What is happening on the Bamenda–Kom road must be named without euphemism. It is not security. It is not community regulation. It is not resistance taxation. It is state-enabled extortion by an occupying power, executed through blacklegs to maintain deniability and control.
By Kfusalu Bochong, for The Independentistnews
The occupation strategy of Yaoundé has entered a more insidious phase. Beyond open military repression, the regime now relies on blacklegs and criminal proxies to impose illegal taxes on civilians while carefully shifting blame onto Ambazonian resistance forces. This method allows the occupying state to extract money, fracture communities, and poison international narratives without issuing a single lawful decree.
The Bamenda–Kom Road: An Economy of Extortion
Along the Bamenda–Kom road, civilians face a regimented system of roadside levies enforced by armed intermediaries operating under the shadow and tolerance of the occupation. The imposed charges include: seventy-seat buses one hundred thousand FCFA; passengers standard ten thousand FCFA; passengers reduced category five thousand FCFA; taxis thirty thousand FCFA; city vehicles between forty thousand and fifty thousand FCFA. These sums are demanded at gunpoint, without receipts, legal basis, or public authorization. No legitimate Ambazonian authority has sanctioned them. No transparent process exists. The beneficiaries are intermediaries and networks that thrive precisely because the occupation looks the other way.
Blacklegs as Policy, Not Accident
This is not random criminality. It is policy by proxy. By outsourcing extortion to blacklegs, Yaoundé achieves plausible deniability while enjoying the proceeds and effects, sabotages the narrative by pushing civilians to blame “separatists,” and governs through chaos that weakens community cohesion and resistance capacity. Historically, occupying powers have used the same tactic, taxing conquered populations through collaborators to mask the true author of the crime.
Why This Is Not War Tax
True war taxation, where it exists, requires legitimacy, representation, accountability, and consent mechanisms. None are present here. What is occurring instead is coercion without law, selective enforcement, enrichment of intermediaries, indirect benefit to the occupying state, and collective punishment of civilians. This is economic warfare, not resistance financing.
Strategic Consequences
The regime’s tolerance and quiet encouragement of these illegal levies serve a broader strategy: impoverishment through daily extraction that drains vulnerable households; delegitimization through false portrayals of resistance as predatory; and justification through manufactured disorder used to rationalize further militarization. That is why these networks persist. They are useful instruments of occupation.
Conclusion: Name the Crime Correctly
What is happening on the Bamenda–Kom road must be named without euphemism. It is not security. It is not community regulation. It is not resistance taxation. It is state-enabled extortion by an occupying power, executed through blacklegs to maintain deniability and control. This practice must be documented, exposed, and preserved in the public record for future political and legal accountability.
Kfusalu Bochong, for The Independentistnews
