Southern Cameroons Crisis: Biya desperately needs Regional Election to placate the West ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government says the announced regional elections by the French Cameroun dictator Paul Biya clearly show that the West is running out of patience with the Francophone regime in Yaoundé.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader, however, cast doubt on the staging of the so-called regional election in Southern Cameroons and said the idea is to placate the United States and the European Union.

Dabney Yerima made a mockery of the French Cameroun ruling CPDM crime syndicate saying French Cameroun political elites and their military are more loyal to France than to their own people.

Paul Biya recently announced the first regional elections in December, including Southern Cameroons in the grip of a revolt.

The indirect elections on December 6 in the country’s 10 regions will put in place councils provided for in a 1996 constitution in a move towards decentralisation but not yet implemented.

These councils will also be elected in Southern Cameroons where a nearly three-year-old insurgency has claimed over 35,000 lives. 

Southern Cameroons is home to a large minority of English speakers in a country where French speakers are the overwhelming majority — a situation that is the legacy of the decolonisation of western Africa by France and Britain more than six decades ago.

Years of resentment at perceived discrimination against British Southern Cameroonians led to the declaration on October 1, 2017, of the independence of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, triggering a crackdown by the Francophone authorities.

The 87 year Biya who has been in power for nearly four decades has promised Southern Cameroonians a special status in a bid to quell the unrest.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai