Southern Cameroon’s ability to organize is a superpower when it successfully brings all parties together to fight a common cause. Its debilitating handicap, on the other hand, is when different factions stand in the way of reaching consensus.
In 2019, I received a summons from the richest man in my neighbourhood in Bamenda, located in north-western Cameroon. My neighbour had observed that the paved backstreet we used to get to our homes needed repair; so, he sent hand-written invitations to those in the area requesting their presence at the eldest neighbour’s compound.
As the biggest donor to the same road project twenty years earlier, he felt responsible for organizing the repairs. Ultimately, when he completed ‘his road’, he promptly built a gate at the entrance to control how people went into and out of the main street.
The saddest part about this anecdote is that this man has worked for international organizations, including the United Nations, and represents what can best be described as ‘Southern Cameroonian’ or ‘Anglophone elite’. These individuals form the foundation to represent the interests of Cameroon’s Anglophone people at the international level, owing to their global connections and experience.
This is not an isolated case. It is, in fact, an origin story; the tale of how Southern Cameroonian leaders continue to betray a system that has educated, shaped and transformed them into fierce militants who fight for democracy, in theory, yet forget that inclusion and compromise are the basic traits of any functional system.
When my rich neighbour summoned us to talk about the road, it wasn’t exactly a novel idea. That’s what Southern Cameroonians do. They argue, they organize, and they try to fix their problems collectively. That’s why there is war in the first place: because the Cameroonian government will not let them organize and fix the many problems they encounter in their schools, courts and public institutions.
What you’ll find among Southern Cameroonians is that they are always part of a group. Too many groups. It takes very little for a set of people playing soccer to register an association and find an excuse to drink until dawn while building a financial scheme on the side. There are countless NGOs between the areas of Buea and Bamenda trying to tackle one social issue or another or fronting a cause to attract funding. It took mere months for Southern Cameroonians in the diaspora to establish an Interim Government, complete with state insignia and foreign emissaries, and less than a year to have these same folks falling over each other to set up competing factions. These divisions undermined the efforts that many had spent small fortunes to build.
The Cameroonian government – led by authoritarian president Paul Biya since 1982 – sensed the momentum and acted decisively to abduct the leaders of the Interim Government from Nigeria in early January 2018. That Interim Government might have had its issues, but at least it had some respected professionals. Above all, it earned a mandate when it encouraged thousands of people in the Southern Cameroons to show up for a massive peaceful march on September 22, 2017.
Technology and social media have accelerated the ability to organize at the grassroots level. Because Southern Cameroonians are so good at bringing people together, it is easy to grow small, but very effective groups, that sadly end up sowing discord. These feuds – some of them petty and embarrassing – have meant there is no leader who can represent a common synthesis of Southern Cameroonian thought and grievances. Anxious over the chaos, rational and pragmatic voices have instead retreated to grumble on the sidelines. In turn, not having respectable figureheads confuses allies and undermines legitimate political grievances that have cost so many lives on the ground.
There is also a class problem among this elite who believe that they know better than those they represent. Those who climb into the castle, vowing to destroy the oppressive architecture, end up fortifying its walls.
The so-called ‘Monday Ghost Towns’, which have occurred since 2017 in Southern Cameroons, are the movement’s biggest success for a reason: these actions are less costly on the population, enjoy widespread support among the Southern Cameroonian leadership, and, most importantly, have no reputational cost on the fragile egos of its leaders.
The ongoing armed struggle follows the same grouping phenomenon prevalent in Southern Cameroonian society. When citizens picked up arms in 2017, they organized themselves along ethnic, tribal, district and philosophical lines. Many who opted to join the struggle went to their villages where they understood and spoke the local language. Others went where they felt most welcome.
The lack of a central command among these armed groups imitates the same advantages and disadvantages in the political space. It is hard to decipher their strategy, co-opt all of their leaders, or find the resources to launch a sustained attack against different militia on different turfs. On the other hand, it is also difficult for separatist fighters to formulate a coordinated strategy that overrides their many divisions. Wash, rinse, repeat.
To be sure, there has been a drive to build alliances between Southern Cameroons’ armed separatists and political leaders since 2021. Its success or failure will deeply influence the way the broader movement for freedom relates with the all-important diaspora. It will also change the way they get funded and how they strategize. Already, some separatists are trying to clean their images and mend relationships with the locals they have injured.
The Biden administration’s decision last week to grant Temporary Protected Status to Cameroonians living in the U.S. is Southern Cameroon’s biggest diplomatic victory so far, and proof that a lot can be achieved through sustained peaceful engagement and advocacy.
Meanwhile, back home, innocent civilians remain at the mercy of both the Cameroon military and separatist fighters. As for my rich former neighbour, he is still bitter that those who use the road into his backstreet do not properly appreciate his sacrifice. His neighbours think he is arrogant. And everyone seems to agree that the gate he built to prove his point is a nuisance to everyone, including himself.
Tony Vinyoh is a Southern Cameroonian writer with numerous by-lines in a range of international and local media outlets, including for the BBC and Fodor’s Travel.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Vanguard Africa, the Vanguard Africa Foundation, or its staff.