What Clément Atangana unwittingly revealed is that Cameroon no longer functions as a republic; it survives as a syndicate of power. Yet, in exposing that truth, he has done what no Ambazonian petition or protest alone could achieve: he made the case for freedom irrefutable.
By Ali Dan Ismael (London) and Jean-Marie Poccachard (Lyon)
Yaounde November 2025 – When a nation’s highest election umpire is caught congratulating the winning camp he is supposed to judge, it marks more than a scandal — it confirms the death of democracy and the rebirth of a people’s right to choose their own destiny.
The Moment That Shook Cameroon
In a video that has since gone viral, Clément Atangana — the President of Cameroon’s Constitutional Council — is heard saying in French:
« Je suis content que vous vous réjouissiez à la fois du travail fait par votre père et de la victoire de votre candidat. Voilà, à chacun son rôle. »
(“I am happy that you are celebrating both the work done by your father and the victory of your candidate. Each one has played their role.”)
Filmed just a day after the Council proclaimed Paul Biya winner of the October 12 2025 election, the remark was an unmasked confession of complicity. For millions of Cameroonians, it confirmed what they had long suspected — that the referee had always been part of the team.
From Arbiter to Partisan
The Constitutional Council was meant to guard electoral integrity — receiving petitions, verifying results, and delivering final, unappealable verdicts.
Yet in 2018 and 2025 it rejected every opposition challenge, often without explanation, before announcing another “victory” for the ruling party.
Atangana’s phrase — “the victory of your candidate” — crystallized decades of frustration. It was not an off-hand family joke, critics say, but a window into a captured institution where appointments, loyalties, and outcomes orbit one political sun: Paul Biya’s regime.
The United Nations and the Diplomatic Fallout
The United Nations system and the wider diplomatic community watched with dismay as the video spread. UN observers in Geneva and New York, already concerned about transparency and media suppression, viewed the footage as final confirmation of institutional bias.
The UN Secretariat, European Union, United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia — all withheld their customary congratulatory messages. The silence was deafening — a quiet but unmistakable rebuke: “We saw what happened, and we cannot endorse it.”
Analysts say the diplomatic pause reflected not only Atangana’s words but mounting evidence of manipulation — ballot tampering, restricted observation, blackout zones, and the Council’s refusal to publish regional tallies. Cameroon’s “victory” stood unrecognized by the moral community of nations, a hollow crown without honour.
What Becomes of Biya if He Is Installed?
If Paul Biya proceeds with installation under such a cloud, his seventh term will begin as a government in diplomatic quarantine. Domestically, it widens the trust gap and pushes more citizens toward alternative political identities. Regionally, it exposes Cameroon as a relic of post-colonial authoritarianism at a time when younger African states are demanding renewal. Internationally, partnerships will shift from political to transactional — limited to humanitarian aid or counter-terror cooperation, not recognition of legitimacy. Diplomats now describe Cameroon as “a state in suspended legitimacy” — legally existent, morally extinguished.
Vindication of the Ambazonian Struggle
For the people of Ambazonia, this episode is not merely scandalous — it is vindication written in daylight. For decades, Ambazonians have argued that the so-called “union” between Southern Cameroons and La République du Cameroun was forged in deceit and sustained by fraud. A state incapable of credible elections or judicial neutrality cannot claim sovereignty over others.
Clément Atangana’s careless remark now stands as documentary proof. When the man who validates Biya’s presidency is filmed celebrating it as a family triumph, the myth of “national democracy” collapses.
Under international law — notably the UN Charter (Article 1.2) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 1) — any people denied genuine participation in governance retain the right to self-determination. The exposure of systemic fraud in Yaoundé therefore strengthens Ambazonia’s legal and moral claim that continued subjugation within a corrupt and illegitimate system violates global norms.
The world can no longer pretend neutrality.
The same United Nations that now withholds congratulations must take the next logical step: to recognize that Ambazonia’s call for self-determination is not rebellion — it is restitution.
A Stronger Path to Freedom
This is the turning point. If Yaoundé’s own electoral referee is compromised, then the argument for Ambazonia’s separation stands not as sedition but as self-defense. The fraud that destroyed Cameroon’s democracy has reborn Ambazonia’s legitimacy. Every document, every broadcast, and every silence from the international community now becomes part of the evidence. Ambazonia’s right to self-determination is no longer theoretical — it is the only lawful remedy when a people are trapped in a system that mocks justice and calls oppression “unity.”
Conclusion – History Has Shifted Hands
What Clément Atangana unwittingly revealed is that Cameroon no longer functions as a republic; it survives as a syndicate of power. Yet, in exposing that truth, he has done what no Ambazonian petition or protest alone could achieve: he made the case for freedom irrefutable.
The fraud that killed democracy in La République du Cameroun has become the moral birth certificate of a new nation. From the ashes of a broken union rises a people who now stand not as rebels but as the rightful heirs to the unfulfilled promise of 1961 — the promise of self-government, dignity, and the right to choose their destiny.
The world must decide whether to keep propping up the ruins of tyranny or to stand with history — the side where freedom, once denied, finally claims its day. “When the referee dances with the winner, the game is over. But when the oppressed rise, history begins again.”
Ali Dan Ismael (London) and Jean-Marie Poccachard (Lyon)
