Anglophone Crisis: Paramount Chief-designate says Buea is not for separation !

By Christopher Ambe

The Paramount Chief-designate of Buea, Dr. Robert Esuka Endeley, has said, based on his consultations, Buea people don’t want separation as a solution to the Anglophone crisis.

     Dr. Endeley, who recently bagged a PhD in Cyber Security from Capital Technology University,USA  and was one of less than five  chiefs who took part in celebrations marking the 47^th National Day at the Independence Square in Buea, spoke  to reporters on May 22 in the Southwest Regional capital.

Paramount Chief-designate R.E.Endeley

  The Paramount Chief-designate, who had been received in audience by Prime Minister Chief Joseph Dion Ngute on the latter’s recent peace mission to Buea, appreciated the down-to-earth leadership style of the premier. He even likened Dion Ngute’s leadership style to that of Dr. EML Endeley,a noted West Cameroon Politician

 “We in the Northwest and Southwest regions are particularly happy because the style of leadership of Prime Minster Dion Ngute was the style of leadership that my father Dr.EML Endeley, practiced in politics   in West Cameroon. He went down and talked to the common man  on the street” as the premier has been doing.

 The Paramount Chief-designate expressed happiness that the PM said Government was ready for dialogue on anything except separation, to resolve the Anglophone crisis.    
Dr.Endeley insisted that “the people I represent” are against separation.

“If you interview [my people] they will tell you they don’t want separation”, he said. “We are very comfortable with the PM’s message of peace and dialogue”

The traditional ruler urged separatist fighters in the bush to heed the “PM’s message of hope and come out of the bushes and let us solve this problem once and for all.
“It is nobody’s joy that some people are sleeping in the house and others are in the bush…I am pleading with them to come out. This time it looks like dialogue is imminent and real.”

Asked how he felt when Buea traditional rulers boycotted the 47^th National Day celebration despite his appeal for them to take part in the celebration, Dr. Endeley quipped: 

 “Nobody owns May 20.It is a national day. It belongs to the state.

“I have always said that you don’t burn down your primary school because you don’t like your headboy.Your head boy may be changed the following day and your school will still be there.

“We as leaders have to take decisions that are above the shallow perspective of some people.

“If we have to do peace and reconciliation as the PM said, it starts with us the leaders.

“I could not have done otherwise because I stand at the helm of the chiefdom in Buea, and when I met the PM he asked me to help him bring peace in Buea.That is the reconciliation that has started”

It would be recalled that many Southwest Chiefs boycotted the national day celebration as a protest to a call allegedly made on April 25 by Southwest Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai for them to march past on May 20, followed by their various  subjects, failing which they would be dethroned.

But the president of the Southwest Chiefs Conference (SWECC), Chief Mafany Njie Martin, in an April 30^th press statement described the gubertorial call “as appalling and inappropriate” and concluded:

"We the Southwest Chiefs categorically condemn the demeaning and threatening manner by which the Governor of the Southwest Region reminded us of our usual civic duties, which we have always performed so diligently without being ordered to so by whosoever.” 

The Paramount Chief-designate, who is a software security engineer and part-time university don, told reporters that now that he has defended his PhD, he would return to Cameroon and help enormously in nation-building.

Asked if any other chiefs confronted him for taking part in celebrating the national day while many boycotted it, Dr Endeley remarked:

“I met with some of them on the Friday before May 20 and I spoke to them and they told me their grievances.

“I tried to explain to them my own perspective and tried to listen to them. Like I said negotiation is an ongoing thing.

“We are talking and I am sure before long we will all be at peace with each other”

Dr. Robert Esuka Endeley was elected over a year as the paramount chief-designate of Buea, to replace Chief SML Endeley who died on July 7, 2015.

A prime ministerial decision is expected to confirm him as the Paramount Chief of Buea for him to start enjoying all the rights and privileges that go with the royal office.

(This report also appears in The Horizon Newspaper,Cameroon,of May 28,2019)