From Meka’s Medal to Biya’s Tokens: Lessons for Ambazonia

Paul Biya has perfected this colonial formula in the post-independence era. The medals have simply changed form to tokens of loyalty which are ministerial titles, and ceremonial appointments.

By An Insider

In 1956, Ferdinand Oyono — a young Cameroonian who would later serve as a diplomat and cabinet minister under Paul Biya — published one of the sharpest works of anti-colonial satire, The Old Man and the Medal.

Its central figure, Meka, is a village elder who has given the colonial system everything. He surrenders his land to the Catholic mission. He sends his sons to die in France’s wars. He spends a lifetime proving his loyalty to the administration.

For his decades of service, the French reward him with a medal. No restitution of land. No restoration of power. Only a shiny trinket and a humiliating ceremony, where his dignity is stripped in public view.

Oyono’s genius was to show how colonialism survives by replacing substance with symbols — a medal instead of justice, a handshake instead of freedom, an empty honour in place of true equality.

Paul Biya has perfected this colonial formula in the post-independence era. The medals have simply changed form. Today, the regime’s tokens of loyalty are ministerial titles, ceremonial appointments, and well-publicised awards.

The method is consistent:

Select a compliant Anglophone.

Place them in a visible role — Prime Minister, “Special Envoy,” commission chair.

Display them as evidence of inclusion.

Deny them any real decision-making power.

Like Meka’s medal, these appointments glitter but are hollow. They do nothing to end the military occupation of Ambazonia, to stop the exploitation of resources, or to protect the people’s dignity.

For Ambazonians, the lesson is urgent. We must learn in advance what Meka realised only after his humiliation: the trinkets of an oppressive system are not rewards, they are tools of control.

A title is not sovereignty.
An award is not freedom.
An invitation to the palace is not power.

Real honour cannot be bestowed by an oppressor — it must be claimed by a free people.

Colonialism never died in Cameroon; it simply traded medals for ministries. As long as we mistake tokens for triumphs, the story will end as it did for Meka: with the shine gone, the truth exposed, and the prize revealed as nothing at all.

The Insider