2025 Presidential election: Ace Cameroonian Conflictologist, Robert Ngangue, launches nationwide non-violence campaign.

In the article, the ace Conflictologist who is now working for peace and conflict prevention in Cameroon, detailed the objective and necessity of the campaign while underscoring the urgent need for peace in the Cameroon in 2025. 

The 5-month campaign will unfold under the theme: “Give Peace a Chance”. Ngangue revealed that it will run from July 7 to December 10, 2025.

Ngangue said the campaign would rally a network of actors, institutions, leaders and peace-loving Cameroonian citizens with goal of ensuring non-violence throughout the electoral period. Read the full text of Ngangue’s article below.

After almost 20 years of calm, the world is once again witnessing a proliferation of conflicts stemming from declining multilateralism, unconstitutional government changes, controversial elections, poor governance, deadlocked political changeovers and long-contained community, political and social tensions. 

This resurgence of conflict has mainly affected Africa and the Middle East, although other regions have also been affected. 

In Africa, and Cameroon in particular, there are a considerable number of low-intensity, intractable conflicts that are liable to degenerate into hotbeds of tension and violence with major regional and international ramifications.

In Cameroon, the self-satisfied and self-sufficient discourse of the ruling class contrasts with the gloomy picture painted by opposition leaders. It is in this climate of mutual distrust and intolerance, of strong polarisation, of well-oiled disinformation campaigns between major political players and of verbal and often institutional violence, that the forthcoming elections are taking shape.

The majority of elections held throughout the world are positive expressions of the will of peoples to freely choose their leaders. In normal situations, they can be a unifying factor, consolidating peace and development gains. 

In certain circumstances, on the other hand, elections run the risk of becoming a factor of division and destabilisation, or even violence, as seen recently in Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya. 

This risk is particularly high in countries marked by structural and systemic grievances that are slow to be resolved or are worsening, combined with a one-sided conception of political competition.

The seduction of the electorate by aspirants to the supreme magistracy generally results in great popular effervescence, a hardening of the administrative action in charge of supervising the electoral process, a crystallisation of resentments, anger, frustrations and injustices long contained, whose deviations could undermine the aspirations for peace and post-electoral institutional stability for the silent majority.

Faced with the magnitude of such a potentially devastating volcano fuelled by a cocktail of conflict-generating conflagrations, there is an urgent need to restore crumpled confidence, to break the springs of grievance underlying this rising discontent and to mitigate the possible risks of electoral and post-electoral violence in Cameroon. 

The aim here is to prevent the despair of social strata crushed by growing poverty, and of a massively unemployed youth, from taking advantage of the popular effervescence of the electoral jousts to fertilise social explosions that are unimaginable today.

At a time when dialogue, tolerance and trust are crumbling, and administrative, political and community players are struggling to draw red lines that must not be crossed in terms of language, attitudes and behaviour, it is becoming imperative to stand up and take action to put peace, mutual acceptance and tolerance, the overcoming of divisions, dialogue and civic diplomacy back at the heart of human and political-social interactions in order to prevent things from getting out of hand. 

This is the ambition behind this urgent call for peace in 2025 in Cameroon, which will result in the organisation of a national campaign for non-violence during the 2025 electoral period. This campaign will run for 5 months, from 7 July to 10 December 2025, on the theme ‘Give Peace a Chance’.

Without being alarmist or catastrophic, this campaign marks the commitment and rallying of a network of actors, institutions, leaders and peace-loving Cameroonian citizens for the ‘House of Cameroon’, convinced that peace is not just a slogan, that it cannot be decreed but actively built with method, rigour, constancy, tolerance, lucidity and humanity. 

These weavers (Bidar, 2018) of peace and non-violence are fully aware of the serious consequences of war for the economy, the people, the social fabric, the institutions and the progress/development of Cameroon.

They want to put ontological awareness back at the heart of daily nourishing links, so that every Cameroonian, according to his or her level, status and means, celebrates overcoming divisions, living together, unity, solidarity and tolerance, and calls for dialogue rather than violence as a means of expressing indignation or aspiring to a more prosperous Cameroon. Peace is a national public good. There can be no progress for peoples and even less sustainable development in chaos and anarchy.

The world's governments allocate colossal budgets to support defence and security operations. It is time to act upstream of conflicts and invest in peace, tolerance and dialogue to prevent future violence and save Cameroon from a potential conflagration.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3492 of Thursday July 03, 2025