The great betrayal Anglophone elite.

When the Anglophone crisis erupted in 2016, our people were killed, displaced, and dispossessed; our towns burned, our schools shut, our livelihoods destroyed. 

In those dark years, these same elite were silent. They chose complicity over conscience. What moral authority do they now have to plead for peace, when for nearly a decade they’ve watched our suffering without intervening?

It is particularly grotesque to hear them preach calm while standing upon the ashes of their betrayal. ELECAM and the Constitutional Council, both discredited institutions featuring disgracefully disappointing Anglophone appointees, sat idly by as the CPDM staged its audacious electoral theft. 

How dare these same individuals, beneficiaries of a fraudulent system, now ask the victims of that fraud to exercise restraint?

Paul Biya did not win the October 12 presidential election. These opportunists, unable to survive without his shadow, have used pliant Anglophone stooges to pacify dissent and legitimise a decomposing regime that has condemned Cameroon to forty-three years of moribund governance and political rot.

When the people rejected Biya and his party, the CPDM resorted to its usual electoral crime spree to falsify the results that Issa Tchiroma Bakary won. 

Then, they recycled Biya’s 40-year-old photographs to sustain the illusion of his vitality. Since his so-called “victory,” he has vanished from public view, hidden behind curtains of mystery. 

Perhaps he is too frail to appear, or too embarrassed by the flagrancy of the electoral theft committed in his name, when he would have chosen retirement. Or perhaps, he is simply unaware that he has been “re-elected” at all.

This grotesque charade raises a fundamental question: how utterly corrupt must one be to endorse so brazen a fraud? 

How can ministers, chiefs, and self-styled elite - the beneficiaries of a rejected system, justify their loyalty to a ruler who has brought a once-promising nation to ruin?

From Ahmadou Ahidjo, Biya inherited a prosperous and peaceful country- one sustained by thriving public enterprises such as ALUBASSA, CAMSUCO, CHOCOCAM, CAMSHIP, CAMAIR, SOTUC, SONEL, CAMWATER, and CAMRAIL, among others. 

Within two years of his reign, decay began. One by one, these industries were sold off to shadowy private hands; billions in assets vanished into offshore accounts. Under the CPDM, corruption became governance itself. Embezzlement was institutionalised. 

Public office became a marketplace for the CPDM protégé’s personal enrichment. Ministers became fonctionnaire millionaires, who flaunted bulging bureaucratic briefcases stuffed with bribes as the state collapsed around them.

Among the worst offenders are our own Anglophone rent-seekers- ministerial men and women who traded their dignity for proximity to power. They sold their loyalty and their consciences to work for a regime that despises and marginalises their own people. 

For years, they ignored the cries of their communities, and now, without shame, they call for peace- oblivious to the fact that they are the very source of the anger and instability consuming our Regions.

Our traditional rulers- once the proud custodians of our culture, have desecrated their thrones by becoming servile sycophants to a government their people boldly rejected. 

They now have the temerity to beg for peace from an enraged population who feel cheated. Tell us then- what has Biya achieved in over four decades of misrule to win your unflinching loyalty? 

They’ve plundered our resources, such that Cameroon cannot boast of decent roads or functioning infrastructure. Biya’s record is forty-three years of monumental failure. He went cap in hand to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to resuscitate an ailing economy. 

Yet, after three decades of their intervention, Cameroon remains on the brink of collapse. According to Prof Julius Amin of the University of Ohio, “The 1994 devaluation of the CFA franc under his watch plunged millions into destitution. Corruption has since metastasised, placing Cameroon among the most corrupt nations on earth.”

Biya has circumvented multiparty democracy at will, repeatedly amending the constitution to tighten his grip on power, most notoriously in 2008, when he eliminated presidential term limits. 

In 1996, he signed a decentralisation decree to appease growing anger over excessive centralisation, but twenty-five years later, that promise remains unfulfilled. 

His 2017 creation of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism was another farce - billions squandered on an institution that has achieved nothing.

His Achilles heel remains the ongoing Anglophone crisis- a conflict born of arrogance and perpetuated by deceit. He has overstayed his term, clinging to power through manipulation and repression, while his cronies grow fat on the spoils of his tyranny.

If, as they claim, Anglophones voted massively for Paul Biya, then his enablers should summon their master to address the nation directly. 

Where is the President they insist we elected? Cameroonians are not fools to be pacified with billboards of forty-year-old photographs and hollow messages of gratitude. 

We refuse to be ruled by proxy. Leadership demands presence, accountability, and courage- not disappearance, denial, and decrepitude. 

If these Anglophone collaborators wish to persuade us, let their so-called leader appear before the nation and speak for himself.

This is not the path to peace, nor is it how the Anglophone crisis will be resolved. Cameroonians are not gullible dupes incapable of recognising deceit. 

If peace is truly desired, treat citizens as intelligent adults capable of reason. End the deceit. Reveal the truth. Present the leader you claim we chose. Most Anglophones, both at home and abroad, stand for truth, justice, and transparency. 

Yet, our representatives at ELECAM and the Constitutional Council remained silent as our votes were stolen. 

Their silence was betrayal; their complicity, unforgivable. When history presented the opportunity to dislodge a regime that has oppressed and marginalised us for decades, they chose instead to side with tyranny.

Shame on you- Anglophone ministers, chiefs, and self-anointed elite. Resign, if you still possess a shred of integrity. You have chosen cowardice over courage, indulgence over duty, privilege over patriotism. 

This nation will neither forget nor forgive your treachery. You and your descendants will bear the enduring shame of having extinguished the hopes of a people who longed only for justice and truth.

*Charles Mambo is a political analyst with a Master’s degree in International Relations & Politics from Keele University, UK. He is also a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, known for his critical engagement with national issues & his commitment to making Cameroon better