Restoring Moral Authority, Political Coherence, and Civilian Trust
By Efase Wole, PhD for The Independentistnews
Preface: Situating This Reform Within Presidential Doctrine, Operationalizing the Governing Principles of the Ambazonian Presidency
This document is written in explicit alignment with the governing doctrine articulated by President Samuel Ikome Sako, President of the Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. It does not seek to redefine the Ambazonian cause, nor to delegitimize the struggle for self-determination. Rather, it seeks to operationalize the principles repeatedly affirmed by the Presidency: civilian protection, political accountability, disciplined self-defense, unity of purpose, and the primacy of human dignity.
President Dr. Sako has consistently maintained that the Ambazonian struggle is a political liberation project supported by self-defense, not a militarized replacement for politics. He has emphasized that armed actors derive legitimacy from civilian authority, that criminality and indiscipline undermine the cause, and that a revolution which loses its moral compass ultimately serves the interests of the occupying regime.
This manifesto must therefore be read as a reform framework within presidential doctrine—a call to restore coherence, credibility, and ethical clarity at a moment when internal contradictions threaten to exhaust the struggle from within.
Reform is not surrender. Reform is responsibility.
Introduction: A Just Cause at a Critical Crossroads
Legitimacy Endures, but Strategy Must Evolve. The Ambazonian liberation struggle did not arise from nihilism or criminal intent. It emerged from a long history of constitutional betrayal, juridical erasure, and political marginalization of the former Southern Cameroons. Its foundational claim—the collapse of a federal compact and the imposition of a unitary, extractive state—remains legally, historically, and morally sound.
That legitimacy has not expired.
What has come under strain is how the struggle has been conducted, particularly as repression intensified and armed resistance expanded without sufficient political discipline, centralized authority, or ethical guardrails. History shows that revolutions are not defeated only by superior force; they also fail when they do not resolve the contradictions between violence and accountability, resistance and governance, sacrifice and human dignity. Ambazonia stands at such a crossroads.
Reclaiming Moral Clarity
Liberation Must Be Rooted in Ethics, Not Fear
In its early phase, the Ambazonian struggle enjoyed moral clarity. Lawyers, teachers, and civil society actors articulated a constitutional grievance grounded in law, history, and international norms. Popular participation was voluntary, civic, and principled. That moral clarity must be reclaimed.
The purpose of liberation is not to produce fear, silence, or forced compliance. The civilian population is not collateral, leverage, or a resource to be extracted. Any strategy—political or military—that undermines civilian safety weakens the struggle and strengthens the occupying state.
Liberation without humanity is not liberation.
Re-Subordinating Armed Struggle to Politics
Civilian Authority Must Command Force. Armed resistance emerged as a response to state violence, but it was adopted without a unified doctrine, clear command structure, or defined political endgame. Over time, violence became diffuse, fragmented, and detached from civilian oversight.
This must change.
Armed struggle, where it exists, must be explicitly subordinated to political authority. The gun cannot define the struggle; it can only serve it. Without civilian control, armed resistance risks mutating into militarism, criminality, and factional rule.
Reform requires a single, accountable political command, clear rules of engagement centered on civilian protection, enforceable discipline mechanisms, and an explicit ban on kidnappings, extortion, and punitive violence against civilians. Politics must command force, not the other way around.
Ending the Economy of Disorder
Breaking with Predation and War Profiteering
As the conflict prolonged, informal war economies emerged: checkpoints, ransom-taking, enforced taxation, and protection rackets. What may have begun as survival practices hardened into systems of accumulation and coercion. These practices are incompatible with liberation.
They transform resistance into predation and turn civilians into hostages. A future Ambazonian state cannot be built on habits that corrode trust and normalize exploitation. Ending this economy of disorder is not only an ethical necessity; it is a strategic imperative.
Restoring Credible Political Leadership
From Fragmentation to Accountability
Leadership fragmentation has been among the most destructive internal failures of the struggle. Competing diaspora authorities, contradictory directives, public impeachments, and symbolic rivalries have eroded trust and confused civilians and international observers alike. Authority cannot be improvised.
Reform demands consolidation of political representation, transparent decision-making, clear communication channels with communities on the ground, and accountability for failure, not only declarations of intent. Leadership must be measured by responsibility and service, not visibility or rhetoric.
Replacing Fear with Consent
Mobilization Through Persuasion, Not Coercion
Practices such as school burnings, enforced ghost towns, intimidation of traders, and punishment of neutrality have fractured community life and hollowed out popular support. Fear has replaced solidarity; silence has replaced participation. A population governed by fear cannot sustain a liberation project.
The struggle must return to persuasion, civic mobilization, and consent. Participation must be invited, not enforced. Unity must be built, not coerced.
Denying the Regime Its Most Effective Weapon
Discipline as a Strategic Defense
The Cameroonian state has relied not only on military force but on fragmentation, infiltration, and moral erosion within the resistance. A divided, undisciplined struggle serves the regime’s interests without requiring it to win politically or militarily. Reform directly undermines this strategy. Unity, discipline, and civilian protection deny the occupying regime its most effective counter-insurgency tool: letting the revolution destroy itself from within.
Re-Centering the Human Being
Restoring Dignity as the Measure of Liberation
At its core, the struggle began to lose its way when liberation became abstract and endlessly deferred, while suffering became normalized in the present. When children, teachers, villagers, and traders become expendable, the movement loses its soul. Liberation is not a future excuse for present cruelty. The human being, not territory, not factional power, not symbolism, must be restored as the central subject of the struggle.
Conclusion: Reform as Fidelity, Not Retreat
Correcting Course to Preserve the Cause
The Ambazonian cause remains just. What is at risk is not legitimacy, but credibility, coherence, and moral authority. This manifesto calls for discipline over chaos, accountability over impunity, politics over militarism, and humanity over abstraction. Reform is not capitulation. Reform is resistance at a higher level.
A struggle that cannot correct itself cannot liberate anyone. A struggle that restores discipline, centers human dignity, and aligns force with politics preserves not only its future, but its soul.
Efase Wole, PhD
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