Digest the Six Months Coffin Revolution in Cameroon 

It has been a while since we have been in this social prison called Cameroon. I allow myself to borrow from Prof Nche Zama of Harvard cardiology department. When we spoke on a bugged line towards the end of March 2017 Zama described Cameroon as a SOCIAL PRISON where one part of the country was forced into medieval times.

The Anglophone part of Cameroon, made up of the North West and South West regions had been wiped out of the Cameroon map with internet and the state of law collapsing completely. I ventured to rejoice that truly Biya had confirmed his 1984 secession from the United Republic of Cameroon by suspending basic social services to the Bamenda and South West peoples.

One must congratulate the fortitude, orderliness of these peoples once loosely called enemies in the house and les Bamendas. For half a year, these people suffered so much privations and excess human rights abuses in the hands of their supposed Francophone brothers.

For the first time in the history of mankind, without any visible leadership, a group of people peacefully held to their opinions and waited for their oppressor to back down. The reestablishment of the internet in this part of the world by the dictatorial regime in Yaounde is not because of any dialogue, but because of the victory of a people, the triumph of good over evil.

I hear the people saying even with the internet back they will continue their peaceful revolution or COFFIN revolution till they obtain independence.

They quickly conclude that the oppressor must realize he could not ride against a divine tide and remain standing up. The divine tide blowing from Bimbia to Bamenda, Kumba to Kumbo has gathered strength such that anyone standing in its way would be sucked into a cosmic vortex.

At the beginning of the movement towards the affirmation of Anglophone autonomy, many leaders came to the scene. Collective leadership was bestowed in the Consortium and associations of lawyers and teachers. I surmised in late November 2016 that these collectives would soon become irrelevant as they were articulating basically the aspirations of their professional corps not what the people wanted.

My friend Gideon F. For-mukwai was so disappointed with my conclusion. He insisted to know why I arrived that conclusion and my inspiration. The knowingness or godliness in us makes us to grasp material beyond the sensual. Calmly and dispassionately analyzing material gives us a prophetic perspective to issues. Our ability to stand only for the truth makes us to say only what would be.

Today, with all the gags and censorship, may the oppressor realize that even without firing a single bullet the oppressed Bamenda people would achieve freedom, and if forced would do it the way most nations in the world have done. Freedom is not free. Freedom is not negotiated. Freedom is seized.

In the category of leaders, I was patient to meet a cross section of politicians in January 2017 to know how their heartbeats ticked in the prevailing unrest in West Cameroon. I met Ni John Fru Ndi who then stood for a unitary system, Ni Ben Muna standing for Federalism and Hon. Joseph Wirba standing for firm federalism bordering on quasi independence.

I met Ni John Fru Ndi one day after he appointed a Francophone Bamileke as the Secretary General of the Social Democratic Front (SDF). A comrade of the chairman resident in London called him in my presence and described Fru Ndi as a traitor. After pouring lots of insults on the sympathizer in London, chairman Fru Ndi turned and said, "When the teachers come to me I receive and support them. When the lawyers come to me I also receive and advice them. I am with the Anglophones, but they must realize it would not be an easy march to freedom. When I launched the SDF more than 25 years ago, I never guessed it was going to last this long without me sending Biya away. The Anglophones do not know how long they would be fighting for independence. I wish to provide them a bridge to their Bamilike brothers who might suspend their financial support to me branding me as a secessionist. If I made that error, Maurice Kamto would recuperate all my support from the Bamilike business magnates. After all, most of these people gave me the victory in the 1992 presidential elections." Fru Ndi concluded.

The same evening I went to the residence of Hon. Joseph Wirba in Nkwen. Understandably, he was edgy receiving us. That was the first time he was meeting us and we were escorted to him by somebody he had known only by phone. Hon. Wirba was just in from Kumbo where a mammoth crowd came out to receive him and cheer him up with his resist movement. He was preparing to be in Kumba over the weekend when Cameroon government decided to ban all his meetings.

Wirba told us he was not talking about outright independence or secession because the many Western diplomats supporting him were not comfortable being branded as supporters of secessionist organizations. Wirba said he was for a sort of federalism with watertight laws which was some form of quasi independence. He challenged my friends and myself to put money on the table to galvanize him to deliver victory to the Anglophones.

In all my campaigns to stop Herakles Farms from grabbing Southern Cameroons lands in Mundemba, Toko and Nguti, I never chided the natives to put money on the table for me to send away Herakles Farms. Not even in Banja did I receive money from the Mbororo to safeguard them on their land.

Wirba sounded to me like lacking in modesty. " I am annoyed with all those who live abroad and want to tell us how to do things in Cameroon. My grandfather said 'do not stand on a hill and point to a land saying that is my land. Go and till the land and everybody would know that is your land.' I am here in Cameroon tilling and people want to give me orders from abroad." Said Wirba.

Wirba refused to give us a spot in his Kumba Resist Rally only insisting he needed our financial support.

Ni Ben Muna said as a Pan Africanist he believed in a strong federal system. He opposed independence totally.

Now that the government of Cameroun republic refuses to discuss the federal aspirations of a few, where do these leaders stand. According to Wirba, he sensed that the people would rise up in March and prevent the so-called West Cameroon parliamentarians from going back to Yaounde. At such a zero point, the Cameroun republic would turn around and ask him to propose his type of Federalism.Then he would tell them power now belonged to the people who would all be clamouring for independence.

I do not know whether to think of Wirba as being naive or too optimistic about the gentle-manliness of a people who have raped the Anglophone repeatedly for 56 years and are bent on going on if we do not break their backs. Wirba also believed he was untouchable with his parliamentary immunity. Cameroun is a curious country where no laws are respected. Federalism depends on laws, and a country which treats the supreme law of the land as a blemish on toilet tissue could not be trusted to live in a federal arrangement.

The way the ghost towns and orders have been respected across West Cameroon for many months without anybody policing the streets clearly portray the Anglophone as law abiding and a people ready to obey orders. These are a people ripe to have their own nation as they have a common aspiration, that to see a law abiding prosperous West Cameroon.

From the comfort of Wirba's exile in the Western hemisphere, would he watch us plow our vineyard in West Cameroon without protesting at some of our actions? Hopefully he would gather enough money to put on the table for us to continue clearing this vineyard. It would be edifying for Wirba to realize Cameroon is an unpredictable jungle.

Fru Ndi has been very angry with Hon. Wirba who was so sure of himself and despised party discipline to make personal declarations. Was Fru Ndi right in disowning his own Wirba in a Press statement? Politicians are like dogs which could eat one another. From exile, Wirba reacted to Fru Ndi's disavowal. Wirba's tone presented him as a calm person and not the rabble rouser we saw and heard at the national assembly of the Cameroun Republic. In his response, Wirba sounded presidential and forced Fru Ndi to be reeling from his wrong statement.

It is difficult to recapture everything after so much stress and movement to ensure the release of West Cameroonians kidnapped from across the country and taken to Yaounde.

Njousi David Njousi Abang , a calm voice of the peaceful revolution was picked up on the streets of Buea and taken to Yaounde. After two months there he was brought back to Buea under the cover of darkness and detained at the Buea prison without a charge. Many have died and some are still unaccounted for.

Did the government of the Cameroun Republic need to treat a sister nation like enemies? Charges of terrorism, secession and so on simply fall flat on the face because in more than 4 months no evidence was brought up to support these charges. A simple problem which should be solved in timely manner with an executive order is allowed to fester creating ten more problems. Of all the claims of the Anglophones, none is so outrageous that an executive order would not solve. See where we are today. Nothing would ever be the same again in Cameroon.

An examination of the actions taken by government to resolve the Anglophone problem would be next. Hoping that the frightened autocrats and sycophants would not come for a pound of my flesh, we shall be proposing genuine solutions in subsequent submissions.

Fon Christopher Achobang
Social Commentator, Human rights activist
The Cameroons