It
is remarkable how much the Bible has for oppressed peoples of the Southern
Cameroons, Ambazonia. If we only know how much God loves us, how much He
strengthens us, how much He protects us, we would not have anything to be
scared of. Independence means auto-determination and therefore we are left to
determine what we want, the way we want it, how we want it, knowing history and
God are on our side. No amount of pressure would weigh us down. Comrades, remember
always that “God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power,
of love and of self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Only by Daring and by Doing did
a State Grow
What
we need is – especially in cruel, ruthless, terrorizing regimes like Paul
Biya’s - wisdom that comes from above, smart creativity, but above all the
moral courage to dare and do. We have never been wicked; the Southern
Cameroonian has been upright, righteous and candor-loving. Of course, “the
wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a
lion.” (Proverbs 28:1). Read your Bible and count the amount of times God says
“Fear not.” My Bible gives me 365 fear nots; that is, in each day of the
struggle for our independence God has dedicated one ‘fear not’ to each one of
us for each day.
When
the sanctity of my conscience, the spirits of
my warrior ancestors and the fire on the breast of my paterfamilias
assigned me this task of beacon for the oppressed, I did not know it was the
beginning of a long journey that would peak with the complete restoration of
the independence of our people, the Southern Cameroons. A plethora of threats
and bullyings has been voiced by the La Republique du Cameroun (LRC) colonial
ministers, governors and military agents against our peace-loving freedom
fighting Southern Cameroonians. Ah
my people, LRC is jaga-jaga! They think they would distract us. They will not
frighten even an ant because it is our right to protest, and we are determined
to go all length and all out. Protest is a divine right, inalienable and
fundamental for oppressed peoples. And therefore, I like us to look at courage
with the simplicity the word itself captures. It is an uncomplicated word which
simply means: first to face a thing or person, and secondly to deal with
the thing or the person.
Daring and doing demands four dispositions from the freedom fighter:
Daring and doing demands four dispositions from the freedom fighter:
1.
audacity in the face of danger.
2.
confidence in the face of hopelessness
3.
firmness in the face of antagonism.
4.
victory in the face of hostility.
Courage
says: I won’t be frightened, I won’t give up, I won’t be panic-stricken, I
won’t lose heart. It is amazing how much courage our people, the common man has
mustered. To you and me, God is saying: “Be
strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I
swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous.
Be
careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to
the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go,” And then
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do
not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” These
are times to spend with God – times that David trusted in his living God to
deliver him from the claws of Goliath’s oppression, and God did.
If Mandela were a Southern Cameroonian
No
one who desires the liberation of the British Southern Cameroons after its many
and hoary bondages can have any other feeling but joy, at finding from the
recent national and international protests, that our people are resolved to the
teeth to see their independence restored. For
a freedom movement so badly scorched by the heartlessness of its oppressor and
the silence of its so called elites still licking the flesh pots of LRC, the Southern Cameroons liberation movement
has some cause for optimism as the protests at New York and all over our
Southern Cameroonian national territory disproved the naysayers who thought our
enthusiasm was waning.
The sense of belonging our people have mustered, the sense of courage our leaders have garnered in homeland and abroad have given all and sundry a renewed sense of purpose and encouraged a surge in members, taking our numbers to many millions. What is going on in Cameroon today is beyond the grasp of the human mind. There is yet no evidence to me what the young country called Ambazonia came to such colossal global identification so speedily. However, its ascendancy to this height strikes me as indicative of the state of the Southern Cameroonian in the current dispensation. It goes to say that the Southern Cameroonian, both those at home and the Diaspora, have lost complete confidence in blood-sucking political structures that have never had an elected president. And therefore our euphoria and celebration is justified, the euphoria and celebration of our independence.
The sense of belonging our people have mustered, the sense of courage our leaders have garnered in homeland and abroad have given all and sundry a renewed sense of purpose and encouraged a surge in members, taking our numbers to many millions. What is going on in Cameroon today is beyond the grasp of the human mind. There is yet no evidence to me what the young country called Ambazonia came to such colossal global identification so speedily. However, its ascendancy to this height strikes me as indicative of the state of the Southern Cameroonian in the current dispensation. It goes to say that the Southern Cameroonian, both those at home and the Diaspora, have lost complete confidence in blood-sucking political structures that have never had an elected president. And therefore our euphoria and celebration is justified, the euphoria and celebration of our independence.
An
African proverb holds that a fly with no one to advise it follows the corpse to
the grave. If no one advised our
brothers who came out from prison, let they who are nearer them do well to counsel
them on the level the struggle has now assumed.
The
way to make self-determination workable in our pale is for us all to first come
down from our high moral tools – from those self-seeking tools where we can attract
attention. It is I call moral grandstanding. It is a phenomenon where each
person has this resolute feeling that they are exquisitely correct while others
are incurably mistaken. For most of us there are most horrible cases only in
other groups. We are pure and therefore the world is centered around us.
In fact, if the definition of a
freedom fighter, as one who affects the mind of his generation, is true, Mancho
Bibixy is candidly the greatest freedom fighter the Southern Cameroons has had
in recent years. Arousing awareness and stimulating admiration appears to be
what has enabled his civil right activism and aboriginal capacity rival such
great men as Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. Yet Madiba Mancho Bibixy is to us more
than just quantifiable greatness; he is to the Southern Cameroons a genuine
symbol of the miracle the sons and daughters of this embattled nation aspire to
achieve – complete restoration of their sovereignty.
And what is that miracle? Mancho was incarcerated many months ago, but he had taken good care in just very few three months before his imprisonment, to ensure we will never forget him.
Agbor
Balla lost a great occasion for a Mandela to emerge in him, when he fell into
the trap set for him by Ben Muna and his legal surrogates. During court
sessions, the heyday of his incarceration and the D-Day that conditionally ended this incarceration
of his moments in prison, the euphoria expressed in support of him in the
Southern Cameroons defied region, religion and tribe. Southern Cameroonians
were thirsting for a Mandela in Agbor Balla and Neba, but reactionary forces
didn’t allow that opportunity. In the
short aftermath of their liberation from Kondengui, their actions and silences
have spoken volumes. Sharing a cup of drink together among companions some few
days ago, someone cracked the ribs of his onlookers with loud laughter that our
leaders from Yaoundé prison cells have been ‘la republiqued’ or - to use the famous Bole Butake lexis -
‘lapiroed’. I felt during that gathering among friends that we should not jump
to hasty conclusions yet. They
have, out of the prison, shown both the good the bad and the ugly in them, but
we must not judge that we be not judged.
Perhaps,
if Mandela were a Southern Cameroonian he won’t be recognized like we recognize
him...he would have died in prison! And that is why we must recognize Mancho
Bibixy for what he is, and tell the LRC kangaroo jurists and politicians that
if anything happens to our Mandela Mancho and his associates in your prison
cells, the anger of the gods of Mount Fako and the ancient spirits in the
Menchum Falls would react and the wrath of the God I serve would not allow his
life to go in vain. The response from Ambas Bay would shock them.
And this thing is simple. If we get a man who is selfless, a
leader who assures Southern Cameroonians he would die for them, a leader who
doesn’t allow blood money to soil his hands, a leader who doesn’t allow empty
promises from colonial Yaoundé to thwart judgment, Southern Cameroonians
will follow him. Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has, in a matter of just months proven to be
that Oliver Tambo we badly needed at this hour. His faithfulness to the cause
of the restoration of our independence is unbending. His characteristic
sangfroid, his dialoging and cohesive spirit, his boundless courage in standing
upright against the tyrant, his humility in governance has given us a leader
that homeland has believed in and acknowledged as their leader in a unanimity
hard to describe. My hope is – and it is only a hope – that this spirit
continues in the right direction and that we give him our support and
encouragement.
The SCACUF Governing Council under the muscular leadership
of Tabe, Tassang and Atam has galvanized the people and given focus, has
encouraged unity among disparate factions of our struggle and electrified the
people to stand up as one man at a time when LRC’s maneuverings have struggled
in vain to spirit away the spirit of self-determination from our peoples’
breast. They have disappointed and fluffed LRC’s expectations since the
struggle reignited. We thank Ayaba Chuo, Boh Herbert, Dr. Akwanga - they can not
be forgotten in their concerted effort to unite and make things happen for our
Ambazonian nation.We pray they join hands and we march to Buea as one man.
It behooves the present Southern Cameroon leadership to see the
huge presence of faceless fraudsters around our struggle as signals that the
battle to snatch Southern Cameroon from the jaws of LRC is still a long and
winding war. So long as Southern Cameroonians find ground to solidarize
with compromised characters, so long
will they remain caught up in deep muddle and grave moral crisis. Our
leadership impelled by the lofty sagacity of his Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is
rising to the occasion and has refused to take refuge in myopic tribal
politics. They have distanced themselves from the federated empty-talk that for
30 years now has helped to feed confusion among our people.
What is more, Mancho Bibixy has shaken the very foundations
of La Republique du Cameroun’s Pharoah-like resistance and the Yaoundé Apartheid
colonial system has confirmed that there is no one like Mancho with Mandela
qualities in the Southern Cameroons. That is why they have kept him in prison.
I wish I had known Madiba Mancho Bibixy more, much more. I
wish he had been around a little longer to give us more inspiration to get to
know the struggle a little more. I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to
experience him spiritually during the Joe Wirba Kumbo rally. In his slightly
feminine but powerful voice he could not hide his enthusiasm and his
determination. It felt like KUMBO was the moment he had been waiting for the
last 56 years. What a born freedom fighter!
Human Rights abuse of the most Horrible
type
The
shooting of civilians to death, using animal imagery to describe the Southern Cameroonians
– rats, dogs, two cubes of sugar – has been a disgraceful fuel to what Ruanda
went through in 1994. The Genocide. Until some few days ago our grand-mother from
Ekona, a mother in her Nineties was monstrously pierced on the forehead by the
evil hands of military bastards. Is there a good and bad method to portray
wickedness? When a terrorist government wants to exercise beastly power over
millions of unarmed civilians and protesters, when it has abducted hundreds and
killed many, is what we call government in LRC any longer necessary? When that
political cabal calls itself “ a one and indivisible State,” and it takes
inspiration from atheist theologies abroad and rapes students and assassinates
even prelates, why not refer to it as such? What’s the use of opting instead,
to call it a government?
We must learn to call things as they are for what has perpetrated the plague called North Korea is the fact that journalists had persistently called it before the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is obviously the antithesis of a democratic republic. Deploying words against absolutism and despotism is difficult to do in Cameroon, even among writers, clergymen and journalists. Yet, in the words of Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka, “Art should expose, reflect, indeed magnify the decadent, rotten underbelly of a society that has lost its direction.” The artist must see the rotten underbelly stinking rubbish that spoils the air of his people and propose ways they can do away with it or escape its debilitating effects.
I
take off my hat for the resolute poor masses, the hoipolloi of the Southern
Cameroons and I denounce the many elites of our land for their promiscuous use
of poor people’s revolution, their hijacking of the achababoys’s anger against
a despicable system, and their using it to benefit their empty egos and
financial positions in the name of a federation that is an unnecessary option
for the typical man of the two Cameroons.
The Southern Cameroonians’ determination in seeing LRC as an
artificial edifice forced on their throat is dramatized in the thousands of
calls its people have publicly made in protest.
And therefore, the idea of a one indivisible Cameroon is an
absurdity. Cameroon is a collection of two self-contained and distinctly independent
Political States, estranged from one another by territory, by divergence of
history and traditions, and by ethnological, political, social and religious
barricades.
Political upstarts from Amadou Ahidjo to Paul biya have
radically altered the rapport peace loving people had with their history and
torn apart their people’s sense of identity. In fact, things have fallen apart
– to invoke the title of Achebe’s first novel – with the arrival of the
colonial programme of Paul Biya and his terrorist attacks on the Southern
Cameroons. He has lost legitimacy over them – a legitimacy he never had in the
first place.
LRC
has a scary history of perilously balancing herself on the cliff’s edge from
time to time. And each instant frequently comes with a considerable quantity of
nervousness and deadening horror. See what humiliation the almighty Laurent
Esso passed through in Belgium – and yet would not learn. They take decisions
which scare even supernatural forces to sympathize.
La
Republique du Cameroun(LRC), this so-called nation, has arrived at the frame of
mind of a madman oblivious of where it is going to. The pathologies that LRC
suffers are incurable. Now, those who have argued that we have even never had a
country now look the wise ones. We have only one thing to do: embrace our
country Ambazonia, a brand new country for ourselves, with a people-driven
constitution, and a leadership that is answerable to the masses. Only our
Anglo-Saxon heritage can deliver the goods to guide us through a democratic
journey. No more no less.
The clamor for independence is the fundamental
option of this era. It is fundamental because it is the final phase of the
liberation of our people. Many people loud the word freedom as if it means
everything we opt for. It does; but remember that even Paul Biya uses the word
freedom when he emasculates us, remember he uses it when he abducts our
children and parents. Remember that Tchiroma uses the word ‘freedom’ when he
uses the apartheid LRC media to spew invectives on and parody our victimized and
raped peoples. What I say is, that to qualify the plight of our people with the
word ‘freedom’ or ‘federation’ is as lazy as the system that has put us in
servitude for 56 years. It is independence we are talking about and therefore I
am not just supplying an argument to the muddled debate over the evil that has
been meted on the Southern Cameroons by LRC. I am making a case for the primacy
of restoration of independence come 1st October 2017.
The Southern Cameroons is no
joking Matter
The British Southern Cameroons’ peaceful
protests, civil-disobediences and agitations have been long enough to justify
us in acting as such, in matters of self-determination in the annals of
history.
Its character, validity, and credibility, its tenable principles, its integrity and standing cannot more be approached as a matter of proposal or idea, unless we may plausibly so regard the Gambia and Eritrea. And therefore the Southern Cameroons is no subject of pastime or amusement. It is concrete material, it is existence, it is out there in the streets, it is the destiny of millions of people who are after legitimate space to breathe. It has become public property. In the words of the Psalmist, its “message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. God has made a home in the heavens” for this country, the British Southern Cameroons.
Of course I do not say that we have surmounted all huddles and filled every pothole on the matter of the case of our sovereignty. We say that it has a reality that needs more than human calculations, human reasoning, and logical semantics. It is reality itself and shows itself in this that life is life, that Ambas Bay is Ambas Bay and not some wishful thinking. You can’t simply reason it out, but you can feel and touch and hear and imagine and live it. There is a self-evident surety about it that only God can better qualify. That is why it were better we die than that the British Southern Cameroons doesn’t gain sovereign space.
One
cannot engage himself like the Church,
in matters of justice and peace and dignity of persons without getting involved
in self-determination, in the dignity of people’s sovereignty. Freedom is God’s
gift to you. He creates and allows you to make your decisions. To do your
thing. When there is that sense of human worth, when it
is difficult to allow any man trample on your personal rights, you can’t live
under a yoke. You will fight for your people.
At some period, liberation theology was treated with contempt by high profiled theologians. From a parochial and purblind viewing, they saw Karl Max’s agenda in the work of South American theologians. Guiterrez and Boff particularly went through this screwing. Their detractors didn’t see the good battle these Latin American luminaries were doing with structures of poverty and unbridled capitalism. Theology of the tyrannized, theology of the downtrodden, theology of self-determination – whichever one you wish - calls for the men and women of faith to not only empathize or mind about the poor. It calls on them to cry for a 90 year old mother whose forehead is recently pierced by the bullet of a Cameroon military soldier-of-a-bastard, for nothing. It calls on them to engage spiritual communities onto moral values, onto improving the social standards of the marginalized and oppressed. It underscores the urgency of human dignity. The current Cameroon’s calamity, I believe, is largely a calamity of spirituality and morals. A society where unruly deportment from individuals and State goes scot free without penalty - the breeding of impunity.
Come
to think of it, someone has even dared to pose as teacher to me on how I am
supposed to comport on issues concerning the liberation of my people and the
restoration of their stolen dignity. To teach me what I should know about this,
is to teach the Pope Catholicism. It is impossible.
Fantastically
fight, fight to restore your independence. Fight wherever you reside – homeland
or Diaspora, keep the fight on. The
only Kilimanjaro we are to climb is the determination to victory to
independence even when depravity stares at us in the face. This is current and
alive as I speak and with a sense of our history on board, we are ready to go
any mile to see this through in the teeth of any adversity. This we do because
we keenly feel we have matured enough to be vessels of our own Statehood, our
own destinies, our own Country.
By
Fr Gerald Jumbam
