Month: August 2022

Community Schools in Ambazonia: a growing reality, LRC confirms

In a helpful progress check for the citizens of Ambazonia, a LRC functionary has “banned” several Community Schools.

This ban is going to be as effective as the ban on scbc TV a few years ago. Actually much less so. Whatever effect it has in the short term, the long list demonstrates the increasing confidence of Ambazonians to take their dignity in hand and control their own future. In the long term the Ambazonians have decided they need to provide the opportunities their children need to unleash their creativity and join modern society.

Ambazonians can be reassured that their education system will give their children more valuable qualifications than they would get under the LRC colonial system where qualifications do not lead to any kind of social advancement. LRC’s system is riddled with nepotism and corruption so that those who get the jobs sometimes do not need to have gained any qualifications, or sometimes even have studied at all.

Congratulations to the Ambazonians for making the break. An interim curriculum is understood to be in the works and likely to be available in the near future.

Collaboration will consolidate our dignity and freedom.

Our children will shine like the stars above as the most High God is the Watchman of our nation.

Ambazonian Institutions Prove Strong In Election Process


Ambazonians

“The Most High God be the Watchman of This Nation!”, is the prayer our children make every time they sing our beautiful Ambazonian Anthem. It would appear, the Almighty is granting this prayer, for our Liberation is proceeding regardless of the wariness that has crept into many of us. Our people are enjoying and manifesting their dignity more and more openly and with less and less regard for the intimidation and repressive tactics of La Republique Du Cameroun.

Ambazonians shall prevail as a people, together of equal value and status whether they are, individually, enduring the terror of La Republique du Cameroon militias on G0, or enduring the uncertainty of life on G1, or enduring the homesickness of the Diaspora. Ambazonians all need to collaborate and hasten the growth of our collective dignity and freedom. Collaboration is the answer.

The Election Commission of Ambazonia

The Election Commission of Ambazonia, ECA, has acknowledged the weaknesses in the Election Modalities and promised to review same for future elections. This implies the ECA receives the petitions but has deemed the irregularities not to be blocking to the temporary use of the modalities.
This is the very strength that we hoped for in the ECA. The Commission must now make sure they can run the process with as few hitches as possible of their own volition. The first task hence is to duly issue the electoral list of all qualifying voters, regardless of how the ECA has deemed them qualifying.

The Restoration Council

The Restoration Council, RC, which did drop the ball on the production of the Modalities, has similarly, by implication stood up to the Executive by not caving. Unlike the ECA, RC has not yet acknowledged its weaknesses and, therefore has not deemed it necessary to self-reflect and improve. This is a weakness indeed as the RC has tended, in this whole episode to be looking down on the very people they represent and ignoring their concerns. The RC allowed itself to be misrepresented by individuals who went on the defensive to accuse all and sundry of sabotage rather than acknowledging the validity the petitions. At present, this writer would place a question mark over the relevance of the RC as a representative body for a young and vibrant Ambazonia.

The Executive

The Executive, in the person of the President has shown the strength in standing up to and highlighting a dangerous ad-hoc attitude from the RC in serious constitutional matters. In this saga Candidate Marianta Njomia was always at a disadvantage as she is acting simultaneously as the Executive and as a Candidate. It is fair to say she has invested more energy in the former role to the detriment of the latter. That can only be interpreted as a demonstration of the patriotic zeal needed to prosecute our Liberation struggle. This writer commends Candidate Marianta Njomia for making the bold decision to selflessly prioritize the right thing over the interest of her campaign for election. The point has been made and the candidate should now rely on the Ambazonian people to take up the responsibility for balancing the tension between the RC and The Presidency. This writer believes that Candidate Marianta Njomia should resume her place as a Candidate and put her program in front of the electorate.

President calls halt to elections until modalities fixed

President Marianta Njomia has cited grave irregularities in the electoral process in suspending the poll urging the Restoration Council to regularise the modalities to ensure the elections call hold in a constitutional atmosphere. The call is contained in a letter addressed on Thursday 25 August 2022 to the Chair of the RC.

The major stumbling block is the fact that the Modalities were not submitted for promulgation by the president as per the provisions of the Constitution, meaning they are technically not the law and the process is unconstitutional.

The President stresses that the RC document provides for the requirements to be completed in time for the poll to hold as planned.

Rea the letter from here

Read the Election Modalities here

Read the Interim Constitution of Ambazonia

Statement by Abdul Karim Ali.

This Statement is informed, on the one hand, by the wishes of encouragement flowing from family, friends, well-wishers and sympathizers as well as their desire, on the other hand, to know how I am doing or holding up, in detention.

I was abducted on the afternoon of August 11, 2022, at Ntamulung by the Gendarmerie of La Republique du Cameroun. I was taken to Groupement and then later to Compagnie. I was held in communicado, without permission and space to pray and without food for four days.

The conditions of my abduction are illegal and unjustified. The conditions of detention are unspeakably deplorable. My lawyers have an idea and can indulge you. My focus in this statement is to commune with you.
To my family and well wishers I want you to know that I am firmly planted and standing on your faith, good will towards me and your prayers for me. To everybody else I want you to know that God, in his divine providence, has put me here in Southern Cameroons at this time and place for a specific reason – to serve his people and his purpose.

That purpose is found in his will. His will is to seek truth and justice. Justice in this time and space in Southern Cameroons lies in bringing all parties and stakeholders together, on a dialogue table without pre-conditions, where the root cause of the raging crisis can be identified and sustainable solutions sought for culminating in the peaceful evolution, actualization and realization of the suffering people of Southern Cameroons.
This is my life’s mission and purpose. The advocacy of the inalienable right of every Southern Cameroonian to self-realization. This life mission is divinely ordained. I accept and assume it with all humility. I will live with it. I will live for it. I will suffer for it. I will be in prison for it. I am in jail for it. I will undergo torture for it. I will die for it if need be and if it came to it.

I am now undergoing psychological and physical torture for it. Even so, I do not intend to switch positions with anybody. Every passing second, minute and day I feel the pangs on my flesh and body. Even so, I must tell you that my soul and spirit are strong. The feel the fuel that powers this fortitude coming from all Southern Cameroonians, my well-wishers and the almighty God.
In this faith, and with this faith I will stand strong like the rock of my faith and the inspiration of the forebears of every resistance and struggle.

With this faith, I ask all people of good faith to help me in this journey of truth seeking and peace building. With this faith. I promise to keep up the good fight and to continue putting my family, friends and well-wishers in ‘good trouble’.

This is our appointment with destiny. This is our commitment to posterity. This is the task of the present and the hope of the future.
With this hope, I will keep standing in this contaminated water in my cell or laying down on the bug infested plank of my interrogation cell until the doors of the room open, wherein the round dialogue table stands in the middle, waiting for all stakeholders to come, sit around and seek the truth.

But before you pause to ponder about my inhumane condition, I want you to pause first and ponder the death of all the heroes of Southern Cameroons. I want you to pause and ponder the death of all the young people who are losing their lives everyday in a war that was totally avoidable and still is stoppable, even as I sit in this cell.

I want you to pause and ponder the inhumanity that has been heaped on our brothers and sisters who are languishing in the prisons if LRC simply for articulating an opinion as to their preference of a Homeland where they can self-realize and self-actualize.

When you consider all those who have paid the ultimate prize of freedom, those who are serving undeserved life sentences, those who are sitting in jails like mine uncharged, untried and not knowing what will happen to them on a daily basis, those who are scared stiff of the unpredictability and impunity of the system and those who are on their knees every minute praying for a miracle to end the war in Southern Cameroons, then you can decide for yourself what your own individual sacrifice will be.

To my wife, kids and family I beg that you keep the faith. I know and trust that you will keep trusting in what Allah has in store for us and all our People.
To my compatriots and fellow countrymen, I employ you to hold hands, tighten our ranks, keep our focus on the enemy, never losing focus of the ever tempting, corruptive, disorganizing and disruptive nature of the enemy and remember always and forever that our rendez- vous is at the foot of Mount Fako, in Buea.
To my well-wishers and the international community, I exhort you to bear with us. Please redouble your efforts in holding up the mirror to our friends and relevant stakeholders – a mirror in which the errors of history beginning with colonial greed, through UN Charter miscarriages, to unfulfilled promises and flagrant breaches of constitutional and other international legal instruments, culminating into the acknowledged, albeit failed, attempts to assimilate a people who have lost almost all sense of national and individual worth but who have now risen and now sworn never to be enslaved again in a status quo that denies them their fundamental humanity and dignity. Hold up this mirror so that there is individual national accountability to foster a sense of collective responsibility for the plight of Southern Cameroons whose claim to a UN forgotten prodigal son status cannot be denied, underestimated or ignored any longer.
Hold this mirror of history and let it reflect an international resolve and concrete efforts in pushing the parties – the Government of Cameroun and the diversified tentacles of the Southern Cameroons’ octopus, to the inevitable table of dialogue, mediation and conciliation, reassured by the hope and promise of truth, justice and peace.
I am not asking that you, the international community, do all our heavy lifting for us. The burden and the lifting rests with us. This is our duty. We, Southern Cameroonians, know it, assume it and accept it.
All we ask is that you create an enabling environment for us to stand on, pivot and do the lifting that not only you expect from us but a lifting which history and our posterity requires and expects from us – on ground Zero and everywhere in the Diaspora.

In all I pray and ask for the intercession of the Almighty God who is all knowing, all planning and all merciful. Thank you and stay blessed.

Abdul Karim Ali
Detained at the Gendarmerie Compagnie at Upstation in Bamenda

Ambazonia: Moja Moja?

The character Moja Moja has gained notoriety for his crimes in Fako.
There have been cries against the humiliation and torture he has wrought on random youth, filming the evidence for his future trial. Obviously he is not filming it for his future trial but it will be useful for that too! We attempt to draw some lessons and ironic reassurance from his seeming impunity.

What does Moja Moja achieve?
His biggest achievement is to consolidate the proof, if any were needed, for Ambazonians that they are not citizens of La Republique du Cameroun. That they should line up with the Restoration Forces and take their dignity in their own hands. The civilians of Ambazonia have quietly seized their dignity and been tentatively asserting it through the Country Sunday they observe weekly. Initially this observation could have been explained away [by LRC] as a result of threats but it is clearer and clearer that even while Ambazonia was flooded with LRC militias burning villages and shooting at school children and claiming to be “protecting lives and property” the civilians interpreted the evidence they could see. That evidence only proved their previous suffering under LRC was real and widespread. The hope of a better tomorrow would not materialise as second-class citizens of LRC. It showed that their suffering had not been because of a mistake that would soon be realised and corrected but had been a deliberate campaign to keep them as second-class plebeians with no hope of advancement.
Since the advent of Country Sunday dignity has returned. Though LRC is still extorting on check points and collecting other taxes a few window dressings have been offered and that is more than any Ambazonian ever expected. It has become crystal that Ambazonians can live separately, and must.


Now back to Moja Moja and his scheme to collect evidence for his future trial.
Apart from the evidence collection duty Moja Moja is performing another reinforcement.
He is demonstrating to the Ambazonian civilians that LRC has withdrawn and accepted defeat and that the shadows they cast are empty and would vanish at the earliest provocation. LRC is no longer trying to pretend to the international community that they have law and order in Ambazonia. If they had not set up Moja Moja in business they would, as “the government” in their duty of “protecting lives and property”, have quickly arrested him on the basis of the evidence he is collecting for his future trial.
On the other hand, if they have set him up, they are admitting defeat and Ambazonia’s righteous victory in the Liberation struggle.


We are not asking anyone who is not in the RF’s to tackle Moja Moja but just to stay calm and know that he will soon become irrelevant whether he is arrested on not. Civilians should side-step him and get on with the normal Ambazonian life collaborating with the Restoration Forces to complete our Liberation.

Why is LRC not “interferring”?
They have no legal authority in Ambazonia as explained in the previous blog with Chief Barrister Charles Taku’s responses to a couple of questions about the status of then Southern Cameroons. LRC has had de facto authority in Ambazonia only because the people of Ambazonia “consented by accepting” that “authority” by submitting to it. Now that the people object LRC could only enforce that authority militarily by crushing the uprising. They could not negotiate in the presence of any neutral parties who could examine the profound causes. If that neutral party did, they would “come upon” the absence of a union due to the fact that it was not signed, and then, even the de facto one was “violated”, setting up a track record of why Ambazonia has a reason, if one were needed, to “change” her mind about associating in a Federation with LRC. In any case even if the union had been signed, Ambazonia would still have been entitled to call the union into question and seek to withdraw from it on the basis of the violations, viz transforming to a unitary state, and then renaming it to expunge Southern Cameroons from history. Even if the union had been signed and not violated, Ambazonians individually would still be entitled to express their identity though it would be vastly more difficult.

What of the international community?
Many of the failings lie with the international community in a way. The international processes were bungled leading to the lack of a treaty and the 61 years of de facto rather than legal union. If we think about it, the international community has no interest [economic] to solve other people’s problems! The lack of union and “the violations” are not news to the international community who are rightly, or wrongly, in their interest, content to let sleeping dogs lie as long as the system is stable and they can carry on their economies. In the final analysis, the lack of union treaty need not, and would not have stopped the peoples of Ambazonia and LRC living together, had they experienced a safe and fair state. We don’t need to dwell on the meaning of “safe and fair state”. The problem only arose when injustice and corruption caused discontent , which raised grievances. Maybe the “governing” miscalculated in their idea for “solving the crisis” by crushing it. Maybe they were aware they hadn’t legal leg to stand on in a negotiation! Their chosen method has only managed over the last six years to demonstrate why Ambazonia cannot associate with LRC in any form of state, never mind that the apparent solution seems to imply LRC “granting favours” to Ambazonia! If the international community wants to help they need to make it clear to LRC that the negotiation is between two states of equal status and cannot begin with any notion that LRC “has offered” anything to Ambazonia [Southern Cameroons]. In particular reference to the kind, and ignored, advice of M Macron to Mr Biya of LRC, Ambazonia is not a de jure region of La Republique du Cameroun, which France knows existed well before the then Southern Cameroons gained independence.

In conclusion, the amazement in seeing Moja Moja apparently get away with it is because LRC may finally be aware that they will not “win” and that negotiation will only lead to separation in view of the “lack of treaty and theoretical violations”. They are reduced to out-waiting the Restoration and that is why we, the Ambazonians, must take our dignity in hand and behave free even if other agents rise to attempt to dissuade us.

Of course on our side, our Restoration forces will be working on a solution for Moja Moja’s humiliation of our people. It has to be acknowledged that our “behaving free” will be easier in the absence of such LRC militias, even if they are wrongly regarded as “part of ours”.

Ambazonia’s legal rights … According to the law

The following was found on one of the Ambazonian social media fora. It is a long read but provides reassuring legal expertise regarding often discussed legal righteousness of the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle. Ambazonians need to read it for their education, which ever route they choose thereafter. Ambazonia exists and an internationally recognisable geographical area and qualifies as a state. Acknowledgement of the effort of others in compiling this work goes without saying … It is not claimed as the work of this poster!

Francis Ngwa put the questions to Chief Barrister Taku Charles, Read on from archives:
Q What are the legal basis for the complaints of English-speaking people in Cameroon? Do they need a federal state or an independent country to resolve the problem?
A: In answer to your question, permit me to correct one misconception implicit in it. There is no such thing as “English speaking people in Cameroon”. I presume your question is directed at the legal basis for the restoration of the Sovereignty of the Southern Cameroons- Ambazonia over her territory.
With that caveat, permit me to state clearly that it is not contested that Southern Cameroons is a state recognized as such in International Law. The Southern Cameroons fulfilled the legal criteria of Statehood spelt out in the 1932 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States.
Article 1 of the said Convention states:
“The State as a person of International Law should possess the following qualifications:
a) a permanent population.
b) A defined territory.
c) Government.
d) Capacity to enter into relations with other states.

That the Southern Cameroons possessed these qualifications is no longer subject of reasonable controversy, regard had to be made to the fact that the UN through its Resolutions affirmed her exercise of the right of self-determination through a well-conceived procedure with full UN participation, that was to commence with a UN organized Plebiscite and ending with an Internationally recognized union treaty with La Republique du Cameroun.
That process, we all know, was aborted and so no treaty worthy of recognition and enforcement pursuant to articles 102 and 103 of the UN Charter exists between Southern Cameroons and La Republique Du Cameroon.
It is therefore futile for anyone to invoke alleged historical or political arguments to justify the existence of any union between the two, without first ascertaining whether the UN-laid down basis for the existence of a legally binding treaty was executed or faithfully implemented pursuant to the Charter responsibilities of the all the parties involved.
In conflating the notions of Sovereignty and that of Statehood to justify its annexation of the Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia, La Republique Du Cameroun is oblivious of the fact that Southern Cameroons as a Legal Order, prior to the annexation of her territory, had her own executive and legislative organs, conducted foreign relations through her own organs, had her own system of courts and legal system, had her own nationality laws, and above all had her own constitution.
Her loss of the decision making over these matters due to the overbearing foreign control through military, economic and political blackmail and downright colonial criminality do not affect her statehood status in International Law. Similarly, Iraqi exercise of sovereignty over Kuwait, American exercise of sovereignty over Iraq, Allied exercise of sovereignty over Germany after the Second World War or Soviet exercise of Sovereignty over the Soviet Republics did not ipso jure lead to a loss of the statehood of the occupied states in International Law.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights only recently reaffirmed that Southern Cameroons constitute a people recognized as such under the Charter. That can only be construed within the context of the distinctive statehood of Southern Cameroons since the constitutive tribes of La Republique do not have any of the qualifying attributes of a state defined in the Montevideo Convention.
There can be no gainsaying the fact that had La Republique du Cameroun as an occupying force not invoked the status of Southern Cameroons in International Law as well as the treaties that defined her International Boundaries, and all other acts that accord with the Montevideo Convention, the case she initiated against Nigeria would have been dismissed as a matter of law and fact.
To this extent, the exercise of sovereignty over that case, culminating in the Greentree agreement in which both Nigeria and La Republique undertook to withdraw their forces to their respective boundaries at Independence as the leadership of Ambazonia has correctly argued, is but a logical conclusion of an exercise of sovereignty which an occupying power merely undertook for the benefit of the State of Southern Cameroons- Ambazonia as their pleading and evidence tendered at trial reasonably suggests. In this regard, there is no other reasonable conclusion or inference to draw from the totality of the proceedings and its outcome. To that end, therefore, the continuous occupation of the territory of the Southern Cameroons by La Republique Du Cameroun is manifestly illegal, untenable and unacceptable.
Coming to the next arm of your question whether Southern Cameroons need a federation or independence to resolve the problem, I will defer in part to the preceding answer. I wish however to emphasize that the Southern Cameroons overwhelmingly voted for independence in a UN supervised plebiscite in 1961 and was required thereafter to exercise her right of self-determination by negotiating and defining with UN and British Government’s participation of a union treaty with La Republique du Cameroun.
Note must be taken of the fact that the British Government’s participation was in respect of her UN Charter obligation and not in any other capacity. To the extent that the said Charter responsibility was never affected and has never occurred, there is no union between La Republique Du Cameroun and Southern Cameroons.
Assuming for the purpose of argument only, one were to say that Southern Cameroons was never independent as the spokesman of La Republique Isa Tchiroma stated lately, that conflation of the notion of independence and Statehood would reasonably be construed as ignorance of the state of international law on the subject.
Ian Bronwlie and Jose’ E. Alvarez, Leading authorities on International Law have stated that it is inappropriate to confuse independence as an aspect of statehood, because several factors may explain a loss of independence and / or sovereignty which may not necessarily lead to a loss of statehood. Brownlie emphasizes that “a common source of confusion lies in the fact that “sovereignty may be used to describe the condition where a state has not exercised its own privileges, and immunities in respect of other states. In this sense, a state which has consented to another state managing its foreign relations, or which has granted extensive extra-territorial rights to another state, is not “sovereign”. If this or similar content is given to “sovereignty”, and the same ideogram is used as a criterion of statehood, then the incidents of statehood and legal personality are once again confused with their existence”.
For the above reason, it is submitted that neither the statehood nor the independence of the Southern Cameroons are in question. What is at stake is the exercise of sovereignty that both confer on the State of Southern Cameroons. It is this stolen sovereignty that we are on course to recovering. That in essence is what we call the Southern Cameroons problem.
With the suggestion that a federation may solve the problem, I may venture to state that the suggestion has been overtaken by events. These are evident in the acts and conduct of La Republique Du Cameroun that rendered the fulfillment of UN Charter responsibility on the Southern Cameroons problem impossible.
First, the UN Resolutions required that the exercise of the rights of self-determination of the people of Southern Cameroons be inviolable and sacrosanct. Neither Foncha nor Ahidjo nor any other person however so called could alienate those rights upon himself.
In addition to the none fulfillment of the UN Charter responsibilities by the UN and Great Britain as stated above, all acts undertaken by these individuals or who so ever at Foumban where a purported Federal Constitution was allegedly conceived adopted and promulgated by Ahidjo without the sanction of the Southerns Cameroons through her House of Assembly or by referendum was null and void ab initio and without an legal effect whatsoever.
Even if the Federal Constitution that came out of that process was legitimate, the subsequent violation of article 47 of the said constitution that rendered any amendment that impaired the federal character of the Republic null and void rendered the alleged union the constitution purported to create void ab initio.
Besides, that constitution was not and could not be the union treaty contemplated by the UN Resolutions on Southern Cameroons because in promulgating the said Constitution into law, Ahmadou Ahidjo did not draw inspiration from the UN Resolution on Southern Cameroons, or the Plebiscite of 11 February 1961. He simply did so through an amendment of and adaptation to the Constitution of a “reunified La Republique Du Cameroun” of 4 March 1960 through Law No. 61-24 of 1 September 1961.
It is therefore in error for anyone to hold that that amendment of the Constitution of La Republique Du Cameroun by Law No. 61-24 of 1 September 1961 even before the Independence of the Southern Cameroons on 1 October 1961 created a valid and subsisting union contemplated by the UN for the purpose of its charter obligations. That law was rather the very basis of annexation and colonization of the Southern Cameroons which all peace-loving people of the world must condemn vehemently.
It was therefore in perpetuation of this illegality that La Republique Du Cameroun in 1972 organized a purported referendum to create a unitary state, in violation of article 47 of its own amended constitution, a so-called Federal Constitution.
These illegalities and criminal annexation and colonization have invariably been denounced by Prominent Southern Cameroonians led by HRM Fon Gorgi Dinka, Professor Carlson Anyangwe, Albert Womah Mukong and a plethora of others listed by an eminent Camerounian Scholar Pierre Fabien Nkot in his seminal book “Usage Politiques du Droit En Afrique: Le Cas Du Cameroun”.pg35-40.
In recognition of the illegalities denounced vehemently and persistently by many led by Fon Dinka in particular for and on behalf of the severely repressed revolting masses of the Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia and cognizant of the gravity of the consequences of the crimes of annexation and colonization, the President of La Republique Du Cameroun, Paul Biya, in 1984, enacted a law reverting the Republique du Cameroun to its legal personality at Independence, and with it, its internationally recognized boundaries, its state symbols and re-emphasized this fact as Dinka has rightly stated in the Greentree agreement with Nigeria.
La Republique Du Cameroun was offered an opportunity to get into a valid, Federation with the Southern Cameroons at the AAC1, reiterated at the AACII and she declined. In so declining, she exercised an act of sovereignty which Southern Cameroons was mandated in law to respect and did respect. La Republique is similarly obligated to respect International Law and her UN Charter obligations by vacating the territory of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia forthwith.
According to Pierre Fabien Nkot, (pg 40) Paul Biya has boasted that he was ready to organize a referendum to show the world that only a minority of Southern Cameroons was agitating to regain her sovereignty. The African Commission ordered that dialogue should be held under its auspices to resolve the Southern Cameroons problem. I encourage President Biya to bring this suggestion to the negotiating table which if accepted could be an alternative to violence and needless loss of life and limb.
For me, and a majority of Southern Cameroonians, anything other than a regain of sovereignty in conformity with international law is simply unacceptable. The contrary will give tacit blessings to impunity and crimes against the peace for which the UN and the civilized world are firmly opposed.

AMBAZONIA_MUST_BE_FREE K.A 💙

Indicate your view in the vote.

The IG calls for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Comrade Abdul Karim Ali

The IG has issued a statement calling on international partners and stakeholders for peace to bring their influence to bear on La Republique du Cameroun to release the recently abducted Ambazonia scholar Abdul Karim Ali.

Having contacted the victim’s family, the IG is able to ascertain that Comrade Abdul Karim Ali is in good spirits and has been visited both by family of counsel.

Here is the IG’s communique.

Why the Federalists are wrong

This post comes a bit out of date and that is ironic because the “arguments” submitted by this sample of federalists is itself … out of date. Who knew!

The Ambazonia Restoration War has switched gear recently to expand on communication. There is a new untenable class called “Federalists” who find themselves promoting, at once the idea that the international community is not going to help while relying on the intervention of the international community in an eventual negotiation for Federation. We recall that La Republique du Cameroun started the war to avoid any idea of federation and actively dissuaded many from even using the very word.

New platforms have led to  the highlight of some of the voices of “pro-federation anglophone figures” in debates and 1-on-1’s.

Whereas their previous highlight was the effort of Cardinal Tumi which culminated in the first established temperature of Anglophone opinion on the conflict, recent outings have come from proponents of Federation.

Speaking on ABS TV in Mar/April 2022, Dr. Munzu described “national negotiations” which would come “after LRC and Separatists come to realise the war is too expensive and unwinnable”. These “national negotiations” remind of the GDN of yore.

Dr Munzu imagined that the Federalists were the middle ground saviours who would provide a happy-median between the antagonists. Though this is a paraphrase it does carry the idea he tried and intended to convey.

The first question which was not posed, and therefore not answered, was the morality of not only waiting in the wings while children got killed in Ambazonia, but actually declaring that they [the federalists] were waiting thus! Anyone who would so calculatingly wait to come in and pick up the pieces could hardly be empathetic enough to solve the problems that invariably arise from such conflicts, even if the antagonists, somehow were to agree to cede their positions to the self-proclaimed “median”!

As “an expert on international workings”, having worked at the UN, Dr Munzi decried the futility of the Ambazonians’ efforts in conducting an armed restoration struggle, “as international law does not allow secession”. Forget Timor L’Est. Forget Somaliland, though they are not recognized yet. The outing reminded very much of the La Republique du Cameroun tactic of wheeling out “experts” to present illogical and untenable arguments. Let’s say if secessions never happened we would not have the examples cited – and the very word would not exist. The more accurate idea is that they do happen in eventual negotiations.

The illogic of Dr. Munzu’s position is the question of why LRC and Ambazonia would go to negotiations, one having objected to their dysfunctional union and the other having violently objected to federation, and that both voluntarily accept federation. So having explained how the international community would not help, the Federalists are now implying that the same international community will basically impose a federation!

The Federalist “upgrade” idea

The most recent effort and a more refined one came from Dr Ben Akih, who introduced himself as an Engineering professor from Syracuse University.

Drawing on his conjunction of political science “training” he emphasised how international law, and national law, forbade separation and rendered the restoration struggle futile…unless it is won in the war! Dismissing the prospect of winning, Dr Akih proceeded to outline a method for forcing “the government of LRC” to change. He actually described it as a way for the people to “defeat the government” lawfully.

On the way to that plan Dr Akih listed and condemned the various violations that French Cameroon had committed since the 1961 reunification:

< begin paraphrase>

  1. It is wrong to celebrate 20th May as a national holiday as it marks a constitutional violation of the federation of West Cameroon and East Cameroon.
  2. The referendum that changed the federation was unconstitutional as it violated articles of the federal Constitution.
  3. The Cameroon government is wrong to be enforcing a unitary state and calling it national unity. These are two different concepts… as, taking the example of the US, the the US is very much united around allegiance to the flag and yet functions as a federation so national unity is not about a unitary state, concepts which the francophone populations confuse.
  4. The manipulator is France, who set up the whole process by helping their collaborators appropriate, against their wishes [so much that East Cam PM Andre Marie Mbida resigned], the unification program/ideas of the UPC before “independence. [ France has a lot to lose as democracy in Cameroon could lead to similar in other French colonies, viz Chad, Mali, Togo …]

<end paraphrase>

Dr Akih missed out the first violation, namely not bothering to bring the treaty of union to either state assembly! That means the Federation did not exist and none of the other violations matter! Nor do any international law theories!

In any case Dr Akih, to his credit, does admit that winning the war would do!

With the lack of union treaty and the fact that LRC became independent in Jan 1960 and was a separate country for more than a year whereas Southern Cameroons was a separate independent [even if just technically] for months while the union treaty was meant to be concluded, international law would be hard pressed to enforce a union that never was as secession would not apply!

Here is Dr Akih’s plan for achieving federation in 2025!

<Begin paraphrase and comments>

 Why 2025? Well, the plan relies on everyone massively registering to vote and the introduction of polling so that “parties” can see from polls that Federation is the most popular option for the electorate! No explanation yet for why francophones, who [falsely] imagine themselves to be the beneficiaries of the unitary state… and are not used to the freedoms of thought that characterise Southern Cameroonians, would prefer federation. Well, the solution is that the margin between competing parties should be less than 20% as the Southern Cameroons electorate accounts for 20% in “the would-be federation” as that would demonstrate to the parties that they need to be federalists… Suspend disbelieve for once, that even in the more democratic countries parties have been known to ignore their manifestos after elections. OR that Elecam is supposed to organise the elections… Or even that all Southern Cameroonians [including Ambazonians] would want to vote in the “massive block”.

So, the LRC government, which Dr Akih says bans polls, will agree to legalise polls in time for 2025 and let Elecam run free elections so that they can lose…after fighting a genocidal war in the last six years! So why not just negotiate and leave out the war part?

Please maintain suspension of disbelief! There is a recourse for “if” it is “clear that the elections have been rigged”… say the Constitutional Council hears pleas and announces a result that “could be proved” to be contrary to the polls [prior polls, yes, those polls that everyone in the polling community always so do not guarantee the results!].

In Cameroons case the polls need to be believed, which we are as we are suspending disbelief so in the event on a rigged election result … “we should go out and fight” for the result in “massive protests”

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You couldn’t make it up!