IG President Marianta Njomia addressed Ambazonian citizens and other stakeholders on Friday 19^th May 2023, considering many of the current issues and ideas in circulation in the Ambazonian sphere.

She commended the resolve and determination of the Ambazonian Restoration Forces and Civilians on Ground zero, calling for the Diaspora to complement those Ground Zero efforts by making their own sacrifices in finance and other resources.

She acknowledged the efforts of many Diaspora Ambazonian stakeholders in sensitizing and discussing possible negotiation routes toward the resolution of the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle, routes which would carry the merit of saving lives. She urged Ambazonian stakeholders to have as wide a view as possible as she cautioned that every route out of the conflict that involved negotiation or other parties would depend on some action or agreement by LRC or her allies. Thus far, no signs have emerged that LRC would volunteer any such actions and, in fact, LRC’s previous limited and shy movements have all been prompted by the pain of the action that the ARF’s have produced.

This logic left only the one option for how Ambazonians should proceed, regardless of whether they hope for dialogue and negotiations or ground victory, as long as they wanted to achieve an independent state of Ambazonia and that is to “massively empower the ARF’s”.

The President pointed out that dialogue with La République du Cameroun has a big obstacle in the knowledge that La République du Cameroun prefers to talk in a perspective of “Anglophone Crisis” where the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle would be considered and treated as an internal conflict, whereas every Ambazonian group aims for Total and Unconditional Independence for Ambazonia. This obstacle dictates that “Action on the ground” has a more urgent role to play to shift LRC away from such a position. In that case, she asked, “Could the Resources being deployed to convene and run conferences to discuss negotiation strategies be more effective deployed on Ground Zero Empowerment?”

Below is a text of the address:

My dear distinguished Ambazonian brothers and sisters,

Patriots of our God ordained Ambazonian Liberation Struggle,

The Ambazonia Restoration Forces and all Ambazonian Liberation Fighters,

The Interim Government Cabinet, County Chairs and LGA Chairs,

Most reputable international socio-political exponents and institutions,

I greet you all in the name of our Ancestors and the Custodians of the Ambazonian Territory.

Tomorrow will be 20^th May 2023.

In Ambazonia there may be a few people attempting to persuade our citizens that they should march in commemoration of “unity” between the “neighbouring” people of the Former UN Trust Territory of French Cameroon and we The people of Former UN Trust Territory of British Southern Cameroons.

Let me resound this once again that LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN gained her independence on 1^st January 1960 from France and acquired an internationally recognised boundary and territory with the name “La République du Cameroun” and membership of the UN.

For over a year after LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN was established, British Southern Cameroons, now Ambazonia, was negotiating her own independence modalities with various international partners and holding a vibrant and informed debate on the territory. There were views expressed on the nature of the Association with La République du Cameroun including a range from “loose federation” verging on a confederation to “reunification”, though both ends of the spectrum remained based on a federation.

History lead to the Federal Republic of Cameroon in 1961 on the basis of two states of equal status,  the equal status being deliberately safeguarded due to the known imbalance in terms of demography and geography of the two states.

A succession of subsequent acts, which have since been established to be illegal, were perpetuated by the East Cameroon dominated government and eventually resulted in La Republic du Cameroun being reasserted in 1984. The rights or wrongs of those acts notwithstanding, the effect was to revive the two pre-plebiscite states. Recall that La République du Cameroun was a recognised UN member with a defined territory and international borders.  This revival of La Republique du Cameroun was judged in the Bamenda High Court ruling HCB 28/92 as a secession from the “Union” whose effect was to reassert the sovereignty and territory of British Southern Cameroons, called Ambazonia. The legal inference and written article of the judgement included the conclusion that La Republique was illegally and forcibly occupying Southern Cameroons. To date that rulling and all its conclusions have not been called into question or challenged.

LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN’s military and administrative presence in Ambazonia has therefore been an illegal INVASION since 1961.

The discussion on this legal background explains why the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle can not be solved unilaterally within La République du Cameroun. 

We Thank the all Ambazonian Restoration Forces and fighters, members of civil society and all civilians on ground zero for their resilience over the past seven years and beyond. 

My mami and my papa them, I salute wona all. I thank wona for wona perseverance and tie heart for this time wey LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN di burn wona houses them, kill weer pickin them. Wona don show them say Ambazonia na we own country wey we go do weti wey ee correct for we and we pickin them. I di thank all for how wey  wona don respect this first day for lockdown this 20^th May

As LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN prepare to rub our noses in it again on 20th May we continue to shun and reject this grotesque charade. Dancing on graves has never been more literal!

Our outrage and grief are huge and well known even if we limit our view to the current round of crises.

We, all the Ambazonians need to own the sovereignty that HCB28/92 established in the restoration of our statehood. Yes, we own the right to our existence, inheritance, and destiny; The right to our external self-determination as a people.

While the best peace through justice solution to the Struggle would be a negotiated political settlement with LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, we must be clear that it is no longer possible to address the root causes, never mind solve it unilaterally within LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.  It is understood that LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN still hangs on to the hope that the Struggle is an “Anglophone Crisis” and that explains their inconsistent diplomacy in flip-flopping on negotiations and burning bridges on at least the lst two attempts by international partners, viz Switzerland and Canada.

LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN is an external state as per the 1^st January 1960 borders and territory and therefore does not dispose of the sovereignty to “grant” a “special status” or “administer” any part of Ambazonia without the consent of us, the people of Ambazonia, who hereby notify the international community and the UN that our consent has been actively withdrawn through our people’s resolute observance of abstention from LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN control through the seven years + of  regular Monday ghost towns -“country Sundays” throughout the Ambazonian territory and other spontaneous instances, to withdraw our consent variously for “11^th February” and “20^th May” celebrations on our streets or anywhere on our territory.

We have further resolved to assert our dignity and sovereignty through our own community schools and education and call on the international community to help our citizens to activate their decolonisation and self-determination by running our own education system to ensure the development of our children and future generations, without the control of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.

“To you the people of Ambazonia”

As a peace-loving people we look forward to a future where we are able to co-exists as neighbours in our two distinct sovereign states of Ambazonia and LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, with the acceptance that we do not have to be in the same state be it unitary or federal. We are very confident that our people would overwhelmingly choose to chart our own path if the international community would seek our sovereign voice, the WILL of the Ambazonian people, in a vote, say in a future referendum. We believe that such a vote could save a lot of lives and livelihoods but we have proved that we are not just relying on the legal righteousness of our cause but will keep mobilizing our people to exercise our right to self-defence. We firmly hold the moral high ground.

Our forefathers had good faith and sought to live with a “brother” people. They were not mistaken, as we have established that there was informed debate about how the “Federation” would play out, nor, therefore, were they unaware! It was the “brothers” duplicity that crashed the federation and left the relationship in ruins.

Even so, having learnt from the errors of the past, we propose to take our destiny and future into our own hands with new hope and excitement at forging our own future, drawing the benefits of our own effort and mitigating the pitfalls of our mistakes.

In either case, our growth is our prerogative.

To the diaspora…

It is clear that LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN is not seeking to negotiate anytime soon, as it is clear that they would have to first accept us a separate legal state due to their own secession in 1984 as per HCB 28/92. Regardless of our good intentions in seeking a negotiation we must be realistic that a negotiation is very unlikely in the present circumstances as LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN would have to own up and negotiate from a 1960-61 perspective, when we were separate international entities.

We commend the new found urge to hold conferences and we urge our compatriots of fellow stakeholders to have a wider outlook in all their deliberations in these conferences. Better still we should think long and hard about the resources we are deploying to organise and run these multiple conferences with redundant subjects and consider how much more effective they would be if deployed on the ground.

When it comes to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN we all know that their track record means they have nothing to offer our people except marginalisation, corruption, and bleak future with no prospect of socio-economic progression.

We must retain our openness to a sensible peace through justice solution to end the war with a sovereign Ambazonia, but we must be aware that we need a strong position and that this position could be made even stronger and better, but it is not as bad as some would make-believe in the mistaken and futile effort to lure us back to servitude in a corrupt LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN. Our people are the ones who need to live those lives!

Our position is certainly not so bad that we would revert to the erstwhile posture of second-class citizens.

We must commend our effort and resolve in the last 7 years as they have lead to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN tentatively consenting to steps to solve the Struggle through dialogue and negotiation. First they tried the Swiss process even though they were not convinced our cohesion would hold, hoping instead that the talk of dialogue would divert our attention from the ground action and dissipate the momentum of our RF’s and civilians. That did not work out for them as they continued to suffer and feel the pain of our efforts.

They tried terminating the Swiss process, probably after concluding that the effect of it was rather to maintain some level of communication and collaboration among our various groups and show up their [LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN’s] unreliability as a diplomatic partner.

They then tried one last bid in the Canadian Pre-talks, this time sending actual representatives who only managed to betray their expectation and hope that our cohesion would not hold.

Ironically, we benefitted from a combination of the COHESION of our participating stakeholders in Canada AND the CONSISTENCY of both those participating stakeholders and more distant stakeholders as both continued to make the single and simply point that they were focused on the Total and Unconditional Independence of Ambazonia. The attempted divide and rule had once again only demonstrated the collective, even if separate resolve of our diverse Independentist Groups. Our Ambazonian Liberation Struggle proved itself, once again to be God-ordained!

When LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN gave up again frustration, this time setting fire to diplomatic bridges in public, a wider range of international partners must have realised that their route to solving the conflict and security in the Gulf of Guinea lies in relying on the Ambazonian side. To be fair to LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, they have been clear throughout that they preferred any dialogue to be an extension of their infamous “Grand National Dialogue”, or more simply, that the Ambazonia Liberation Struggle should be cast as an internal crisis within LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.

In all these aborted attempts it is important to realise we cannot overstate the importance of the resilience and firm resolve of our ARFs and civilians as they continued to hold the fort where it mattered the most. We keep saying 21 gun salute until it sounds cliched but we must take this opportunity to underline, if they did not know it, that they are literally bearing our homeland with their blood and determination. We must find a way to say more than 21 gun salute. Maybe that way is to stop saying and do with our complementary commitment – make our financial commitment more reliable so that we can complement this colossal effort of our RFs and civilians in the face of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN military’s intimidation.

We should now consider why, apart from the option of review of the failed UN decolonisation process of the Southern Cameroons, 3 most significant options through which the Ambazonian Liberation Struggle would end in our favour.

1. LITIGATION: We could win a case in the international court of justice – on the basis of the various and numerous breaches by LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN since our fore-fathers took the leap of faith to throw in their lot with LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN.

2. REFERENDUM: We could win a referendum – the international community could supervise a referendum, which we are confident we would win. This option would appear to be much-talked about as international partners continue to make up their minds on the evidence of LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN’s behaviour in the diplomatic arena.

3. RESISTANCE non-stop: We could intensify our effort on the ground and compel LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN to admit defeat and withdraw (hence self-decolonisation) or agree to either the LITIGATION or REFERENDUM options.

The resistance option, unlike the litigation and referendum options, depends solely on us and is an indispensable catalyst to the Arbitration and Referendum options

The IG there recognizes all three potential options but reiterates the DUAL strength of the Resistance option, as both a solution option to end the war and an indispensable catalyst for adoption of the other two options – Litigation and Referendum.

The IG will prioritize on RESISTANCE as the most determinant solution option per our FUND-FIGHT-FREE vision rather than over preaching on solution options that might rather delay our journey to Buea or nurse false hopes that the war has come to an end, hence detailing our commitment to be CONSISTRENTLY resourceful towards sustaining the RESISTANCE until external self-determination is attained.

We have a very small extra step to take, but time is of the essence, and we must take it.

It is our duty to empower our RFs and civilians to actualise our dignity and sovereignty by decolonising not only education as they are through Community Education and other sectors but increase our economic independence by abstaining from LA RÉPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN control in many more ways.

International partners must be clear that we are ready to go for it alone.

The Most High God be The Watchman of Ambazonia

Short live the Ambazonian Liberation War

Long live the Interim Government

Longest live the Federal Republic of Ambazonia