Cameroon’s Anglophone War: Five Years, Five Years Too Many

by Akem Olives Nkwain*

Kah Walla, National President of Cameroon’s Peoples Party (CPP) has called on the rank and file of the country’s National Guard to press for a ceasefire in the ongoing armed conflict in the English-speaking parts of the country. She was speaking in a national address on October 1, 2021, the day of Cameroon’s 60 years of Reunification.

“Lead the army in a way that is befitting to the nation. As you do so, you must insist to your other political colleagues in government to put the political solutions to the [war] crisis in motions,” she said

You know that the crisis cannot be solved militarily. Only dialogue, negotiation, reconciliation, and rebuilding will resolve it, she added.

According to CPP’s National President, it is time to end the overstretched Anglophone Crisis which has claimed over 5000 lives, displaced over 60.000 people both internally and externally, razed down 200 villages, disrupted the education of 1.000.000 children, and has brought about an economic meltdown in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

We are tired of burying our sons and daughters who are soldiers, we are tired of counting dead bodies on our streets, we are tired of sending our children to fight each other, we are tired of sowing hate, it is time to ceasefire, it is time to start talking, five years is five years too many, bemoaned Kah Walla.

The CPP’s National President’s address took many Cameroonians by surprise given that for the past 60 years, the event [reunification] has been silenced. It was only in 2016 at the dawn of the Anglophone Crisis that the event began to be much talked about, though dominantly in [Southern Cameroon] today’s Northwest and Southwest Regions.

Was the Reunification a mistake?

In the eloquent speech, Kah Walla retorted if the singular choice Cameroonians from Southern and East Cameroon made to come together as one nation was a mistake, despite differences in culture, language, and history.

Responding to the rhetoric, the CPP’s National President’s said the mistake was not in the reunification itself but in the system of governance that failed to take into consideration the special social, cultural, linguistic, and political needs of Southern Cameroonians [Anglophones].

“The mistake was in promising autonomy to regions in the 96 Constitution and never implementing it. The mistake was in never taking time to analyze what should we retain from the two educational and legal systems inherited from colonizers and what we should cast away to build systems that are uniquely Cameroonian,” she detailed.

How to get out of the mistake Kah Walla say’s throw the towel back to Cameroonians. “We must bring an end to this mistake. “We must bring an end to this [current] regime. 60 years later [we] Cameroonians are faced with our own choice. Either we stand and effect a political transition or continue to persist in the mistaking government that has led us to this catastrophic end,” she said.

Frantic Message to belligerents

The government must ceasefire. The first objective of community dialogue must be a ceasefire. The non-state armed groups are at the local level, it is imperative to hold a dialogue with them to determine the conditions for a ceasefire and a path to peace, said Kah Walla.

“Government fired the first bullet in this crisis; government must bring an end to the shooting! She insisted.

There is no Cameroon without Cameroonians, if you kill us all, there is no nation. There is no land without the people. The people first we say. The government must bring an end to the crisis, she said.

The military option to the crisis which many says has moved from a peaceful “protest to full-blown war has been condemned by all sundry, due to the many casualties recorded.

Agbor Balla Nkongho, Human Rights Lawyer in a tweet on October 1, 2021, said friends of Cameroon in the international community should be honest with Mr. Biya [President Paul Biya] to tell him that he cannot win the war. They should tell him [Mr. Biya] that the military solution cannot work.

“We need a political solution and not a military solution,” Mr. Agbor Balla emphasized.

Time for Evaluation

While there are widespread calls for a ceasefire yet to be yielded, the CPP’s National President says it is to reevaluate the motives of the war [crisis].

To the non-state armed groups, whatever your motivation was to take up arms, it is time to evaluate, she said frankly

“Today the Northwest and Southwest are regions where killings, rape, cutting up of limbs and kidnapping are the order of the day was that your intention,” she quizzed.

“No matter the good intentions it is [high] time we must look at the results. The armed conflict is not working! It is not working for the good of the civilians, in who name you say you are fighting for. Our lives are in shambles, some of us are dying. If you are truly fighting in our name, we say stop,” pressed Kah Walla.