AN OPEN MESSAGE TO PRIME MINISTER DION NGUTE: LET US STOP MANAGING THE ANGLOPHONE CRISIS AND START SOLVING IT!

AN OPEN MESSAGE TO PRIME MINISTER DION NGUTE: LET US STOP MANAGING THE ANGLOPHONE CRISIS AND START SOLVING IT!

Your Excellency, Mr. Prime Minister,

With profound respect for your office and genuine concern for our suffering people, I wish to share a few uncomfortable truths about the ongoing crisis in the North-West and South-West Regions.

First, community dialogue is a commendable initiative. Taking it to Buea and Bamenda is a positive step that deserves encouragement.

However, the reported exclusion of important local elites, political leaders, victims, and genuine stakeholders from the Buea meeting, coupled with the public spectacle surrounding the event, raises fundamental questions:

Do we truly understand the crisis we are trying to resolve? Are we deliberately avoiding its root causes? Have those entrusted with resolving it failed, or have some individuals developed political and financial interests in its continuation?

1. A PROBLEM PROPERLY DIAGNOSED IS A PROBLEM HALF SOLVED.

Your Excellency, the Anglophone crisis is not merely a breakdown of law and order. It is fundamentally a political and constitutional crisis touching on the very foundations of the Cameroonian state.

On one side are Anglophones demanding protection of their distinct educational, legal, and political institutions, with some advocating a return to a two-state federation and others demanding outright separation.

On the other side is the Government of Cameroon, determined to preserve national unity and territorial integrity.

These competing political positions are at the heart of the conflict.

How can we resolve a conflict if we refuse to acknowledge its protagonists, their grievances, and their demands?

2. YOU CANNOT SOLVE A CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEM WITH COSMETIC SOLUTIONS.

Employment, political appointments, empowerment programmes, infrastructure projects, and community meetings are important. But they cannot replace genuine political negotiations.

You cannot build a road over a constitutional grievance and expect the grievance to disappear.

Inviting selected individuals to town hall meetings and presenting surrender ceremonies before television cameras may create the appearance of progress, but they cannot substitute for an inclusive peace process.

 3. ARE WE SOLVING THE CRISIS OR BENEFITING FROM MANAGING IT?

For nearly a decade, civilians and military personnel have died, families have been displaced, schools disrupted, and communities devastated.

Yet official peace missions continue to multiply. Delegations travel, mission orders are issued, outstation allowances are paid from the public treasury, speeches are delivered, and officials return to Yaoundé.

Meanwhile, ordinary citizens remain trapped in fear and uncertainty.

Are we spending more resources administering this crisis than resolving it? And who benefits from its continuation?

These questions deserve honest answers.

 4. PEACE REQUIRES NEGOTIATIONS WITH THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH YOU.

Your Excellency, genuine dialogue must involve credible representatives of all essential parties, including federalists, separatist leaders, civil society, traditional communities, victims, and other relevant stakeholders.

We must also, as Anglophones, organize ourselves, clearly articulate our grievances and proposed solutions, and pursue a credible negotiating framework, with appropriate international facilitation where necessary.

You do not make peace by speaking only to those who agree with you. You make peace by finding the courage to sit across the table from those with whom you fundamentally disagree.

5. THE REAL TEST OF PEACE IS IN OUR VILLAGES, NOT OUR TOWN HALLS.

Your Excellency, the day administrative officials from the North-West and South-West can safely return to their ancestral villages to bury their parents, celebrate family occasions, and participate in community activities without fear of kidnapping or violence, we will know that genuine peace has returned.

The day children attend school without fear, farmers work their land freely, and civilians and soldiers stop dying, we will have something worth celebrating.

Until then, let us not confuse political ceremonies with peace or administrative activity with progress.

MY FINAL APPEAL

Your Excellency, let us stop treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease.

Let us stop measuring success by the number of peace missions organized, allowances paid, meetings held, or surrender ceremonies televised.

Let us measure success by lives saved, communities reunited, displaced families returned home, and constitutional grievances genuinely resolved.

Until genuine peace returns to our villages, we must continue pursuing every lawful and peaceful means of bringing the Government of Cameroon and all essential stakeholders to the negotiating table.

HISTORY WILL NOT JUDGE US BY THE NUMBER OF PEACE MISSIONS WE ORGANIZED, BUT BY THE NUMBER OF LIVES WE SAVED.

PEACE IS NOT WHAT POLITICIANS ANNOUNCE IN BUEA OR BAMENDA BEFORE RETURNING TO YAOUNDÉ. PEACE IS WHAT OUR PEOPLE CAN ACTUALLY LIVE AND EXPERIENCE IN THEIR OWN VILLAGES.

Dr. David Makongo

Natural Resources Advocate | Geopolitical Analyst | Author | Philanthropist