12/07/2025
THE WAR THE WORLD PRETENDS DOESN’T EXIST… (The struggle of Cameroon)
September 2024.
Norwegian police arrest a man in Oslo.
His name is Ayabacho Lucas.
To most people, he is a nobody.
But to hundreds of thousands of people six thousand kilometers away, he is the political leader of a country that does not officially exist.
The self declared nation of Ambazonia.
The arrest should have made international headlines.
But It didn’t.
Because the war he has been fighting is one the world has chosen to ignore.
This is the story of Cameroon.
A nation once called Africa’s peace heaven.
A country praised for avoiding the tribal wars that destroyed its neighbors.
But today.
Peace is the last word anyone would use.
Although the rest of the world still pretends its not happening
But Every Monday, entire cities stop moving.
Shops close.
Roads empty.
Cars vanish.
Not because the government ordered it.
But because armed separatists enforce something called Ghost Town Monday.
Seven years and counting.
In the forests of northwest and southwest Cameroon, armed groups control territories.
They collect taxes.
They run checkpoints.
They enforce their own laws.
The government calls them terrorists.
They call themselves liberation fighters.
And caught between them are millions of ordinary people who just want to stay alive.
So how did a peaceful country like Cameroon collapse like this?
For that, we go back to a lie told sixty three years ago.
A lie about freedom.
A lie about choice.
A lie that shaped everything that followed.
This is the story of a nation collapsing.
And what happens when a people are denied their identity for six decades and expected to remain silent.
We go back to 1919.
World War One ends.
Germany loses.
But Germany had an African colony, called (Kamerun) Cameroon, and as a result of their loss
Its colony is about to become the spoil of victory.
So France takes eighty percent.
Britain takes twenty percent.
(Compasation defeating the Germans)
But Britain makes one decision that changes history.
It attaches southern Cameroons to Nigeria.
For the next forty five years, southern Cameroons grows under British law, British education, British institutional culture.
Meanwhile, French Cameroon grows completely differently.
French language.
French civil law.
French education.
Two populations side by side.
But Two completely different worlds.
Then comes 1961.
The United Nations steps in to decide the fate of southern Cameroons.
A referendum is organized.
But the people are not given independence as an option.
Thats where the problem lies…
They must choose between joining Nigeria or joining Cameroon.
Independence is removed from the ballot.
(The real colonial master rule)
So the vote is held.
Southern Cameroons chooses to join Cameroon.
That’s when real damage begins after the vote.
There was a Conference to organise the country
The Fumban Conference.
A meeting that was supposed to create a fair federal union for both side (English and French )
Instead, southern Cameroons meets a constitution already written by President a Northern Ahmadou Ahidjo.
No negotiation.
No treaty.
No equality.
The federal president controls everything.
Defense.
Foreign affairs.
Immigration.
Telecommunications.
The federal structure was supposed to protect anglophone institutions.
It survives eleven years.
Then in 1972, Ahidjo dissolves the federation with a referendum that produces a magical result.
Ninety nine point nine percent approval.
West Cameroon is broken into two provinces.
Governors are appointed from the capital.
The federal protections promised in 1961 are erased.
This is where the anglophone crisis begins.
Over the next four decades, every anglophone institution is weakened.
Civil law judges posted to common law courts.
Teachers who cannot speak English were sent to anglophone schools.
Anglophones blocked from top civil service positions.
Oil revenues taken from anglophone regions and redistributed elsewhere.
By 2016, frustration has become suffocation.
October 2016.
Common law lawyers march peacefully in Bamenda.
Their demands are simple.
Respect the common law.
Respect the constitution.
Respect the rights guaranteed since 1961.
Teachers join.
Students join.
Courts close.
Schools close.
The government does not negotiate.
It sends security forces.
People are shot.
People are killed.
Leaders are arrested and charged with terrorism.
The government shuts down internet access for the entire anglophone region for three months.
A whole population punished because they asked for respect.
By 2017, armed groups emerge.
The called themselves the Ambazonia Defense Forces.
The Southern Cameroons Defense Forces.
Local militias run by commanders who answer to nobody.
An independence movement is born out of repression.
The war becomes chaos.
The separatist leadership splits.
Three presidents claim authority.
Peace efforts fail.
Canada tries.
Switzerland tries.
The efforts collapse.
On the ground, both sides commit atrocities.
Villages burned.
Children killed.
Students murdered in classrooms.
Women assaulted.
Bodies left in the streets.
The economy collapses.
Banana production falls ninety five percent.
Palm production falls eighty three percent.
Hundreds of thousands lose their jobs.
Schools remain closed.
Six hundred thousand children out of school.
An entire generation grows up with broken education.
Displacement spreads.
Seven hundred thousand people flee their homes.
More than one hundred thousand refugees pour into Nigeria.
And the trauma will last decades.
The real question remains simple.
Can a union survive when one side never agreed to the terms honestly?
When the deal signed at independence was dismantled?
When the people who asked for reform were met with bullets?
The government says the nation must remain one.
The separatists say they are restoring a sovereignty stolen in 1961.
And millions of innocent people remain trapped between two fires, begging for a peace nobody is willing to give them.
So the final question is this:
After sixty three years of broken promises, will Cameroon ever heal?
Will the children of today grow up in a nation where they can attend school?
Where they can work on Mondays?
Where they can live without fear?
Or is this conflict destined to become another African tragedy that the world pretends not to see?
The answer is not clear.
A war faught in Europe over a century ago
a war that defeated Germany
reshaped the lives of millions living 6,000 miles away.
That decision carved up lands, erased identities, and treated Africa like a spoil of war
a prize to be handed over, not a people to be understood.
As an African child reading this, you must know your history.
Because knowing where you come from helps you chart where you go.
The story of Cameroon reminds us: the scars of other people’s wars can last generations but so can our resolve…
The question only remain, and I leave you to answer: what is the way forward for Cameroon ?
division, or a country where equality is real and every right is met?
Ifeanyi Christopher ©️
