The conflict in Cameroon keeps escalating. Chris Anu, a long-time spokesperson for Cameroon’s self-declared Republic of Ambazonia, said that he was elected president of the separatist movement on September 10, 2022. His election comes at a time when the movement appears to be losing support among southern Cameroonians, due to allegations of infighting, corruption and human rights abuses.
Since the end of 2017, authorities have reported dozens of deaths and attacks on soldiers and police by separatists. Other observers point to a heavier toll. The number of deaths among civilians and separatists is still difficult to establish.
Anu said that the movement will take the fight to the territories of the Republic of Cameroon (French speaking part of the country). He promised to also review the movement’s much-criticised policy of closing schools.
“We want the citizens of the Republic of Cameroon to feel the pain that Ambazonians have felt for the past six years,” he said. Anu lives in exile in Houston, Texas.
Today’s Ambazonian leaders remain operational from abroad, but part of a divided system.
It is likely that Anglophones will no longer return to the unitary state. Anglophones came to Cameroon in 1961 with their state. Ahidjo (Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo was the first president of Cameroon) suppressed this to create national unity. It was a big mistake. It was rather necessary to widen the federation, so as to maintain the specificity of the Anglophones in a generalized federalization.
The conflict keeps escalating with the death of soldiers last week in a rocket attack on their convoy in Manyemen Koupé-Manengouba, a subdivision in the Southwest region.
Groups claiming to be fighting for the independence of the Northwest and Southwest English-speaking regions of Cameroon have been increasing in number, a situation that is running out of control. The leaders of the various groups of separatist fighters have no control over their own fighters. The situation in the Northwest and Southwest parts of Cameroon may be deteriorating into anarchy. What started in 2017 as a pro-independence movement in the Northwest and Southwest region of Cameroon known as Ambazonia, and supported by all locals, has since evolved into separate militia groups that have turned against locals in a series of kidnappings for ransom and, sometimes, killings.
The pro-independence movement now faces two choices. Either unite, abstain from attacks and kidnappings against local people and churches and win back the hearts and minds of local communities. Or end up like Somalia, Eastern DRC, or South Sudan, trapped in an endless cycle of internecine warfare and killing.
The manpower of Ambazonian separatists is still being undercut by their lack of access to weapons. This imbalance has allowed the government to largely contain the insurgency to rural areas, but there are indications this may soon change. A particularly active diaspora is increasingly funneling resources into Cameroon’s separatist armed groups and courting foreign states for support. On social media, diaspora activists have been promoting fundraising campaigns for AK-rifles and other firearms, and there is an increasing, if uncoordinated, effort to get guns to those willing to fight the Cameroonian government. These resources are already reshaping the realities of the Anglophone separatist movement on the ground, however fragmented it may be.
The Nigerian separatist group the Indigenous People of Biafra, under pressure from the Nigerian military, confirmed an alliance in its waging of a sometimes violent campaign for autonomy in southeastern Nigeria. Cameroonian rebels frequently crossed into Nigeria to purchase weapons and other supplies for themselves.
So, this Alliance could represent an existential threat to both Nigeria and Cameroon and lead to civil war.
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was formed as a breakaway group of the Movement for the Actualization of Biafra with the sole purpose of completely severing ties with Nigeria through non-violent secession.
These two separatist forces, leveraging on cultural and historical sentiments, as they share a common history and heritage, are banding together to present a more formidable front to national forces in West Africa.
Early 2018, the top hierarchy of the Biafran separatist group under the banner of the Pro Biafra Groups, met in Enugu State, with the Prime Minister of Biafra Government in Exile (BGiE) in attendance and some other diaspora leaders of other pro-Biafra groups.
The Biafran leaders resolved to work together with the leadership of the Ambazonian Republic from Southern Cameroon and discussed bilateral relations as well as a strategic alliance to achieve their objective.
If these two groups successfully cooperate in an asymmetric conflict, the separatist allies could easily share valuable scarce resources, bolster their depleted ranks, accumulate valuable combat experience, provide a safe haven for fighters and also acquire human intelligence through the notoriously porous Nigeria/Cameroon border. Such alliance poses an existential threat to the unity and existence of both Nigeria and Cameroon given that at the moment, Boko Haram and ISWAP are constantly pushing and probing from the Northeast of Nigeria, bandits are ravaging the Northcenter, along with the current farmer/herder crises still troubling Nigeria’s center. The Nigerian military, although quite tenacious, cannot really hold these multiple forces at bay without crumbling.
