While mothers in Tombel carry their children through the forest to escape gunfire, their most academically accomplished son works comfortably in marble corridors, ensuring the smooth flow of funding that upholds the power structure responsible for the killings.
By The Independentist Investigations Desk
Elung Paul Che was once celebrated in Tombel as a bright son of the Southwest who had conquered academic barriers and risen into the higher ranks of public finance. Today, he stands as one of the most powerful Anglophones inside the Presidency of Cameroon, holding a strategic command post over the nation’s finances. Yet, as his homeland bleeds, his silence has become deafening.
A graduate of the National School of Administration and Magistracy and later Harvard University, he built his career through the treasury system. He rose with speed, from Buea to Bamenda and eventually into Yaounde’s inner economic circle. His appointment to lead the Hydrocarbon Price Stabilization Fund placed him at the heart of one of the most sensitive financial entities in the country. From there, he cemented his place as a trusted guardian of the regime’s purse.
When the conflict erupted in the former British Southern Cameroons, calls for justice, peace, and accountability echoed across the region. Villages were burned. Civilians fled into the bushes. Families mourned in silence. Tombel, his own birthplace, felt the heat of the war like many other communities in the Southwest. But from the Presidential Palace, Elung Paul Che offered not a word of concern.
The Quiet Hand Behind State Power
Money is the bloodstream of war. Without funding, no bullets are bought, no troops move, no repression continues. As Deputy Secretary General at the Presidency, Elung Paul Che does not wear military uniform. Yet the position he occupies helps define the scope of state power and its reach over the suffering population.
His influence shapes budget priorities. It influences decisions on what is funded and what is not. And in a war where financial choices determine who lives and who dies, his role is far from neutral.
International observers and humanitarian teams often ask how a conflict of this scale continues with such endurance. The answer is in the quiet technocracy that keeps the machinery of violence fully fueled. That technocracy includes Elung Paul Che.
The Price of Elite Comfort
While mothers in Tombel carry their children through the forest to escape gunfire, their most academically accomplished son works comfortably in marble corridors, ensuring the smooth flow of funding that upholds the power structure responsible for the killings.
Many displaced voices from the Southwest share a similar sentiment: “He knows what is happening. He sits in the palace and says nothing. That is betrayal.” His Harvard education focused on development and public policy, yet he now operates within a system that blocks development and attacks communities he should defend. His silence is perceived as approval. His loyalty is measured not by the upliftment of his people, but by his service to the ruling elite.
Economic Governance or Economic Repression
Communication blackouts, forced lockdowns, burned homes, collapsing livelihoods. These are not only military actions. They are also economic strategies. When a people are stripped of economic oxygen, their resistance weakens. A technocrat who manages the flow of funds in such an environment becomes an actor in the conflict whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not.
This raises a painful question: How can a man entrusted with financial oversight in a time of crisis ignore the destruction of the place that shaped him
History Will Remember
Elung Paul Che will not escape the verdict of history. His decisions, his silence, and his allegiance are all being recorded by the suffering he has chosen not to speak against. He once represented hope for Tombel. Now he represents the painful truth that some of the brightest sons of the land have helped secure the chains that bind their own people. Leadership is not proven by office. It is proven by conscience. His conscience remains unanswered.
The Independentist Investigations Desk
