Cameroon’s elites are preparing a soft landing for a hard system. Ambazonia is preparing a hard truth for a soft world. One path leads to recycled domination. The other leads to real freedom. And no amount of emotional choreography can change that.
Ali Dan Ismael Editor-in-Chief The Independentistnews just back from vacation.
YAOUNDE January 2026 – The glowing birthday message circulating on Francophone social media this week — signed with clenched fists, prayerful language, and the slogan “Peuple de la Victoire pour le changement” — is being marketed as a moment of tenderness. It is nothing of the sort. It is a political operation., wrapped in spirituality and emotion, a carefully engineered succession narrative designed to manage the end of Paul Biya’s rule without ending the system that produced him. This is how Françafrique survives.
From Dictator to “Moral Heir”
When authoritarian regimes grow old, they do not collapse gracefully. They rebrand. Instead of tanks and decrees, they deploy: moral figures, religious language “motherly” authority, talk of justice, love, and light. The goal is not reform. The goal is continuity with a human face.
The message claims 179,000 followers. It claims to speak for the “undesirables,” the poor, the foreigner. It claims proximity to a “legitimate president.” It invokes God, Allah, and Heaven in the same breath as political destiny. That is not humility. That is a bid for symbolic power. And symbolic power is what replaces brute force when regimes prepare to transition.
“Peuple de la Victoire” Is Not Innocent Language
The phrase “Peuple de la Victoire pour le changement” is not poetry. It is a claim to ownership of the future. It tells Cameroonians — and foreign sponsors — that: “We are the people who will inherit Cameroon when Biya leaves.” This is the core of the trap.
It suggests that Cameroon’s crisis is merely about leadership, not legitimacy. That the solution is a new face, not a new foundation. That the colonial architecture of the state can be kept intact, provided a softer voice sits at the top. That framing is deadly to Ambazonia.
Why France Loves This Script
France does not fear chaos. France fears decolonization. So whenever a colonial system begins to fail, Paris pushes one solution above all others: managed transition. That means: No reckoning. No structural change. No question of sovereignty. Just a new cast performing the same old play.
Messages like this one are meant to prepare the world to accept a “new Cameroon” that looks different but is still bound to the same colonial spine. This is how France turns collapse into continuity.
Ambazonia Is the Real Threat
What terrifies Yaoundé and its sponsors is not disorder — it is clarity. Ambazonia does not ask for a better Cameroon. Ambazonia exposes that Cameroon itself is the problem. That is why every succession narrative tries to bury the decolonization question under emotion, prayer, and promises of “change.” They want a future where Cameroon survives. Ambazonia demands a future where colonialism does not.
Do Not Be Seduced
There will be more messages like this in 2026. More “mothers of the people.” More moral speeches. More spiritual language. More talk of light and justice. But none of it addresses: the 1961 betrayal, the UN trusteeship violation, the annexation of Southern Cameroons, the ongoing war of reconquest, Those truths cannot be prayed away. They must be confronted.
The Choice Ahead
Cameroon’s elites are preparing a soft landing for a hard system. Ambazonia is preparing a hard truth for a soft world. One path leads to recycled domination. The other leads to real freedom. And no amount of emotional choreography can change that.
Ali Dan Ismael from vacation.
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