Letter of Conscience
September 7, 2025
To: Senior Boban, Philemon Yang
On your appointment as one of the 2025 elections campaign managers for 92-year-old Paul Biya in Bamenda- Biya, who is running for his eighth term after 43 years in power, amid allegations of killing Southern Cameroonians, jailing men, boys, women, girls, and babies, razing villages, exiling, and displacing millions.
Dear Senior Bob,
I pen this letter to you with anguish, as the tears of bereaved mothers and daughters serve as my ink. The sanguine sacrifices of the Southern Cameroonian people have irrigated the tree of liberty, and we shall all stand before the divine tribunal, our hands either stained with their blood or cleansed of its culpability.
About 200 meters from the CPC billboard at Njenka, the road sign “Keep Right” directs us down a long street that leads through Papa Ndonka’s hut, past the fuel plantation, and into our home of education, the CPC campus. The most relevant advice in life echoes the same road sign: “Keep Right”. Our motto, “God, Knowledge, Service,” curiously mirrors the principle embedded in that sign.
When I met you at your office as Prime Minister in 2013 and 2014, with my business counterparts from Europe and Nigeria respectively, you advised me with two memorable lines: ‘Don’t forget our anthem, and don’t betray our motto.’
My 7 years in CPC, my meetings with you in 2014, the escalation of the conflict in Southern Cameroons, your role as Prime Minister within the conflict, your 12 months in the office of the UNGA presidency, and your campaign role for this kleptocracy can only be described as an oxymoron or hypocrisy.
Let us fact-check. You know, I know, and everyone knows the history of Southern Cameroons in relation to LRC. You’re versed in the Enugu events of 1953, the first democracy in Africa in 1954, the events of 1959-1960, and the series of events in 1961, particularly UNGA resolutions 1608 and 1513. You couldn’t have forgotten 1972 and 1984. Definitely, you remember the escalations in 2016, including the gruesome murder of Akum Julius and Clement, the beheading of Sam Soya, the frying of a baby in hot oil at Kwakwa, the 2017 events (famously, the banning of the consortium followed by the declaration of war) and the list goes on…
The reality to this day is that over 25,000 Southern Cameroonians have been killed, over 2,000 are currently dying in jails, over 1,000,000 have been displaced, over 80,000 are in refugee camps across West Africa, Europe, and South America, and many are exiled, not to mention the unending human rights abuses and severe suffering resulting from the war Paul Biya declared on the people of Southern Cameroons on November 30, 2017.
Senior Bob, at your age, your legacy should be the most important consideration for you. Between 2016-2019 , during your final years as Prime Minister, you helped this government suppress, incarcerate and kill your ethnicity. Ironically, last year, you called for a ceasefire in West Asia and East Europe, but you won’t even condemn Biya’s war on your people, acknowledge or pray for your people who are under similar attrition by an aggressive entity.
Bob, as president of the UNGA, within 2024 through 2025, you have called for a ceasefire in Gaza on multiple occasions, emphasizing the need for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine and humanitarian aid. Your appeals were made during the UNGA opening session and General Debate of 2024, among other instances. You stressed the importance of implementing ceasefire agreements for uninterrupted humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Perhaps it’s time to reflect on Jesus’ words: ‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?
Learned Boban, even if Paul Biya were only 70 years old, even if Paul Biya wasn’t killing your ethnicity, even if Paul Biya wasn’t abducting, renditioning, and incarcerating your people, even if Paul Biya wasn’t militarily occupying your land, even if Paul Biya had developed your territory with all the resources extracted from it, even if Paul Biya had constructed proper medical and economic facilities in Cameroun, even if Paul Biya didn’t abolish the federation, even if LRC was a developed country as a result of his 43-year rule, even if Paul Biya didn’t provoke a war in Northern Cameroun, even if LRC was not an authoritarian fascist country –
I opine that 43 years in power and 7 terms in office for all of these still wouldn’t define illiberal democracy, let alone liberal democracy. Is enough not enough for a Boban like yourself, a trained diplomat, Sir? What are you scared of?
To conclude, Senior Bob, if you have accepted this task of leading the election campaign in Bamenda for a dictator and fascist ethnosupremacist, knowing full well that over 8 million Southern Cameroonians are in agony and perishing under this government, then I am sorry to say that you are a sociopath. I urge you to look in the mirror, search your conscience, and ask yourself:
“Philemon Philemon, what have you done?” assuming you were standing before God on judgment day. Reflect on your choices.
Remind you, Saul was fortunate to have been confronted with a similar question in his lifetime on the road to Damascus. Let us pray that this question finds us here on earth, where we can seize the opportunity to transform from being Saul to being Paul.
Sincerely, Abdulkarim Ali
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