Ambazonia and the Biya regime should be rejected by all peace-loving Cameroonians. By Ambazonia I mean those who have been described as secessionists and who are currently waging a kind of gorilla warfare in the English speaking region of Cameroon. We speak of Ambazonia and the Biya regime in the same breath because both have chosen the road to violence. Biya's violence against Cameroonians has been going on for over 35 years and can be seen to be the root cause of the emergence of the violent impulses which Ambazonia has mimicked. In a sense, therefore, the violence of Ambazonia may be justified. However, such justification would not carry weight because there are many ways to resist oppression - violence being just one of them.
Of all the African countries that have been involved in civil war, I can find none that has led to the peace and prosperity of the people. This is especially the case given that those who often mount these wars are hardly fighting for the people they claim to be representing. At the end of the day, they are found to be just as rapacious as the group they were fighting to throw out of power. The case of South Sudan is a very recent example. Ambazonia's case is made even more frightful by the fact that the leadership is mired in dispute and there is no clear vision of what will happen to Southern Cameroons if their fight is successful. Their activities so far have been so amateurish that one finds it hard to see how this group can lead a people. The recent arrest of the leadership of the group in Nigeria is an example of this amateurism. Any group mounting such operation should know that the leadership of the group should never gather in one place at the same time.
Further, Ambazonia is fighting for a cause that should be national (or even continental) rather than regional. It is true that Anglophones have been marginalized in the experiment that is Cameroon. I am among those who was educated from primary to high school in the English-speaking region but had to go to the university in French-speaking Yaoundé and mostly taught in French. We spent most of our time in Yaoundé protesting, leading to the establishment of the University of Buea. However, Cameroon as a whole is in a state of dilapidation. Francophones fare no better than Anglophones, In fact, the Biya regime has been not so much about empowering the Francophones as it has been about empowering the Beti people. That is why his government is populated not by Francophones as a whole but by Beti people. The Anglophone crisis is therefore a Cameroonian crisis. When Patrice Nganang noted that "one day we will be Anglophones," he was saying more than he meant. He was saying that the struggle in Cameroon is more than the Anglophone experience. The fragmentation that Ambazonia is banking on is therefore not the point of the struggle. Instead of fighting to protect a culture that is British in origin, we should be struggling to create an identity that transcends the colonial baggage to create a new, peaceful and prosperous future for our people. That future is hampered by the violence of both the Biya regime and Ambazonia and should be rejected by all peace-loving Cameroonians.
Of all the African countries that have been involved in civil war, I can find none that has led to the peace and prosperity of the people. This is especially the case given that those who often mount these wars are hardly fighting for the people they claim to be representing. At the end of the day, they are found to be just as rapacious as the group they were fighting to throw out of power. The case of South Sudan is a very recent example. Ambazonia's case is made even more frightful by the fact that the leadership is mired in dispute and there is no clear vision of what will happen to Southern Cameroons if their fight is successful. Their activities so far have been so amateurish that one finds it hard to see how this group can lead a people. The recent arrest of the leadership of the group in Nigeria is an example of this amateurism. Any group mounting such operation should know that the leadership of the group should never gather in one place at the same time.
Further, Ambazonia is fighting for a cause that should be national (or even continental) rather than regional. It is true that Anglophones have been marginalized in the experiment that is Cameroon. I am among those who was educated from primary to high school in the English-speaking region but had to go to the university in French-speaking Yaoundé and mostly taught in French. We spent most of our time in Yaoundé protesting, leading to the establishment of the University of Buea. However, Cameroon as a whole is in a state of dilapidation. Francophones fare no better than Anglophones, In fact, the Biya regime has been not so much about empowering the Francophones as it has been about empowering the Beti people. That is why his government is populated not by Francophones as a whole but by Beti people. The Anglophone crisis is therefore a Cameroonian crisis. When Patrice Nganang noted that "one day we will be Anglophones," he was saying more than he meant. He was saying that the struggle in Cameroon is more than the Anglophone experience. The fragmentation that Ambazonia is banking on is therefore not the point of the struggle. Instead of fighting to protect a culture that is British in origin, we should be struggling to create an identity that transcends the colonial baggage to create a new, peaceful and prosperous future for our people. That future is hampered by the violence of both the Biya regime and Ambazonia and should be rejected by all peace-loving Cameroonians.
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