If Africa can acknowledge Ambazonia’s right to exist and govern itself, it will create a new model of Pan-Africanism — one built on voluntary association among free states rather than forced coexistence under violent regimes.
By Timothy Enongene Guest Editor-in-Chief The Independentistnews
BANJUL – January 15, 2026 – For decades, the halls of the African Union and the podiums of Pan-African summits have echoed with the grand rhetoric of “One Africa.” We speak of a borderless continent, a unified passport, and a single voice on the global stage. But for the people of Ambazonia, now trapped in a brutal struggle for self-determination against the Biya regime, these slogans ring hollow. You cannot build a continental mansion while one of its foundations is being deliberately destroyed.
The Entry Price of Sovereignty
Pan-Africanism, at its core, is a union of free peoples, not a collection of captured territories. There is a fundamental contradiction in asking a people who own nothing to contribute to a collective. Ambazonians are told to embrace a vague “African identity” while their concrete identity is being erased through state-sponsored violence, military occupation, and forced assimilation.
The logic is simple: to give, one must own. An Ambazonia that is not free is an Ambazonia that has nothing to offer Africa. We cannot speak of a “United Africa” as equal partners when we are treated as an internal colony inside Cameroon. Sovereignty is not an obstacle to Pan-Africanism; it is its foundation. A free and sovereign Ambazonia would bring to Africa resources, intellectual capital, and a strategic position in the Gulf of Guinea. An enslaved Ambazonia brings only blood, displacement, and instability.
The Paradox of the African Union
The African Union’s rigid defense of the “sanctity of colonial borders” is the greatest betrayal of the Pan-African ideal. By elevating lines drawn by European powers in Berlin over the lived realities of African peoples today, the AU has transformed itself from a union of peoples into a shield for regimes.
How can African unity be taken seriously when the AU remains silent as tens of thousands of Ambazonians are killed and entire communities are erased? This silence reveals the truth about today’s Pan-Africanism: it is a top-down project designed to protect governments, not human beings. A union that cannot defend a child in Gidado or Ngarbuh has no moral standing to speak for the continent.
Ambazonia as the Starting Point
The Southern Cameroons struggle is not a “separatist crisis.” It is unfinished decolonization. It is Africa’s test of whether it can resolve its own historical contradictions. If Africa can acknowledge Ambazonia’s right to exist and govern itself, it will create a new model of Pan-Africanism — one built on voluntary association among free states rather than forced coexistence under violent regimes.
There is no contradiction between Ambazonian independence and African unity. Independence is the pathway to unity. A free Ambazonia would be a stronger, more reliable, and more cooperative African partner than a militarized province inside a collapsing state.
Liberation Before Integration
To those who dream of a unified Africa, do not ask Ambazonians to sacrifice survival for symbolism. Do not ask a people in chains to celebrate unity. The road to a genuine United Africa does not bypass Buea. It begins there.
Freedom first. Unity second. Only when Ambazonians stand on their own land under their own flag can they fully contribute to a continent that belongs to all its children. Until then, Pan-Africanism is not a solution. It is a distraction.
Timothy Enongene Guest Editor-in-Chief
Timothy Enongene is Guest Editor-in-Chief of The Independentistnews, and a legal scholar and political theorist focused on decolonization and sovereignty in twenty-first-century Africa.
Leave feedback about this