Chronicles of the Anglophone Problem: Biya Continues His March of Folly, Makes Manyu Ground Zero in His War Against Anglophones

This week it became clear that 85 year-old President Biya has a death wish. It appears that he and the diabolical old men around him (Cavaye, 77; Niat, 83; Esso, 75; Musonge, 75; Yang, 70, etc), have become metaphorical vampires who have decided to sacrifice the blood of young people on the altar of power, intransigence, and political inflexibility. Biya’s march of folly has taken him straight to Manyu, which might well be the Waterloo of his regime.

Manyu county/division is a difficult place for any occupation force. Manyu is arguably the intellectual power house of Southern Cameroon. The Manyu and Akwaya peoples are also fighters and survivors. Unlike other Southern Cameroonians, the people of Manyu are politically diverse. Manyu is the home of two towering men at the center of the Anglophone uprising: Barrister Nkongo Felix Agbor-Balla, leader of the banned Consortium of Anglophone Civil Society, who was jailed for 7 months by a regime that has no notion of human rights, and Julius Ayuk Tabe, President of the self-styled Federal Republic of Ambazonia, which symbolically declared its independence on October 1, 2017 amid much bloodshed. A third person, or rather group of persons from Manyu who complete the picture of political diversity of the county is the CPDM block led by Chief, Senator Ndieb-Nso George Tabetando, Senator Simon Anja, MP Susan Okpu, MP Elias Igelle, and Minister Victor Mengot.

The Manyu were the first to put up resistance against the occupation forces of la République du Cameroun in October 2017. When Biya declared war on Anglophones on November 30, 2017, Manyu was the first target of his military action. When the unelected, colonial prefect, Oum II Joseph committed a crime against humanity by expelling poor, powerless, men, women and children en masse from 15 villages in Akwaya, Eyumojock, and Mamfe into the forest, everyone expect a reaction from the Manyu elements in the halls of power. Chief Tabetando and his CPDM became as silent as the grave to which their people are being consigned on a daily basis. Did Tabetando and his colleagues lose their nerve and their tongues? They did not lift a finger to protest the deportation and slaughter of their people, a clear crime against humanity. The silence of all the vibrant Manyu cultural associations in Cameroon is also deafening indeed!

Nevertheless, the Manyu youth on the ground have shown that they are the fighters we thought they were. While Biya’s army, paramilitary gendarmerie, and police have tortured, killed, raped, maimed and imprisoned hundreds of Anglophones for simply and peacefully calling for change, his war against Anglophones has not turned out to be a walk in the park as his warmongering tribesmen and women had expected. The casualties sustained in Manyu are rising dangerously high. In the last three weeks, the army and gendarmerie have lost an average of eight dead and several wounded per week. No army can sustain those kinds of losses. It is only a matter of time before Biya runs out of money to fund the expensive military occupation–and buy caskets. Biya has to continuously buy over-priced military hardware from France. Actually, the son of Manyu who has been put in charge of the suppression and elimination of his people, General Daniel Elokobi, is in France begging for lethal military supplies. Biya will also go to France next week, cap in hand, begging President Macron for money to buy weapons and feed his occupation forces. Will Macron do what his predecessors did and throw Biya a financial and military lifeline to massacre Anglophones?

A Burkinabé proverb states, “ the abuse of power wears out power, abuse of force transforms the abuser into a spent force.” The Anglophone is first and foremost a political problem. Only a damned fool thinks it can be solved militarily.
In the meantime, there are signs that this armed resistance is spreading to Kumba. Before two long, it will reach the Northwest, and its clans of fearless warriors. I am thinking specifically of Nso, in Bui county/division, home of fiery MP. Joseph Wirba. The Anglophone uprising is not going away. It has now taken center stage in the Cameroon Parliament, the Senate and the media. As I predicted, the Anglophone problem will bring down Biya’s government. The man is not aware that he is sleep-walking on an active volcanic crater. Don’t wake him up, please.