From Denial to Acceptance: Issa Tchiroma’s Stunning Shift on the Anglophone Conflict.

Issa Tchiroma Bakari moves from fiction to reality

By Colbert Gwain — @The Muteff Factor (formerly The Colbert Factor)

When Muteff village, in the Fundong Municipality of Cameroon’s North-West Province, was pressing for greater autonomy in the 1980s, one infamously noisy man, Yindo Tanghe, became its most vocal opponent. Each morning he walked to mainland Abuh—just beyond Muteff’s borders—to confer with Abuh dignitaries on ways to derail the autonomy bid. From there he continued to the Kom palace for an audience with the Kom king before returning home. On the way back, he would pause at Muteff’s market square, where community notables gathered, and—boastful and brash—announce that Abuh and Laikom were determined to block Muteff’s self-rule. He bragged that he had revealed Muteff’s strategies and helped craft airtight counter-measures.

Most Muteff notables, especially the hardliners, seethed at his taunts. Yet cooler heads prevailed: they chose to ignore him rather than strike back. The more they ignored him, the more aggressive he became.

Then, after hearing rumours that the palace now favoured autonomy for Muteff, Yindo Tanghe executed a dizzying about-face. Racing back to the market square, he claimed the coming autonomy was thanks to his “constant lobbying” of higher authorities—minimising the villagers’ own decades-long struggle.

Fast-forward to Monday, 23 June 2025: Issa Tchiroma Bakary’s sudden resignation as Minister of Employment and Vocational Training—and his equally sudden admission that the Anglophone crisis demands a political, even federal, solution—echoes Tanghe’s theatrics. As Minister of Communication and Government Spokesperson when the crisis erupted in 2016, Tchiroma had flatly denied the existence of any “Anglophone problem,” branding it a secessionist threat that merited a hard security response.

Back in 2017 he rejected the grievances of former Southern Cameroonians and labelled critics “objective allies of secessionists.” The Muteff Factor’s research team has logged more than 20 public statements from 2016-2018 in which Tchiroma dismissed the very problem he now acknowledges.

During a January 2017 appearance on CRTV, he declared there was no Anglophone problem, only a security issue. He repeated that line on Equinoxe TV in October 2017 and, on 28 August 2017, banned the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation (SCBC) from Cameroonian airwaves, calling it a “secessionist channel.”

Ten Cameroonian newspapers from the period quote him denying deaths of Anglophone detainees in Kondengui prison, contradicting the late Deputy Speaker Joseph Mbah Ndam. On RFI, the BBC, and VOA he routinely dismissed reports of military abuses, insisting “the military does not kill.” He even disputed an International Crisis Group report, branding its findings “fundamentally flawed.”

Now, in his “Open Letter to Cameroonians” issued days after resigning, Tchiroma concedes the crisis is “political, historical, and identity-based.” He writes:

“You must feel, in real terms, that the Republic is also your home… Centralisation has failed. When our democratic foundations are strong enough, we will, through a transparent process, initiate a referendum that lets Cameroonians choose the form of state that reflects their aspirations.”

The letter has ignited debate nationwide—especially in the restive former Southern Cameroons—about whether this shift is genuine contrition or strategic rebranding ahead of his declared presidential run.

At The Muteff Factor, we note his letter offers no explicit apology for having fronted the regime’s narrative that silenced Anglophone voices.

Alicia Handley’s moving memoir When Autism Comes to Roost: A Family’s Journey from Denial to Acceptance traces parents’ path from denial to understanding their child’s diagnosis—through grief, anger, bargaining and, finally, acceptance. So too has Yaoundé inched—often begrudgingly—through those same stages since the crisis flared, while Tchiroma served as its chief communicator, sometimes sparring combatively with journalists live on Equinoxe TV.

To be fair, philosophers from John Locke to John Stuart Mill remind us that revising one’s views in light of new evidence is a mark of intellectual courage, not weakness. In that sense, Tchiroma’s volte-face is rare in Cameroonian politics, where officials habitually cling to dogma despite stark evidence to the contrary.

Given the conflict’s toll—more than 8,000 civilians killed and hundreds of thousands displaced—any high-profile admission that the status quo has failed is welcome. As Mill put it, “A man who never changes his opinions either does not think at all, or thinks wrongly.”

Yet in these perilous times, communities need journalism that reflects their lives, values and priorities—and challenges those obstructing social change. That mission is neither easy nor lucrative.

The Muteff Factor (formerly The Colbert Factor) is a solution-oriented, independent, non-profit newsroom. We serve as a “first draft” for newspapers, broadcasters, online platforms and blogs. We carry no advertising and remain free of corporate or governmental influence.