By Tsi Conrad
My dear Brothers and Sisters of Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia)/(Anglophones),
I speak to you today with a heavy heart, and with the weight of our history and a spirit burning for the future of our children. I see the weariness in your eyes, and I understand the desire for a simple path to peace. Many of you still hold onto the hope that we can find justice within the system of La République du Cameroun, that casting a ballot in 2025 is the civilized and correct path. I thought so too before.
But I am here to tell you that this hope, while born of a good and peaceful heart, is a dangerous illusion. It is the same gentle spirit of compromise that has led us to this precipice of destruction.
Our forefathers, in 1961, chose the path of trust. They believed in the promise of a federal union of two equal states. They extended a hand of brotherhood, hoping to build a nation together. But that trust was our original sin. It was a gentleman’s agreement with an entity that had no intention of being a gentleman. The federation was a lie, a stepping stone for our complete assimilation. They dismantled our institutions, eroded our educational system, supplanted our common law, and treated our homeland as a colony to be plundered, all while we watched, trusting the process.
Some of you say, “Let’s vote for change.” I ask you to cast your minds back to 1992. Remember the energy? Remember the hope that surged through our streets when Ni John Fru Ndi, one of our own, won the presidential election? We tasted victory. We believed that the ballot box could finally give us a voice. And what happened? That victory was stolen in broad daylight. The regime in Yaoundé stole the election. They sent us a message, an Anglophone will never preside over their nation. They showed us that our votes, and our choices are ultimately worthless to them.
Now, they ask you to believe again. They dangle the carrot of the 2025 elections. Let us play this out. Let us imagine that by some miracle, an opposition candidate wins. The regime, as it always has, will simply refuse to cede power. And then what? Who will take to the streets to defend that stolen victory? Will it be our Francophone counterparts, who have stood by for decades while we were marginalized? Or will it be us again? Will Southern Cameroonians be called upon to bleed and die, not for our own flag, not for our own sovereignty, but to defend the “victory” of another candidate within a system that is fundamentally designed to crush us? Why must we always be the ones to sacrifice for a union that has never loved us back?
Look around you. You are a minority in their parliament, a minority in their government, and a permanent minority in their national consciousness. You will always be treated as such. The resources from our land are siphoned off to develop their cities while our roads turn to mud and our hospitals crumble. Our people are harassed, our culture is ridiculed, and our very identity is targeted for erasure. To believe that you can vote your way out of this systemic subjugation is to ignore sixty years of painful reality. Voting only serves to legitimize the very regime that oppresses us, giving them a veneer of democracy to show the world, while the rigging machine is already in place.
This should be about choosing a future for Southern Cameroons. The fight we are in now is not a fight for another man’s political party. It is a fight for our very soul. It is a fight for something that is ours by right. Our land, our heritage, our dignity, and our freedom.
To those of you who benefit from a few crumbs from the regime’s table, I ask you, is your temporary comfort worth the price of your people’s future? History will remember this moment. It will remember who stood for justice and who chose to remain silent in the face of tyranny.
The path to freedom is never easy. It is watered with sweat and tears, and yes, sometimes with blood. But it is the only path that leads to a lasting peace. A peace we can call our own. A peace where our children will grow up as first class citizens in their own country, not as second class subjects in someone else’s.
Our freedom is inevitable. Your support will hasten its arrival and reduce the suffering. Your inaction will only prolong the struggle. But make no mistake, IT WILL NEVER STOP IT. The spirit of a people determined to be free is the most powerful force on earth. We are on a one way road to a free Southern Cameroons.
Choose to be on the right side of history. Join us, and let us fight for the future our children deserve.
Tsi Conrad
Kondengui central prison
Yaoundé Cameroun
August 27th 2025
