The video of Success Nkongho and Nyambere’s schemes with the terrorist genocidal regime of Paul Biya, should be watched very carefully to gather intelligence, away from emotional rants and reactions. When I watched people like this in action, I put on my clinical forensic professional cap and listen and watch very carefully. For instance, Nyambere is very scared and very uncertain of himself. He might have genuinely joined the fight initially without full assessments. Part of him being where he is today is a reflection of the state of the revolution and the ways in which it is being managed. The noise, the toxicity, the scamming, the blackmail, the hate, the smears, are all making room for some weak minded people to be victims to temptations and to reassess their future when they see hopelessness and uncertainty in and within the revolution.

 As for the man Success Nkongho, he is a seasoned scammer, conman, a fake and a thief. He knows the risks he is taking because he has been down this lane before many times. People like him work on the pleasures of instant gratification. As he is there he knows that he is a target of both Ambazonia and terrorist la republique. He knows la republique is using him and he can even be killed by them once they get all they want from him. He will work very quickly to outsmart them and get as much from them before they get him. As for the dangers of his betrayal to Ambazonia, he has that at the back of his head and eventually he will have a good plan for that if the Ambazonians dont get to him before he is able to work out a good plan. The danger he faces is that his current betrayal is in Plainview for all to see. He may have taken too much for even the blind to see. In the views of C. Achebe, he steals so much so that he has stolen the walking stick of the blind man to make magic to be richer.

One point or information on intelligence Nyambere gave away is the fact that la republique is sending spies into the refugee camps to misinform and recruit or convince our people. That is a very significant piece of information. Unfortunately we have allowed ourselves and our revolution to fall victims to a leadership system where those who say they are leaders can bask in the glories of any inch of inroads or success registered by our brave ones on the ground but do not take any responsibilities for theirs deaths, their increased exposure to risks, their wellbeing and for creating an atmosphere where fighters like Nyambere can even dare to use as excuses to justify doing what he has just done. It is because of the rogue and visionless leadership that we enable to be part of this revolution,  that the revolution is fast becoming a basking ground and comfortable haven for criminals, borderline civilized village champions and adventurers.

By Christmas Ebini

There have been mixed reactions in Cameroon to President Paul Biya’s renewed threat to crush separatist fighters in the country’s two English-speaking regions. Many Cameroonians were expecting Biya to announce new peace measures in an end-of-year message.

President Biya said the security problems in the Northwest and Southwest regions remain the most urgent issue to be tackled in the new year.

He said he had taken several measures allowing armed groups and fighters to lay down their weapons, but said the fighters, who are mostly youths, have been brainwashed by Cameroonians in the diaspora.

Biya said his military will henceforth show no mercy for those who continue to refuse to surrender and be forgiven.

“We will have no other choice than to combat them in order to protect all our fellow citizens,” he said. “Our Defense and Security Forces will, once again, perform their duty with restraint, but without weakness. I wish to reassure them of my full support and high esteem.”

Biya accused Cameroonians in the diaspora of funding violence back at home by continuing to buy weapons and said they should, out of patriotism, refrain from destroying their country.

The comments drew immediate criticism from opposition leaders. John Fru Ndi, leader of Cameroon’s opposition Social Democratic Front party, says he was scandalized that Biya did not announce measures to stop the separatist crisis that is in its fourth year.

He says after the national dialogue Biya held in October, Cameroonians expected him to free separatist leader Ayuk Tabe Julius and his collaborators to allow peace to return.

“I expected that in a speech like this he would say Anglophone activists, I pardon you. Now with this olive branch that I have extended, can all those in the bushes {fighters} come out let us talk,” he said. “But Mr. Biya said if you want peace be prepared for war. I saw in him then that that was somebody who wanted to fight under all costs before his term comes to an end.”

Maurice Kamto, leader of the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement, said Biya is deceiving himself and the world that he is resolving the separatist crisis.  He said the president should convene what he called a sincere dialogue.

“The broad inclusive national dialogue must deal with among other issues, including particularly the reform of the electoral system, the guarantee of fundamental human rights and public freedoms and the guarantee of the independence of justice,” he said.

Cameroon is scheduled to hold local and parliamentary elections next month. Fru Ndi said with the current tensions in the English speaking regions, it will be difficult to conduct any elections successfully.

Violence erupted in the two regions in 2017 when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of Cameroon’s French-speaking majority. The crisis has killed at least 3,000 people and displaced over 500,000, according to the United Nations.

Separatist leaders on social media described Biya’s message as a non-event and said they will continue to fight until they have their independence.   

Source: VOA

For some three decades, Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, has gone down in the estimation of many of his compatriots due to corruption and incompetence that have become the hallmark of a country that was known by many across the globe as a country of the future.

In the seventies and the early eighties, Cameroon was admirably zooming towards a bright future, especially as the country’s pioneer president, Amadou Ahidjo, had laid a solid economic foundation for the country with his five-year development plans that were delivering better living conditions to the people.

Ahidjo’s education was limited, but he quickly learned the ropes and surrounded himself with honest and hardworking Cameroonian technocrats whose love for the fatherland was never in doubt.

Though ruthless when it came to dealing with the political opposition, the country’s pioneer president ensured that corruption was kept very low and any government official caught toying with state funds had to face the music.

He was merciless with government officials who dared to think that occupying a high position was a sign of superiority.

His insistence on using the youths to manage the affairs of the country was his way of ensuring continuity in the country even after him.

This explained why many of those in government today were granted top positions when they were either in their late twenties or thirties, including Mr. Biya who became the Secretary General at the Presidency at less than 35 years.

Under Mr. Ahidjo’s political program, every administrative division in the country was represented in his government.

Though he dishonestly lured the country’s English-speaking minority into a lopsided political union, he always ensured that the post of vice-president went to someone from Southern Cameroons, including the post of speaker of the National Assembly.

Mr. Ahidjo kept unemployment very low and he established a solid private sector that could help hire many young Cameroonian graduates, especially as the civil service could not hire everybody.

Under his economic program, every administrative division had an administrative headquarters endowed with all the services that could make life easy and beautiful to Cameroonians.

But this has not been the trend since 1982 when Mr. Ahidjo handed over power to the country’s current president, Paul Biya, who has ruled the country for 37 years through presidential decrees that have only delivered death and destruction to the citizens of Cameroon.

A country that was once considered as an oasis of peace in a desert of military and political chaos has now become home to many armed groups.

For three years now, Cameroon has been caught in an armed conflict that has pitted the country’s English-speaking minority against a government that has no emotional attachment to its citizens.

As the conflict progresses, light weapons are spreading like ragweed and criminal gangs that are feeding from the government’s failure to restore peace and security in those regions are sprouting and blighting the lives of ordinary citizens, especially in rural areas where the government is conspicuously absent.

The conflict has affected the country’s economy and, over the last couple of years, it has been in a free fall, with unemployment reaching unprecedented levels.

Graduates have become criminals and odd jobs, once done by the uneducated Cameroonians, have become very popular among highly educated Cameroonians.

Recruitment into the civil service has become very unreliable. Regional balance that was a reality under the country’s first president, has been swept under the carpet.

Today, most government ministers are from Mr. Biya’s region of the country, although that region constitutes less than 10% of the country’s population.

Senior administrative officers are also mostly from Mr. Biya’s region and the objective is for them to implement a vicious policy of intimidation and fear-mongering given that most Cameroonians are against a regime that has divided them and robbed them of their dignity.

Today, tribalism and nepotism have replaced competence and regional balance. Mr. Biya’s ministers have become very arrogant. They have no respect for their compatriots and this has eroded whatever respect and emotional attachment the ordinary citizen had for the government.

Cameroonians have been intentionally pauperized by their government. Many are dying of preventable and curable diseases and this has only stepped up opposition against a government run by ailing Octogenarians.

Given this appalling and unsettling economic and political picture, many observers are asking if today’s end-of-year speech by Mr. Biya will deliver any hope to a people who are already indifferent to all government actions.

The government seems to be tone deaf. The people are sick and tired of complaining. Even the international community is losing hope.

The international community has been calling on the government to organize an inclusive dialogue that will deliver peace to the country, but these calls have all fallen on deaf ears.

Instead of organizing a genuine inclusive dialogue, Mr. Biya and his cohort hastily organized a major national dialogue that has not produced any real results.

The war is still going on and without an honest effort and dialogue, the English-speaking minority may walk away from a union that was hastily stitched together by the country’s first president; a union that has spread pain and frustration among the country’s English-speaking minority.

Today, the government has hastily brought home some refugees to demonstrate that the rebellion is dying and that Mr. Biya’s strategy is working.

But observers have already qualified this as a charade that will not address any real issues. This is more of a publicity stunt by the government and this will be a key focus of Mr. Biya’s speech today.

The world is watching and it believes this is an opportunity for the 86-year-old Biya to reach out to the English-speaking minority so that a real and genuine dialogue can start.

If he changes his tone and approach, he might win lots of hearts and minds, but will that be possible, especially as Mr. Biya has a mindset that belongs to a different epoch? To him, only military violence and manipulation can achieve anything meaningful.

He is frozen in time. He has to walk away from his old mentality if he wants peace to return to Cameroon. The ball is in his court.

The Cameroonian government does not intend to participate in talks with the Ambazonians until local elections have been held.

A delegation from the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) was to go to Cameroon at the end of November to meet the government, but the government canceled the meeting without re-scheduling.

According to our sources, Yaoundé does not intend to participate in talks with the Ambazonians until the implementation of the measures emerging from the Great National Dialogue in October (in particular the special status for the region’s English speakers) and until local elections – slated for February – are held.

Two opposing camps at the presidential palace

Even after these deadlines, the holding of talks remains uncertain.

The separatists themselves are divided.

And, at the presidential palace, two camps clash.

On the one hand, the supporters of a hard line, rather opposed to dialogue and represented by Samuel Mvondo Ayolo, the director of the civil cabinet, and by Joseph Dion Ngute, the Prime Minister.

On the other, a more open-minded group, embodied by Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the secretary general of the presidency.

Abroad, mediation also has its supporters and its detractors: the United States is very favourable, while France is more opposed to it.

By Besong Eunice Nchong

As the year ends, many Cameroonians, especially those who are still naïve, are scanning the sky for any good news that will be announced by Cameroon’s 86-year-old president, Paul Biya, who has ruled the country for 37 years. For most of the time he has been in power, Cameroonians have gone from crisis to crisis with no end in sight.

Most of the crises have been generated by corruption and inefficiency which have triggered unemployment, hardship and a massive erosion of morals in the country. The country’s civil service has become an Augean Stable wherein members of the ruling party, the CPDM, also known as the crime syndicate, have transformed it into their personal plantation in which only those who bow to them as Angels do to God, get promoted or appointed to higher positions.

Many still hold that some miracle may happen, as it is generally believed in Cameroon that God works in mysterious ways. Over the last three years, the country has been caught up in messy crises that may lead to its implosion. The Southern Cameroons crisis that has put the country in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons is gradually tearing the country apart.

After more than three years, the country’s army has not been able to end a simple conflict that started as a protest by Southern Cameroonian lawyers and teachers. Mismanaged by the government, the protest rapidly developed into an armed conflict, as the government thought the only way it could stem out the tide of discontent among Southern Cameroonians was by sending its “dogs of war” to the two English-speaking regions of the country and their violence has resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 civilians.

More than 200 villages have been erased from the country’s map and millions have been displaced. Close to a million Southern Cameroonians are now living in Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom as refugees as a result of the senseless killings in Southern Cameroons. More than half a million have crossed over to East Cameroon where they are living rough. Many of them sleep in the open and thousands have died due to lack of proper health care.

The international community has been calling for an inclusive dialogue that might lead to the restoration of genuine and sustainable peace in the country, but the calls have fallen on deaf ears, with the government holding that it can address the issues without outside support.

But for more than three years, the government has tried desperately to wipe out the rebellion, but its efforts have not produced the desired results.  Its penchant for violence and manipulation has made it hard for it to think up the right solutions. For three years, it has been seeking to cure cancer with malarial treatment and this has only triggered more indignation and violence in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

To get the international community off its back, the Yaounde government in October 2019 organized a sham Major National Dialogue that is not in line with the demands of the international community. Instead of inviting Southern Cameroonians to the negotiation, it went ahead to fabricate its Diaspora and used prisoners who posed as Southern Cameroonian fighters to prove that the fighters were dropping off their weapons and seeking a different and honorable path in life.

This charade led to the floating of a Special Status for Southern Cameroonians, most of whom want to opt out of the lopsided union that was established with East Cameroon in 1972. Southern Cameroonians have never been comfortable living with their Francophone counterparts who have distinguished themselves by their sheepish docility and their penchant for dictatorship.

The ‘Special Status’ being proposed by the government, though its contents remain a top secret, has been rejected by Southern Cameroonians who hold that the least they will accept will be a federal system that will grant them the autonomy and independence they need to run their affairs as it existed before 1972. For many Southern Cameroonians, the Special Status proposal is death on arrival (DOA).

As the country continues its unstoppable spiral to the bottom of the abyss, the country’s president, Paul Biya, who has run the country as a monarchy for almost four decades, has continued to hold his cards so close to his chest. Not even the international community is aware of the contents of the Special Status, though the country’s key allies such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and the EU have clearly stated that nothing short of an inclusive dialogue will bring about peace in Cameroon.

It is obvious that while delivering his speech on December 31, 2019, Mr. Biya will be showcasing the Major National Dialogue as a success given that it has resulted in the granting of Special Status to the country’s English-speaking minority. But that may not cut ice with many Cameroonians who hold that Mr. Biya and his government have done very little for the country in 37 years. Many Cameroonians accuse Mr. Biya of always playing the clock, hoping that time will address the issues facing the country, though for 37 years, time has only exacerbated the many crises that have delivered deadly punches to the country and its economy.

The Southern Cameroons crisis will continue to be a millstone around the government’s neck if real and genuine solutions are not sought. The Southern Cameroonian Diaspora that counts close to 4 million people is hellbent on destabilizing the country if the government does not come to the negotiating table to address those issues that have blighted the lives of many Southern Cameroonians.

Southern Cameroonians have been living in exile for more than forty years and most of them have been living in wealthy countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom where they have sent down their roots. Many first-generation Southern Cameroonian immigrants are already retiring, but they are wealthy and can cause the Yaounde government to lose sleep.

Their children, who sympathize with the Southern Cameroonian cause, are using their influence and positions to sell the Southern Cameroonian story to leaders of those wealthy and influential nations. It is very normal these days to see the child of a Southern Cameroonian occupying a strategic position in the United States and the Canada where they can easily influence opinions.

 Decades of injustice and oppression in Cameroon have made it possible for Southern Cameroonians to amass wealth abroad and that has given them the wherewithal they need to express their anger and frustration. Today, that Diaspora has become a nightmare that will not go away anytime soon to the Yaounde government.

The Southern Cameroonian Diaspora could be a formidable ally in the battle against poverty and underdevelopment if the government comes down its Ivory tower to have a frank and fruitful discussion with Southern Cameroonian leaders. These leaders hold significant sway over the armed fighters on the ground. Without a negotiated settlement, it is obvious that there will never be any light at the end of the tunnel.  

Besides the Southern Cameroons crisis, there is the political crisis that is tearing East Cameroon apart. The controversy surrounding Mr. Biya’s election victory is another issue that may cause the country to implode. Despite having spent eight months in jail, the presumed winner of the 2019 presidential polls, Professor Maurice Kamto, is still spreading his gospel across the country. He still alleges that he won the polls, and this is calling Mr. Biya’s legitimacy into question.

Professor Kamto’s supporters are not yielding to any pressure from the government. Those who are living abroad have constituted themselves into a strong and powerful movement known as the Brigade Anti-Sardinard (BAS) that is giving the Biya government a very bad name.

The BAS has made it a duty to pursue Mr. Biya wherever he goes, and this strategy has given the government a bloodshot eye on many occasions. In Switzerland, Mr. Biya was obliged to cut his trip in the country short as BAS threatened to invade the health facility in which he was being attended to.

In Paris, Mr. Biya faced huge opposition and some of his collaborators such as the Senate President, Marcel Niat Njifenji, were made to feel the people’s wrath. He was ridiculed and embarrassed in France; a situation that caused people around the world to take a second look at Cameroon which is now known as a country ruled by octogenarians who are out of touch with the realities of the modern world. And this explains why Cameroon has continued its onward march to an unavoidable economic and political disaster.  

While the country awaits the usual end-of-year speech, it is obvious that nothing good will come out of it. Mr. Biya is noted for making vague and unfulfilled promises and for more than three decades, he has never been as good as his word. The country’s economy has taken a nosedive, youths are unemployed, the country’s infrastructure has crumbled, and its hospitals are more of consultation clinics. Cameroonians have been overwhelmed by poverty and many have simply resigned themselves to fate. Many may be hopeful, but most Cameroonians know that there is no hope on the horizon, as Mr. Biya and his government do not have their people’s interest at heart.    

By Joachim Arrey, Ph.D

Brampton, Ontario

Canada