I have been off work for the past week and I commit my vacation to fight the Rwanda style genocide the secessionists are trying to import to our beautify Cameroon. As an Anglophone Cameroonian who sponsors more than six of my sisters' children in secondary and high schools, including two at the University of Buea, I am disgusted each time I receive a call from these kids, voicing frustration and disillusionment about their future. I say to myself; this could have been me, my life destroyed by callous internet secessionists, whose only objective is short-term fame. These young kids must now start school life far away in Douala and Nsuka Nigeria, and I am worried about their safety every day. As Anglophones, we must admit that our strategy to self-determination has been hijacked and contaminated with hate towards other Cameroonians by Ambazonia secessionist bigots, and this is not where we want to be.
Therefore, it is time to cut our losses and convince ourselves that we made a mistake in buying the divisive hate-mongering secessionist ideology. Furthermore, we must ensure that we do not prolong this error. As Cameroonians, our diversity is our greatest strength, and even though we hate the current bilingual arrangement that puts French over English administratively, we rather fight to fix the system than destroy lives with a cold-hearted separatist agenda.
Mao Tse Tung believed that without a political goal, revolutions like the one underway by the Anglophone secessionist movements must fail because the 'paper guerrillas' hiding in the diaspora lives off the masses and depends on them for support. As individuals start to realize that this caricature called Ambazonia is just propaganda, they will stop committing their limited resources to a failed cause. The losers will be poor students and pupils who might have lost one or two academic years. Some might not be able to return to school, because of loss of a sponsor, life changes such as pregnancy during the down time, and other unforeseen circumstances.
I have always argued that the attempts to assimilate the Anglophones by successive regimes in Cameroon will never work. If a government is to thrive, it cannot be built on the needs of only part of the nation; the other part will eventually rebel. The business of government is to govern; if the people lose respect for their government, it cannot govern effectively. Without a stable political process, a government will not be stable. Administrative officials must stop clapping their hands to the junta and start identifying sources of instability all over the country and help the regime alleviate those instabilities.
This is the 21st century, and it is not going to be business as usual. That is why, rather than hiring only transactional leaders who are ideal for working within the current parochial system and ultimately serve to preserve the status quo, it is time for the power in Yaounde to start infusing transformational leaders or those with both the vision and the ability to change the status quo. The almighty Chinese Communist Party recognized the challenges posed by the 21st century political and social environments and allowed transformers within its ranks.
If a bad government is an enemy of the people, secessionist and irredentist revolutionaries are a greater enemy. It will be foolish to believe that the secessionist forces are fighting for Anglophones. In fact, the secessionist and irredentist forces have no country or population to defend. They have turned themselves into rebels and can attack anything, anyone, anywhere, and anytime, while the government of the Republic must defend all things, everybody, everywhere, and all the times. Thus, the secessionist's use of the Anglophone vs., Francophone historic ties to gather support and spread propaganda will not lead the Anglophones anywhere. At the end of all these mantras, we must sit down as Cameroonians, irrespective of linguistic preference and start rebuilding our nation.
How can we sleep and close our eyes at night without seeing nightmares of the vulnerable kids we are tormenting at home, by promoting or even entertaining the callous secessionist agenda? If you forward any propaganda message from a secessionist aka Ambazonia, you are equally responsible for destroying the many young lives languishing in sorrow and confusion at home.
Most parents and family members of students who are suffering at home, while 90 percent of their fellows are advancing their lives in other parts of the country have become frustrated like me. The frustration inherent in the secessionist's policy of school boycott; a policy that has no yardsticks and thus, no way to measure progress. Without a reliable measure of success, it is only normal for every right-minded Anglophone Cameroonians to walk away from such callous decision. The school boycott is a measure of the failure of the poorly conceived secessionist claims, and do not be part of such destructive characters, whose grand aim is to create a Rwanda style genocide in Cameroon.
Do you ever ask yourself that to create their daydream Ambazonia state the secessionist rebels must ultimately defeat the government of the Republic of Cameroon militarily? If they are to present themselves to the Anglophone population as a legitimate government, they must win. This is never going to happen, and the devastating effects of such encounter are not something that any Cameroon wants to live and see. The secessionists are failing or have failed, and the costs to individual Anglophone families, and our national harmony are too high.
To be successful with the Anglophone public, the secessionists must state a good strategy on how they intend to dislodge power from the government of our beautiful country. If their only strategy is propagating a school boycott, then anyone believing or supporting them must question their sanity. I am afraid that singing 'Dimabola' Ambozonia, or holding our children hostage as a path to Ambazonia is plain stupidity. Even in the next 20 years, there will no Ambazonia, and who wants to bet that poor parents, students, and pupils will set aside their education and life for so long, because of some livid secessionist hanging out in the diaspora. The actions of the secessionists do not benefit but the Anglophone public, nor the country. Actions that do not benefit both societies can only be sustained for a short time, so the end of the secessionist agenda is nigh.
Augustine Enow Agbor
The outcome of my life is not more than three lines: I was a raw material I became mature and cooked And I was burned into nothingness. Rumi
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