and the national ODCA branch in Yaoundé, he comes in from the inside. Given his age and experience in Ekpe and community affairs, Ossing is in a good place under his leadership.

His major resources are intelligence, patience and gentleness and all ages and social groups from and within Ossing will reap ample rewards from these attributes.He must communicate a clear vision for his village and his subjects to carry them along with him.Chief Ako must demonstrate the true spirit of leadership, service and sacrifice to his people and there is no doubt he possesses that spirit in abundance. 

Chief Teddy Ako must possess big dreams for Ossing and sell them to all under his Chiefdom. He has a responsibility to galvanise the Ossingelites and diaspora and inspire them with hopefulnessbuttered with reasons to build and develop their village.

Ossing has always been a model for peaceful transition of the throne in Manyu and Cameroon. We have held true to the chieftaincy foundations laid down by our ancestors and all ‘Ossingians’ must be proud of our elders and kingmakers over the last 12 months. Chief Ako has a responsibility to educate the Ossing youths and the outside world on the history of the Ossing Chiefdom and the significance of the rotational chieftaincy stool. This is profound for his legacy!

The Ossing elites and diaspora are blessed with intellect and solid financial backing. Chief Prof Teddy Ako has the internal resources to tap into them. He possesses the ability to capture the imagination of his villagers, the elites and the Ossing diaspora. Ossing is entering a golden era and he is lucky and blessed to be leading. He must be a force for change and development. He has all it takes to achieve that. His commitment to progressive values by appointing Mami Alice Nkongho as the first woman to the village council is sound, commendable and a strongsignal of what to come.

Chief Ako possess the acumen, candour and courage to weld together all of Ossing’s different fragments and families. Chief Ako’s character and credibility are impeccable. The Ossing elites and the diaspora must back up their desire for a better Ossing by rallying to support their new chief with words and actions. Ossing now has a chief who can recapture the dreams of our forefathers.

With Chief Prof Teddy Ako, Ossing can only do one thing. Win!

Long Live the Chief. Long Live Chief Teddy Ako. Long Live the Chiefdom of Ossing.

Written By SisikuIsongAsu, ODCA-UK

MohNchenge, MohAsuaranoh, MohAko, Ebarensi, Ossing

A video circulating on social media of the barbaric slaughter of a Southern Cameroonian in Muyuka, Southern Zone of Ambazonia is unacceptable and the Interim Government of Ambazonia condemns the act forcefully. There is no place in the Southern Cameroons for such appalling cruelty and the perpetrators will be brought to justice no matter how long and hard it takes to apprehend them.

Initial investigations by our intelligence services have pointed to family disputes that have no connection with our struggle. But as this crime was perpetrated in Ambazonia, the Interim Government shall stop at nothing in uncovering the truth and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Ambazonia Intelligence Services have briefed the Interim Government this morning that intercepted cables provide conclusive evidence that Atanga Nji Boys have been hired to commit similar criminal and savagery acts in Southern Cameroons with the sole purpose of discrediting Ambazonia Self-defence forces in the estimation of the international community.

For over four years now, La Republique du Cameroun has unleashed terror on our people with the burning of over 421 of our villages and the murder of over 10,000 Ambazonians. The recent abduction of four civilians in Bafut who were murdered with their hands tied and their lifeless bodies uncovered in a river after a few days exhibits a pattern consistent with previous actions of savagery and cold-blooded murder by forces of La Republique du Cameroun.

In October 2019, the Xinhua news agency reported that more than 30 vigilante groups had been created in the Southern Cameroons. In April 2020, the government of La Republique du Cameroun acknowledged that its forces used vigilante groups during their massacre of 24 Ambazonians in Ngarbuh. This episode was far from an isolated incident and there is now a mounting and worrying trend of vigilante groups in Ambazonia. This is a severe concern to the Interim Government as their sole purpose is to fashion mayhem and commit despicable atrocities.

The execution in Bambui by French Cameroun forces of American Missionary Charles Wesco, the execution in broad daylight at a hotel in Menka- Pinyin of 29 youths by French Cameroun soldiers, the burning of Mami Appih Sarah, 96 year grandmother in Kwakwa and the beheading of Chiaba Samuel alias Sam Soya in Belo will live long in the consciousness of our nation.

It is worth recalling that these heinous crimes were photographed by French Cameroun forces and posted on social media for the sole purpose of discrediting our struggle in the eyes of the international community.

Ambazonia Intelligence services have confirmed that these acts are committed to set our local population against their Self-defence Forces. In every community of humans there are traitors and there is no doubt that La Republique du Cameroun is now using militias as was the case during the Ngarbuh massacre to perpetrate violence against our people. We have identified with evidence that many in the French Cameroun military and gendarmes are purported Amba Boys at night carrying out these carnage.

The time just before dawn is the darkest. It is however critical to note that just being a little steadfast at such times prepares one to overcome despair. The valley of the shadows of death that we now traverse shall come to pass.

Despite the violence and unending brutality from the regime in Yaoundé, the Interim Government of Ambazonia has consistently made it clear that we are ready to find a peaceful end to the war between our two nations. The Interim Government is placing an urgent call to Ambazonians to take the following dispositions.

• A need to be strategic in our actions and pronouncement and speak as one voice to the world.
• Stay vigilant within your communities to avoid such barbarous killings from militias of French Cameroun.

To avoid the re occurrence of such vicious execution, concrete steps need to be taken and supported by the international community to create an atmosphere for peace. Our policy position is that the following confidence-building measures would create a conducive atmosphere for productive engagement of any kind with French Cameroun and that the entire process would have to be underwritten by the UN, African Union, US, Great Britain, Germany and Russia.

The key confidence-building measures that would need to be taken are:

1. A UN Humanitarian Intervention in the Southern Cameroons. This necessary action will secure the safety of the people of the Southern Cameroons and humanitarian workers.
2. The release of all Southern Cameroon’s political prisoners being held by La Republique du Cameroun in various prisons and torture facilities.
3. An International Fact-finding Mission to investigate the crimes perpetrated in Ambazonia by the regime in Yaoundé.

The Interim Government of Ambazonia considers that the adoptions of these measures are critical to a discontinuation of crimes against humanity and the numerous executions committed by French Cameroun forces and their militias.

This journey we have undertaken is difficult and bloody but the outcome will be freedom and independence. No one can say for sure how much more suffering we will be subjected to by the brutal regime in Yaoundé and how many more massacres will be committed by their vigilante groups but we must continue to look forward and keep our eyes on the prize.

We definitely shall not accept a return to the status quo nor accept anything less than total independence. This time, we want real freedom and real peace.

Thank You,

Dabney Yerima,

Vice President

The Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Nigeria’s indifference to the separatist conflict in Cameroon—in which its minority English-speaking people (Anglophones) are seeking for a homeland they call Ambazonia —calls for a searing indictment. Apparently because of Boko Haram’s menace, Nigeria, which was once the destination for persons fleeing political persecution all over the African continent, has become inhospitable in recent years.

In 2018, in an extraordinary rendition scheme—since condemned by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and other countries—Nigeria arrested on its home territory, and subsequently deported to Cameroon, 47 Ambazonian activists, including former Ambazonia interim leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, who is presently serving a life sentence in Cameroon’s prison.

If Nigeria’s revulsion at the current Cameroon’s Anglophones’ aspiration for independence  stems from the horrors of its 1967-1970 civil war—in which more than one million of its citizens died after Biafra, the short-lived republic, declared itself independent from Nigeria—then that argument is short-sighted for one reason: Timing.

Biafra’s secession, which was declared just seven years after Nigeria obtained independence from Great Britain, lacked the traction for success, because it was out of tune with the mood at that moment, which was for Nigeria’s ethnic and linguistic groups—as it was for other African countries emerging from years under colonial rule with similar characteristics —to merge and form the new republic.

It helps explain why General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s military head of state at the time, was able to marshal every available asset, including the United States’ “One Nigeria” policy under President Lyndon Johnson, to crush the Biafra secession. (A similar fate befell Katanga and South Kasai, two breakaway provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), where, just weeks into its independence in June 1960, they also declared themselves “independent” from DRC, sparking a raging civil war that led to an end to their secessionist status.)

But if Biafra’s bid for independence collapsed —to validate my argument that the circumstances  differ from the current conflict in Cameroon—because of its inauspicious timing, Anglophones’ yearning for nationhood (roused almost sixty years after failed attempts at creating an egalitarian federalism between them and Francophone-Cameroon) comes on the heels of other pro-independence movements in Africa and elsewhere in the world—South Sudan, Eritrea, East Timor, Macedonia—that have mostly been successful.

Nigeria’s frontline state status and its historical ties to Anglophones—up until October 1961 Anglophones were part of Nigeria—call for the former to bring on its diplomatic juggernaut to bear (as its previously done over other hotspots around Africa) on the current conflict, paving a way for a negotiated settlement. Its less inspiring commitment to this role further raises another question, which is whether Nigeria no longer acts—as it once did—as the massive rampart against French influence in West Africa.

Keeping the French at bay in this region has historically been one of Nigeria’s foreign policy objectives. And at the heart of this conflict lies French influence, which dates back to 1972, when “Total”, a French oil company, began operations in the Anglophone region.

That same year— over concerns that without a strong unitary system of government in place, its oil interests in the Anglophone region lacked the needed protection—France coerced Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s head of state at the time, into abolishing the federal system of government then existing between Anglophones and Francophone-Cameroon, a decision that Anglophones felt was a betrayal, and whose consequences loom over the current conflict.

When Jaja Wachuku, Nigeria’s first Foreign Minister, spoke at the United Nations in October 1961 about his country being “independent in everything but neutral in nothing that affects the destiny of Africa”, and Yakubu Gowon (speaking at an OAU Conference in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1974)  about “the inalienable right to self-determination; the necessity for decent life; and the unquestionable demand for human dignity”, they were apparently making references to these French machinations that have, to an extent, contributed to this conflict in Cameroon.

But at their hour of peril, when they needed Nigeria for guidance, Nigeria, it seems, deserted the Anglophones.

By Joseph M. Ndifor