Armed conflict in NW, SW: When freedom fighters' fight their people!.

But today, no articulate observer needs any empirical research to prove that the support has fizzled out like morning mist because most of the fighters, classified by the government as "terrorists", have made innocent civilians their targets.

Unarmed residents in North West and South West Regions, have borne the brunt of a brutal conflict pitting defence and security forces and armed separatist groups, with some reports putting the death toll at over 4,000 of an estimated total of 6,000 deaths so far.

The conflict has resulted in over 700,000 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, and roughly 60,000 refugees in Nigeria. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed or burned during military raids.

Separatist fighters have been targeting civilians they condemn as "black legs," whom they suspect of collaborating with the government.

They are enforcing "ghost towns", lockdowns, kidnapping for ransom, and attacking schools that defy boycotts.

Research on their atrocities has also indicated them targeting journalists, teachers, State authorities, traditional rulers, Men of God and CPDM politicians, as well as women who date uniform officers and parents whose children are security operatives.

There have been documented reports that "civilians live in constant fear...they face extortion, abduction, and the destruction of their livelihoods". 

But was the initial motivation to take up arms against the perceived cry of people of the North West and South West Regions, being treated as "second class citizens, two cubes of sugar or enemies in the house"?

Why have they violently deviated from a course, which was described by many, including some diplomats and friendly countries, as legitimate?

Many of those who initially supported and led the conflict thought it was going to be a quick fix. 

It was never to be, given that some Anglophones supported a Unitary State, while others opted for federation.

With the arrest of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his team and jailed for life in 2019, the separatist movement he led exploded into splinter groups.

History teaches that when a "revolution", as some of them called the conflict, is fragmented into multiple units with competing factions and internal discord over strategy, it turns to "...eat its children". 

It was a tragic pattern in the French Revolution's Reign of Terror and Stalin's purges, echoing the myth of the god of Saturn who devoured his offspring.

The conflict in Anglophone Regions, crisis, war or situation in the North West and South West Regions as it is variously termed, is in no way identical to the French revolution or Stalin's terror to govern the Soviet Union.

Separatists in their egoistic fragmentation have no stable source of finance. 

As Eleanor Beevor, senior analysts at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime said at a webinar: "For those diaspora members who wanted to support the Anglophone cause, whichever way they may have interpreted that, sending money and fundraising was one of the few ways that they felt able to engage in this...it didn’t take very long for Cameroonian security services to detect that these transfers were happening through regular money transfer services".

Those sources have been drastically blocked and separatist fighters are extorting civilians, imposing taxes and enforcing levy on farm produce like cocoa, and coffee.

They rape and commit all types of macabre crimes against Anglophones, in the name of fighting for independence. 

No, no and no! That is not a just course. It is not civilians who will give them independence on a platter of gold.

If in their skimpy minds they want to secede through the gun, they should face the defence and security forces, not civilians.

Separatists have a right to their point of view. They cannot and should not impose it on civilians.

Almost a decade in the asymmetric warfare, separatists are losing ground to the defence and security forces. 

Not surprisingly, some divisive politicians are using it as a tool to attempt to fabricate a division between people of the two Regions or reap from blood money.

The Guardian Post understands that many of the self-styled Amva "Generals" and their boys harassing unprotected civilians may be operating independently of their well-known separatist leaders like Chris Anu of Lebialem; Ikome Sako of Fako; "Martha Maranatha” of Ndian; or Ayaba Cho of Mezam, who is currently detained in Norway.

With limited money from the diaspora support, many of the fighters are doing so now just to fend for a bloody living with a predictable end from a military bullet.

But the diaspora can still have some influence over them, should call them to order and engage in Plan B - surrender or negotiate.

Honesty and facts indicate that Amba fighters are falling and fading out gradually, which could be an indefinite timeline, and need a new strategy to unite and lobby for dialogue, if surrendering could be too painful.

But while Amba Boys are blamed and castigated for the atrocities on civilians, with troops not completely exonerated, it is however no excuse for the government to abandon the people of the North West and South West Regions and their properties in the lurch to the mercy of separatist hooligans.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3680 of Wednesday January 21, 2026