In Search of Peaceful Solution to Cameroon Anglophone Crisis:

PM insists guns don’t dialogue, people do

Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute addressing crowd infront of Limbe City Hall on Anglophone crisis

By Christopher Ambe

In search of a peaceful solution to the almost three-year old Anglophone Crisis, Prime Minister and Head of Government, Chief Dr.Joseph Dion Ngute, emissary of President Biya to the restive Northwest and Southwest regions, demonstrated that humility is a hallmark of leadership by meeting many micro and macro groups with the Head of State’s urgent call for peace and dialogue.

Meeting with groups and knowledgeable individuals, Mr.Biya’s envoy also stockpiled proposals for resolving the deepening crisis.

The premier, who was, last week, in the Southwest region for a four-day peace consultations- after a similar one in the Northwest,regretted that, the Anglophone crisis, which snowballed into deadly fighting between Anglophone separatists and government forces, has had its toll on citizens- sending hundreds of them early to their graves, and wrecking the  economies of two regions in a particular and Cameroon by extension.

 According to rights groups, since the eruption of the crisis in October 2016 violence has killed about 2,000 people in Cameroon’s two English regions; about  half a million people are internally displaced, hundreds of villages burnt and property worth billions of Fcfa damaged.

The crisis has provoked a serious humanitarian crisis, which the Biya government and international bodies are still grappling with.

On his four-day peace mission to Buea,Limbe and Kumba,towns in Southwest Region, Prime Minister  Dion Ngute disclosed that President Biya is now more than ready to engage in  meaningful and inclusive dialogue –even with separatists, to bring the crisis to a quick end.

The Cameroon government had attempted dialogue at the early stage of the crisis   but suddenly resorted to a crackdown on advocates of the independence of Anglophones, and the latter have been fighting back in self-defense.

On his meet-the-people tour, the soft-spoken premier informed his varied audiences wherever he went that, even though Mr. Biya is now willing to dialogue, the President who has ruled Cameroon since 1982 has insistently said separation or secession won’t be on the agenda.

“The President has asked me to tell you that there will be no separation because Cameroon is one and a united country. Any other problems that the children in the bushes have will be looked into; please tell all of them to come out of the bushes, because guns don’t dialogue but people do. Let them come out for the dialogue.

 “The President has asked me to tell you that he is not happy that children are living in bushes, facing danger and all kinds of problems for no reason; that they should leave the bushes, drop their arms and return to their homes for safety”, Dion Ngute told a cheering crowd, in front of the Limbe City Council Hall, in Pidgin English, to better drive home the president’s message.

He had,a day before, delivered same to a large crowd at Buea Mountain Hotel,where lodged during the visit.

 “The President has asked me to tell you that he has ambition for young people in the Northwest and Southwest Regions;that he will order special recruitments for the fighters who surrender,” he said .

The PM appealed to parents to shun school boycott and send back their children to school, come September 2019.

“I congratulate the people of Limbe for saying “No to school boycott, “the PM said in response to the Government Delegate of Limbe City Council ,Andrew Motanga,who  boasted his city had since rejected ghost town and school boycott, called by separatists.

The PM lamented that in Southwest and Northwest schools are not functional. “Less than 20% of schools in these regions operate, even when education is key to success in life.”

Dion Ngute appealed to armed separatists lurking in bushes to drop their guns and come out for gainful employment and reintegration into society.

The PM called on chiefs, many of whom have abandoned their villages because of the hostility of separatist fighters towards them, to return to their chiefdoms and persuade the combatants to voluntarily surrender, in exchange for government protection and jobs.

In Kumba, some 23 “separatists” who reportedly surrendered were presented to the Premier, who was, in turn, happy with their turning over a new leaf.

Fonju Bernard, Southwest West Regional Coordinator for the center of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration  Center (DDR),whose Buea office Dion Ngute visited on Friday,said,“We already had 21 ex-combatants including the last one who came two weeks before the prime Minister visited the Center.”

As the PM met with professional, religious, political and socio-cultural groups, collecting proposals in view of resolving the crisis, the release of Sesekou Ayuk Julius and others in detention or prison in connection with the ongoing crisis, the demilitarization of the two regions, dialogue with leading activists in the Disapora and general amnesty were prominent.

Emerging from an audience with the PM in Buea, Chief Ekoka Molindo,Vice-President of Southwest Chief Confrence,who led the Southwest traditional rulers for it, noted, “The Southwest is behind President Biya to ensure peace returns soonest”

Speaking in Limbe,Chief Atem Ebako,former Secretary-General of SWECC, told the PM that the crisis has offered an opportunity for the putting in place of a system of governance,where the people can identify their problems and choose their leaders to govern them.

Also speaking in Limbe,Senator Mbella Moki,noted that Dion Ngute’s down-t-earth approach made him the voice of moderation in the current crisis situation.

The Senator condemned disunity among Southwest Elite, calling for unity of purpose to help resolve the crisis and insisting that the region must now be the game changer.

The eloquence with which Mbella Moki presented his views, prompted the PM to note that the senator spoke with the oratory of Winston Churchill, a British writer, former prime Minister and statesman.

 But for light gunshots at Buea Mile 17 reportedly by armed separatists in the morning of last Friday, the fourth and last day of the premier’s visit to the Southwest region, his peace mission was generally described as a huge success.

The Head of Government was accompanied to the Southwest by some Members of Government who included but not limited to: Deputy Secretary-General at the Presidency Elung Paul Che, Minister of Secondary Education, Dr. Nalova Lyonga and Minister-Delegate for MINEPAT,Paul Tasong.

(This report also appears in THE HORIZON Newspaper, Cameroon,of May 21,2019)