Did you build institutions stronger than personalities? Did you build an economy capable of sustaining political freedom? Did you build constitutional protections for those who disagreed with you? Did you build relationships with neighbors based on mutual interest? Did you build international partnerships without surrendering sovereignty? Did you prepare for regional security threats before they reached your doorstep? Did you design systems capable of surviving failure? Did you leave behind something that could function without you? That is the test. The era when advocacy alone could constitute a complete political program should be ending. IT IS TIME FOR STATECRAFT.
By The Editorial desk
The Independentist News
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The political lines are now clear.
For years, the Southern Cameroons question has been argued principally through history, constitutional interpretation, identity, grievance, repression, resistance, federalism, unionism, and independence. Every tendency has explained what it opposes. Every organization has defended its preferred political destination. That is no longer enough.
The Government in Exile of the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroons–Ambazonia has declared a transition from advocacy to statecraft. Whether one agrees with its political destination or not, that declaration raises the standard of the entire Southern Cameroons political conversation.
Statecraft is not another word for independence. It is not another communiqué, demonstration, conference, slogan, diplomatic photograph, social-media campaign, or declaration of intent. Statecraft begins where advocacy alone becomes insufficient.It means institutions. It means constitutional architecture. It means public administration. It means accountable public finance. It means civilian control of security. It means courts and the rule of law. It means infrastructure. It means production. It means diplomacy. It means relations with neighbors. It means international partnerships. It means regional security. It means peaceful succession. And above all, it means answering a question every political tendency must eventually confront: WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU PREPARED TO BUILD?
UNIONISTS: WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU OFFERING?
Those who believe Southern Cameroons should remain within the existing Republic of Cameroon have every right to make that argument. But “national unity” is not a governing blueprint. “Living together” is not a constitutional safeguard. Bilingualism and multiculturalism, however desirable, do not answer the fundamental questions of political power. The unionist proposition must therefore become specific.
What would continued union provide that the existing political arrangement has demonstrably failed to provide? What constitutionally protects Southern Cameroons institutions? Who controls local administration? Who determines education policy? Who protects the common-law tradition? Who controls taxation? Who regulates land? Who manages natural-resource revenues? Who appoints local administrators? What guarantees political representation? What happens when the central government violates the arrangement? And what institution possesses sufficient independent authority to enforce the agreement?
A promise is not an institution. A presidential declaration is not a constitutional guarantee. And an arrangement that can be withdrawn or fundamentally altered by the same political center that granted it cannot automatically be presented as permanent protection. If continued union is the answer, then bring the blueprint. Let Ambazonians see it. Let them examine it. Let them challenge it. Let them compare it with the alternatives.
FEDERALISTS: WHAT FEDERATION?
Federalism must face precisely the same test. For decades, federalism has been presented by some as the middle ground between centralized government and sovereign independence. Very well. Then define it. What federation? Two states? Ten states? Regional federation? Confederation? Restoration of the 1961 arrangement? Or an entirely new constitutional architecture?
In which ever case, Who controls taxation? Who regulates ports? Who controls natural resources? Who appoints judges? Who commands policing? Who controls education? Who regulates land? What revenues remain within Southern Cameroons? What powers are constitutionally beyond unilateral alteration by the federal center? Can the federal constitution be amended against Southern Cameroons without Southern Cameroons’ consent? What institution arbitrates disputes between the federal center and the constituent state or states? What prevents a future central government from reproducing the constitutional centralization that helped create the present crisis?
Federalism cannot remain merely an emotional memory of what might have been. If federation is the alternative, then: PUBLISH THE FEDERATION. Let the people see its constitution. Let them see the fiscal architecture. Let them see the division of powers. Let them see the security arrangement. Let them see the judicial safeguards. Let them see the enforcement mechanism. Let them see what prevents tomorrow from becoming yesterday again.
INDEPENDENCE MUST PASS THE SAME TEST
Independence advocates should not interpret this challenge as directed only at unionists and federalists. If the Government in Exile says the struggle is advancing from advocacy to statecraft, then independence must willingly submit itself to the disciplines of statecraft. Can the institutions survive their founders? Can public money be accounted for? Can political opponents organize freely? Would a federalist remain a full citizen? Would a unionist remain a full citizen? Would dissent be constitutionally protected? Would armed power ultimately be subordinate to civilian authority? Would courts be independent? Could local governments function without waiting for instructions from the capital? Can revenue be collected and audited transparently? Can contracts survive a change of government? Can businesses invest with confidence? Can infrastructure be maintained? Can political authority transfer peacefully?
What happens when the government loses an election? What happens when a president becomes incapacitated? What happens when a senior official steals public money? What happens when a court rules against the government? What happens when today’s founding personalities are gone? These are not hostile questions. They are the questions sovereignty itself will ask. A liberation movement may mobilize a population. A republic must govern one.
NOW ASK THE LEADERS
The transition from advocacy to statecraft cannot belong to one organization alone. It should raise the standard for the entire Southern Cameroons political class. Naming individuals here is not an accusation against them. Nor is it an attempt to assign political positions they may not accept. It is an invitation to consequential voices to place their preferred political, constitutional, economic, diplomatic, and governing architectures before the people.
Professor Carlson Anyangwe: What constitutional destination do you believe offers the strongest future for Southern Cameroons, and what institutions would make that arrangement durable?
Dr. Munzu: What political architecture do you now place before Southern Cameroonians? What powers, guarantees, enforcement mechanisms, and institutional safeguards would make your preferred settlement sustainable?
Chris Anu: What governing architecture converts political mobilization into accountable administration, constitutional government, public finance, institutional continuity, and peaceful succession?
Marianta: What is the institutional proposition for the morning after political change? How does mobilization become administration, accountability, rights protection, and durable government?
Cho Ayaba: Beyond resistance and political mobilization, what constitutional, administrative, economic, diplomatic, and security architecture should govern the society being sought?
Agbor Balla: What political settlement can command sufficient legitimacy to endure, and what enforceable safeguards would make it materially different from previous arrangements?
Sisiku Ayuk Tabe: What does a functioning Southern Cameroons political order look like beyond the demand for political change itself? Which institutions must exist before transition rather than be improvised afterward?
Millan Atam: What political and institutional architecture do you place before Ambazonians, and how does it answer the tests of legitimacy, administration, protection, production, and external relations?
Dr. Akwanga: What is the proposed transition from liberation politics to constitutional government? How should armed power, public authority, finance, civilian institutions, and political succession ultimately be organized?
Elvis Kometa: What is the governing proposition? How should political legitimacy, economic capacity, public administration, institutional accountability, rights protection, and peaceful succession be structured?
Augustine Ndangam: What political and institutional architecture do you place before Ambazonians? How would your preferred settlement address legitimacy, administration, public finance, security, economic production, constitutional safeguards, and peaceful transfer of power?
CDN: What concrete governing alternative is being placed before the people, and how would it perform when subjected to the tests of law, public finance, administration, security, economic viability, and institutional continuity?
And the questions should not stop there. They should go to every independence organization, federalist tendency, unionist voice, civil-society leader, intellectual, diaspora organization, political movement, and consequential personality still standing on the political sidelines. No one should be excluded from the debate. But no one should be exempt from the test.
PUT THE THREE MODELS ON THE TABLE
Southern Cameroonians have heard the labels long enough. Independence. Federalism. Union. Now put the models themselves before the people. Ask each one: Who governs? Who taxes? Who spends? Who audits? Who controls public administration? Who controls natural resources? Who protects political opponents? Who commands security? Who regulates education? Who manages infrastructure? Who negotiates external agreements? Who settles constitutional disputes? How is power transferred? What happens when a president fails? What happens when a government loses an election? What happens when the center violates the constitution? What happens when the courts rule against those in power? What happens when corruption reaches the highest levels? What happens when a foreign partner withdraws? What happens when commodity prices collapse?What happens when a port, power system, telecommunications network, revenue source, or critical institution fails? What continues to work? That is the language of statecraft.
A LIBERATION MOVEMENT IS NOT YET A STATE
A political movement and a functioning government perform fundamentally different tasks. A movement mobilizes. A state administers. A movement persuades. A state regulates. A movement raises resources. A state budgets, appropriates, accounts, audits, reports, and answers to the law. A movement may depend heavily on personalities. A durable republic cannot safely do so. A movement may define itself through opposition. A government must provide electricity, education, courts, roads, ports, public records, policing, taxation, economic policy, diplomacy, and institutional continuity.
Southern Cameroons does not only need people capable of winning political arguments. It needs people capable of designing systems that continue functioning after the argument has been won.
WHO OWNS THE PRODUCTIVE SOURCE?
Statecraft must also move beyond politics narrowly understood. Every political camp should answer an economic question: WHO OWNS THE PRODUCTIVE SOURCE? Political institutions without productive capability can still leave a population dependent. Who owns productive enterprises? Who finances infrastructure? Who controls strategic data? Who processes natural resources? Who owns ports, logistics systems, technology, and productive assets? Who finances agriculture? Who finances small and medium-sized enterprises? Where do profits go? Where does capital circulate? What productive capacity remains after a foreign contractor, donor, lender, investor, or strategic partner leaves?
Employment matters. But employment alone is not wealth. Revenue matters. But revenue without productive capacity can disappear. Foreign investment matters. But investment that leaves behind no skills, domestic suppliers, ownership, technology, infrastructure, or recurring capital may simply reproduce dependency under a new flag. Statecraft therefore requires more than constitutional sovereignty. It requires productive sovereignty.
A serious political platform should tell Ambazonians not merely how government will be organized, but how households, entrepreneurs, farmers, workers, communities, and domestic enterprises will participate in ownership and wealth creation.
STATECRAFT ALSO MEANS FOREIGN RELATIONS
Statecraft does not stop at the border. A serious political project must explain how Southern Cameroons intends to relate to its neighbors, regional institutions, international partners, investors, development institutions, and the wider world. What is the proposed relationship with Nigeria? What relationship is envisioned with Cameroon under the different possible political outcomes? How would Southern Cameroons engage African regional and continental institutions?
How would it approach the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other international partners? What would its foreign-policy doctrine be? What interests would guide it? What principles would determine partnerships? How would it avoid replacing one dependency with another?
What kinds of investment agreements would be acceptable? What national interests would be non-negotiable?How would treaties be ratified? Who would have the power to commit the country internationally? What parliamentary or constitutional oversight would exist? How would the country protect itself against foreign political capture? A flag and a foreign ministry do not constitute foreign policy. Statecraft requires a doctrine.
WHAT IS THE NEIGHBORHOOD POLICY?
Geography cannot be wished away. Southern Cameroons exists within a neighborhood. Nigeria is not simply another foreign country. It would be an essential economic, security, commercial, diplomatic, and human relationship. Cameroon would remain a neighboring state under any independence scenario. Communities, families, businesses, roads, trade corridors, waterways, electricity systems, telecommunications links, and markets do not automatically disappear when political arrangements change. What therefore is the neighborhood policy? How would borders function? What happens to cross-border families? How would movement of people be handled? What happens to existing property rights? What happens to pensions and employment entitlements? What happens to businesses operating across political boundaries? What happens to electricity and telecommunications connections? What happens to commercial contracts? How would customs work? How would aviation agreements work? How would ports and shipping be governed? How would river systems, environmental resources, fisheries, and other shared interests be managed? How would disputes be resolved without allowing them to become security crises? These questions must be considered before political transition, not after it.
REGIONAL SECURITY IS STATECRAFT TOO
And then comes the harder issue: WHAT IS THE REGIONAL SECURITY DOCTRINE? A future political order would not exist in a security vacuum. West and Central Africa face overlapping risks: cross-border armed groups, piracy, trafficking, smuggling, illicit arms flows, organized crime, cyber threats, maritime insecurity, humanitarian displacement, extremist violence, fragile borders, and instability capable of moving across regions.
The Sahel’s deteriorating security environment cannot be treated as someone else’s problem forever. What happens if instability continues moving southward? How would Southern Cameroons protect its borders without militarizing everyday civilian life? How would intelligence services be governed? Who would oversee them? How would abuses be investigated? What role would parliament play? What role would courts play? What relationship would exist between local policing, border security, intelligence agencies, armed forces, and civilian government?
How would Southern Cameroons cooperate with Nigeria and other neighbors on border management, intelligence sharing, policing, trafficking, piracy, maritime security, and transnational crime? What regional security agreements would be desirable? What agreements would be unacceptable? Would foreign forces ever be permitted on the territory? Under what authority? For how long? With what legislative oversight? What exit mechanism? What safeguards would prevent a foreign security partner from becoming a permanent source of dependency?
PROTECT THE SYSTEM, NOT ONLY THE BORDER
Security is also about critical infrastructure. What happens if the electricity system is attacked? What happens if telecommunications fail? What happens if a port is disabled? What happens if financial networks are compromised? What happens if government records are destroyed? What happens if a cyberattack disables essential public services? What happens if one major road corridor becomes inaccessible? What happens if one neighboring conflict disrupts trade routes or sends large numbers of displaced people toward the frontier? A serious statecraft doctrine must identify single points of failure before they fail.
There must be redundancy. Alternative power. Alternative communications. Alternative transport. Secure public records. Emergency logistics. Civil-defense planning. Continuity-of-government arrangements. A state should not discover its vulnerabilities only after an adversary has discovered them first.
HAVE YOU ACTUALLY PUT THIS TOGETHER?
This brings the political challenge into sharp focus. Have unionists placed before Ambazonians a complete proposal showing what domestic authority, foreign relations, regional security, economic policy, and institutional safeguards would look like under continued union?
Have federalists shown which powers over diplomacy, trade, borders, customs, policing, intelligence, investment, and security cooperation would belong to Southern Cameroons and which would remain with the federal center?
Have independence advocates developed a coherent foreign-policy doctrine, neighborhood strategy, trade policy, recognition strategy, treaty framework, investment doctrine, regional-security strategy, maritime policy, and international partnership architecture?
Have Professor Carlson Anyangwe, Dr. Munzu, Chris Anu, Marianta, Cho Ayaba, Agbor Balla, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, Millan Atam, Dr. Akwanga, Elvis Kometa, Augustine Ndangam, CDN, and the other consequential voices put these plans together? And if they have: WHERE ARE THEY?
Have they been placed before Ambazonians? Can citizens read them? Can economists examine them? Can lawyers challenge them? Can engineers stress-test them? Can security professionals examine them? Can businesspeople assess them? Can neighboring countries understand them? Can international partners determine whether they are dealing with a reliable prospective counterpart? Can young Ambazonians compare the futures being proposed in their name? If the answer is no, then the work of statecraft remains unfinished.
FROM POLITICAL COMPETITION TO COMPETING BLUEPRINTS
A mature political society should not fear competing constitutional visions. It should demand better ones. Let independence advocates publish the architecture of the proposed republic. Let federalists publish the federation. Let unionists publish the constitutional transformation that would make continued union fundamentally different from what has already existed. Then let Ambazonians compare them. Not by personality. Not by insults. Not by social-media followings. Not by factional loyalty. Not by who shouts the loudest. Compare them by constitutional durability. Institutional capacity. Protection of rights. Public accountability. Economic viability. Productive sovereignty. Capital circulation. Civilian control of security. Neighborhood relations. Regional-security preparedness. Diplomatic credibility. And the ability of institutions to survive changes of leadership.
NO MORE POLITICAL HIDING PLACES
Those who support independence should tell the people what kind of independent state they intend to build. Those who support federation should produce the federation. Those who support continued union should identify the enforceable constitutional transformation that would make tomorrow different from yesterday. And those who criticize every available option while offering none of their own must also face scrutiny. The people are entitled to more than commentary. They are entitled to alternatives. And meaningful alternatives require competing plans.
PUBLISH THE BLUEPRINT
Professor Carlson Anyangwe. Dr. Munzu. Chris Anu. Marianta.Cho Ayaba. Agbor Balla. Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. Millan Atam. Dr. Akwanga. Elvis Kometa. Augustine Ndangam. CDN. The Government in Exile. Federalists.Unionists. Independence organizations. Civil society. Diaspora organizations. And every consequential voice still standing on the political sidelines:
PUT THE BLUEPRINT BEFORE THE PEOPLE. Let constitutional systems compete with constitutional systems. Let institutional designs compete with institutional designs. Let economic plans compete with economic plans. Let security doctrines compete with security doctrines. Let diplomatic strategies compete with diplomatic strategies. Let safeguards compete with safeguards. Let governing capacity—not personality—become the measure.
THE REAL BATTLE LINE
The deepest divide may therefore no longer be simply independence versus federation versus union. The more consequential line is becoming: Slogans versus systems. Personalities versus institutions. Mobilization versus administration. Consumption versus production. Dependency versus productive sovereignty. Diplomatic pleading versus strategic partnership. Security improvisation versus security architecture. Political aspiration versus governing capacity. Advocacy versus statecraft. For decades, the Southern Cameroons debate has understandably asked:
WHAT HAPPENED TO US?
That question remains necessary. History matters.Justice matters. Accountability matters. But nations are ultimately judged by what they construct from the lessons of history. The question that will define the next generation is therefore harder:
WHAT DID YOU BUILD?
Did you build institutions stronger than personalities? Did you build an economy capable of sustaining political freedom? Did you build constitutional protections for those who disagreed with you? Did you build relationships with neighbors based on mutual interest? Did you build international partnerships without surrendering sovereignty? Did you prepare for regional security threats before they reached your doorstep? Did you design systems capable of surviving failure? Did you leave behind something that could function without you? That is the test. The era when advocacy alone could constitute a complete political program should be ending. IT IS TIME FOR STATECRAFT.
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The Independentist News Editorial desk
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