Uchiba asking, “What exactly would Southern Cameroons lose if they separated completely and irreversibly from La République du Cameroun?”
COMMENTARY BY UCHIBA NELSON
How can a people so abundantly blessed with natural resources, cultural richness, and one of the best educational foundations in sub-Saharan Africa, find themselves begging—not for progress—but for permission to live as second-class citizens in their own ancestral homeland?
This is the haunting paradox confronting Southern Cameroons. It is a question that should keep every conscious mind awake at night: What exactly would Southern Cameroons lose if they separated completely and irreversibly from La République du Cameroun?
Those pushing for an elusive and illusionary “One Cameroun” have never been able to answer this question honestly. Because the truth is stark and simple: Southern Cameroons has everything to gain and very little—if anything—to lose.
The territory is rich in oil, timber, cocoa, coffee, natural gas, fertile soil, waterfalls, strategic ports, and a highly skilled population. Since 1961, these resources have been systematically siphoned by La République du Cameroun in collaboration with their long-time patron, France. Billions have left Ambazonian soil, yet what returns? Decayed infrastructure, charred villages, closed schools, traumatized children, and mass graves.
And what of the people? A population known for its academic excellence and entrepreneurial ingenuity, reduced to squatters in their own land. Called “anglofools”, “dogs”, “cockroaches”, “Biafrais”, and “enemis dans la maison” by the very people they are told to call brothers. Told to “rentrez chez vous” even when standing on their own grandfather’s soil.
Still, some among us continue to plead for “national unity” with those who have demonstrated time and again that their goal is assimilation or extermination—not partnership. They speak of peace without justice. Integration without equality. A union without consent.
Southern Cameroons is not a province of a francophone empire—it is a distinct territory with a distinct legal, educational, and administrative heritage, whose people voted to join, not to be annexed.
The potential for an independent Southern Cameroons—Ambazonia—is not a dream; it is an inevitability if the people claim what is rightfully theirs. With self-determination, it can surpass many African nations in prosperity, stability, and governance. With the right leadership and a return to its founding values, it could rival the living standards of the UAE or even the Nordic countries—not just in wealth, but in dignity, justice, and human development.
And yet, here we are—still begging, still waiting, still suffering.
To the United Nations and the international community: thank you for the frameworks you created, but where is the follow-through? Where is the enforcement of your own principles of self-determination and decolonization? Southern Cameroonians are tired of being the unfinished business of the 20th century.
To fellow Southern Cameroonians: the time for confusion is over. The time for begging is past. History is watching. Future generations will ask what we did when we had the chance to stand, not as rebels or radicals, but as rightful heirs to a land God gave us, and which no man has the right to take.
The answer must be clear: we chose freedom.
— Uchiba Nelson
