BETWEEN HOPE AND DESPAIR: Africa on the Threshold of 2026

The evidence of Africa’s reconquest and recolonization is abundant and overwhelming—if only we are willing to understand it honestly. The unspoken premises and overarching worldview behind it rest on deeply entrenched beliefs: that African (Black) lives do not count; that Blacks are not fully human; that they are genetically inferior; that they possess no history worthy of the name.

By Gobata The Independentistnews contributor

We are scratching only the surface. We need to dig much deeper—beneath appearances, down to the roots of our predicament. For now, we are mostly talking. That is excusable, for what rational and safe action can truly replace clear thinking and honest speech in such perilous times? Let us, at the very least, think and speak plainly and succinctly—without shielding parts of the mind, without water in the mouth, without stammering, and without the long, winding rambles that so often betray undisclosed vested interests.

What is unfolding at home—across Africa, in Cameroon, in Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia, in Nso’—is a renewed colonization by war: a reconquest of the continent by the so-called “developed” countries, driven by the hunger for exploitable resources. This war of colonial reconquest was announced quite openly years ago. Yet, through naivety and intellectual shallowness, we dismissed it as a joke and carried on with unrestrained consumerism, without limits or self-discipline. In this tragic setting, we misdirect our anger—turning it not against our murderous exploiters, but against fellow victims of the same wretched condition.

The concentric circles that define what each of us understands as home—for me, Nso’land, Ambazonia, Cameroon, Africa—carry an inverse relationship between emotional attachment and physical scope. When I think of home, I think first of our UBUNTU family house at Ndzenshwai, Shisong. All other homes are, in truth, homes away from home. I may grow comfortable in some of them, but I can never relinquish the longing for that first home. Yet, from the standpoint of collective and general interest, the order is reversed. As inhabitants of planet Earth, our primary home is the African continent—before Cameroon, before Ambazonia, before Nso’land.

France is spearheading the recolonization war against our continental home, Africa, on behalf of its Euro-American partners. Despite internal differences among them, their hands are firmly joined to secure the uninterrupted flow of raw materials that sustains their comfort as “world leaders” and as the so-called “developed world.” They agree on a broad spectrum of governance models—tailored country by country—all calculated to ensure this free flow of resources, reinforced by convenient platitudes, pretexts, and pretensions. Collateral damage, in the form of shattered societies and wasted lives, is of no serious concern.

The evidence of Africa’s reconquest and recolonization is abundant and overwhelming—if only we are willing to understand it honestly. The unspoken premises and overarching worldview behind it rest on deeply entrenched beliefs: that African (Black) lives do not count; that Blacks are not fully human; that they are genetically inferior; that they possess no history worthy of the name and can never aspire to global leadership; that their history begins with European colonization; that they are incapable of self-government; and that the immense resources beneath their feet belong, by right, to whoever is ruthless or clever enough to extract them by any means necessary.

Some illustrative examples will suffice.

The so-called “Sahel States”—Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso—stand as a living rebuttal to the logic used to justify Africa’s recolonization. Certain French intellectuals have openly blamed Emmanuel Macron’s “foolishness” for awakening African consciousness and enabling the rise of these defiant states. Determined efforts are now underway to ensure their failure and ruin. Yet the Sahelian path offers a blueprint for any African country seeking more than cosmetic remedies to its existential and developmental crises—indeed, for any people insisting on recognition of their equal humanity. It is astonishing that some African leaders knowingly collaborate with colonial powers to undermine these experiments, rather than learning from them.

Aid as a tool of recolonization. At a 2016 conference in Dar-es-Salaam, I discovered how France had subtly extended its colonial reach into non-Francophone African countries through so-called aid—Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and others. In Tanzania, this penetration culminated in the removal of President Magufuli under the cover of COVID-19, followed by the grooming of a pliant successor who now governs as an accomplished colonial proxy, displaying alarming authoritarian traits. Nigeria, given its size and demographic weight, is a prime target—either for total control or calculated destabilization.

Where local elites are already loyal accomplices—as in Kenya, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, and perhaps South Africa—the recolonizers can simply allow the system to run on autopilot. A Sahel-style rupture is unlikely there, and at the faintest hint of one, colonial powers issue ultimatums: comply within 48 hours—or else.

Where resistance threatens to emerge, coups are engineered to install dictators under foreign influence. Whether a country is peaceful or chaotic, civilian-ruled or militarized, the bottom line remains unchanged: resources must flow uninterrupted to the developed world. The daily slaughter, maiming, rape, and imprisonment of innocents is of no consequence. If necessary, entire nations can be reduced to rubble to guarantee extraction.

Human rights rhetoric and peace talks are largely theatrical—bargaining tools for stakeholders who profit from instability. Peace agreements may be signed, as in the case of Rwanda and the DRC, while realities on the ground remain untouched. The underlying strategy is the privatization of the state, transforming it into the personal asset of a single ruler or a small clique—obedient marionettes of foreign powers.

Cameroon represents a uniquely complex case of colonization, recolonization, and conquest. The record-breaking longevity of a dictatorship masquerading as democracy is a direct outcome of this complexity. What is called Cameroon today is a grotesque amalgam of two colonial entities: La République du Cameroun, a French trust territory granted nominal independence in 1960, and British Southern Cameroons—Ambazonia—a British trust territory whose independence in 1961 was bungled through an act of colonial brigandage. Britain handed it over to France, with UN complicity, as a colonial gift. France promptly engineered its annexation by its former trust colony. In neither case was genuine independence achieved.

The central tragedy in Cameroon—costing thousands of lives and forcing millions into exile—is the unresolved Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) question. The UN has chosen to play ostrich over this clear case of incomplete decolonization, for reasons shrouded in secrecy between the UN Secretary-General and the regime in Yaoundé. These matters were publicly raised by Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press, for which he paid a heavy professional price.

“Anglophones” and “Francophones” in Cameroon must be understood in this context; the terms have little to do with language. They signify incompatible colonial legacies and political cultures. Cameroon is a perilous juxtaposition of opposites. A bona fide Francophone captures power once and clings to it for life. A bona fide Anglophone, shaped by British traditions and indigenous governance, tends toward critique rather than conformity. Ending this lethal legal and political coexistence is, in truth, the simplest solution to a problem made humanly complex.

All colonial powers read from the same script, inspired by King Leopold II. For avoidance of doubt, this includes Rome—the Vatican—arguably primus inter pares among them, given its ability to sanctify or condemn colonial actions through religious language. Rome once approved the enslavement of Black Africans. Papal Nuncios, despite clerical attire, function as diplomats—often skilled actors whose liturgical performances mask political intent.

There are indeed holy Popes, Bishops, and Priests—authentically righteous souls whom all recognize instinctively. In their presence, one feels compelled to kneel. Yet others stand uncomfortably close to hardened criminals, cloaking atrocity in pious rhetoric and ceremony. Their performances recall the “abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.”

A sobering truth of our age is that many world leaders—thankfully not all—are, beneath their pomp, guilty of heinous crimes against humanity. Astonishingly, it is possible to rule nations while manifestly unhinged. The evidence is plentiful, but recounting it would only deepen our pain. May 2026 yet sustain our deepest, most desperate hopes.

GOBATA