By Prof. Louis Mbua — Independentist Contributor
The political earthquake shaking La République du Cameroun has awakened questions that its rulers hoped would never surface again. For the first time in a generation, ordinary citizens of LRC are confronting truths that were long buried under fear, propaganda, and silence.
This awakening is necessary. But clarity is even more necessary. Because confusion is the most reliable tool of oppression. And no confusion is more dangerous than the notion that the fate of Southern Cameroons depends on who happens to sit in the presidential palace in Yaoundé.
Southern Cameroons: A Struggle Beyond Regime Change
Let us state the truth plainly: Southern Cameroons is not fighting for regime change in Yaoundé. Southern Cameroons is fighting to complete a decolonisation process that was never concluded. This struggle began decades before Biya, decades before the CPDM, and decades before the current political upheaval.
It began when a UN Trust Territory, administered by Britain, was handed over to an already French-controlled state without: A treaty of union, a ratification by either party, consent of the Southern Cameroonian people, and a legal instrument binding both states. This was not unification. It was absorption. And the world has lived with the consequences ever since.
International Law Is Not a Matter of Opinion
Southern Cameroons restored its sovereignty under well-established principles: The UN Declaration on Decolonisation, The Trusteeship System, The absence of any binding treaty, The unilateral destruction of the federal structure, The continued military occupation of its territory. This is not sentimental nationalism. This is the legal architecture of the global order so, No new leader in Yaoundé — not Biya, not Tchiroma, not any successor — can govern around this reality.
There was no union.
There is no union. And there can never be a union without a treaty. The Human Cost Cannot Be Rewritten by Political Excitement. Southern Cameroons has paid for its right to exist with blood. No political transition in LRC — no matter how inspiring, symbolic, or dramatic — can erase: The villages burned, The children orphaned, The leaders disappeared, The thousands killed, The people exiled across the world, The dead are not stakeholders in electoral promises. Their sacrifice is not negotiable.
Regime change cannot: Undo an annexation, Restore a stolen statehood, Replace sovereignty, Erase genocide, Cancel the right to self-determination, The struggle has moved from silence into history.
Foumban: The Ghost That Refuses to Die
Foumban remains the clearest warning in Southern Cameroonian memory. It was not a conference. It was a political ambush. There were: No signatures, No agreements, No ratifications, No documentation, No legal union. A people were told they “had united” — without a single lawful act to make that union real. This is why Southern Cameroons speaks with one voice today: Foumban shall never be repeated.
The Tchiroma Rise: A Tremor, Not a Cure
Issa Tchiroma Bakary did something historic: He broke the illusion of a unified Yaoundé. His rise exposed fractures inside the old system. It revived a democratic consciousness that LRC lost in the mid-fifties.
This matters. It matters for LRC. It matters for Central Africa. It matters for the region’s future. But its relevance to Southern Cameroons is limited. Tchiroma’s rise is an internal revolution inside LRC. But Southern Cameroons is waging an international liberation struggle. The two should never be confused.
Two Struggles: United in Pain, Different in Purpose
These two struggles share: A rejection of tyranny, A rejection of French dominance, A yearning for justice and dignity, A desire to reclaim stolen freedoms
They diverge over: LRC is fighting for democracy within its recognised territory; Southern Cameroons is fighting to restore a statehood illegally taken. One struggle seeks reform of a broken system. The other seeks liberation from an imposed system. Both are legitimate. Both are painful. But they are fundamentally different.
Final Word:
The Truth Remains, No Matter Who Holds Power in Yaoundé: No election in Yaoundé can rewrite the legal history of Southern Cameroons. No new presidency can fix an illegal annexation. No political change can erase the breaches of the UN process, the international law of treaties, or the right of a people to self-determination. Southern Cameroons was never part of La République du Cameroun by law. It was absorbed by force.
Therefore:
LRC must negotiate as an occupying power. Southern Cameroons retains its original sovereignty. Regime change cannot cure annexation. The resistance remains lawful. Foumban will never be repeated. Sovereignty is non-negotiable. This is the historical truth. This is the legal truth. This is the moral truth. And it remains true — regardless of who sits in Etoudi.
By Prof. Louis Mbua
