The Price of Power: How Akere Muna Pledges Ambazonia’s Wealth to Yaoundé

Akere Muna is not without intelligence, credibility, and international standing. But when it comes to the Ambazonian question, he has shown himself tied to the same mistakes of the past.

By Uchiba Nelson

Akere Muna recently told Cameroonians that if he became president of La République du Cameroun, he could bring in 800 billion CFA from oil money within two weeks. It was said as a bold promise, almost magical, but the reality behind it is disturbing. La République du Cameroun has only about two small oil fields. Southern Cameroons, on the other hand, has over thirty-five. So whose oil is Akere really talking about? Is he quietly pledging Ambazonia’s resources to Yaoundé in exchange for political power?

For Ambazonians, this is not a small matter. Oil is not just a resource. It is the symbol of decades of exploitation and dispossession. Billions have been siphoned from Southern Cameroons to finance the very machinery of oppression that keeps its people in chains. For Akere Muna to stand on a national stage and promise that same oil as though it were his to give — that cuts deep.

The Muna family history makes this even more sensitive. His father, Solomon Tandeng Muna, played a key role in dismantling Southern Cameroons’ autonomy. As Speaker of the West Cameroon House of Assembly, he later stood beside Ahidjo in the 1972 referendum that dissolved the federation and merged everything into a centralised state. Many Ambazonians see him as one of the masterminds of betrayal, a man who exchanged the freedom of his people for a seat at Yaoundé’s table. When his son now makes promises about oil, people cannot help but remember that history. Like father, like son — it seems the pattern continues.

To be fair, Akere Muna has accomplishments. He is a well-known lawyer, former Vice President of Transparency International, past President of the Cameroon Bar Association, and he has built a global reputation as an anti-corruption crusader. Abroad, he is respected. At home, he is one of the few who dared to challenge Biya’s long rule, at least in appearance. Yet the contradictions cannot be ignored. How can a man speak of fighting corruption while making promises based on stolen wealth? How can he present himself as a reformer while still trapped inside the old colonial logic that views Ambazonian oil as property of Yaoundé?

This is also about community. Akere is Meta. Ambazonians remember how, in the old days, Meta traders would carry Ngie palm oil to Tad market or to Bamenda and claim it as “Meta oil.” That habit of rebranding and appropriation has not gone away. Today it shows up in politics — the idea that Southern Cameroons’ oil can be promised to La République without even asking its people.

The questions remain. Whose oil are you promising, Akere? Do you have the right to hand Ambazonia’s patrimony to Yaoundé? Will you ever acknowledge your father’s role in dismantling the federation and betraying Southern Cameroons? Or are you choosing the same path of silence, appropriation, and compromise?

Akere Muna is not without intelligence, credibility, and international standing. But when it comes to the Ambazonian question, he has shown himself tied to the same mistakes of the past. Offering Ambazonia’s oil to LRC is not reform. It is betrayal dressed in fine English and polished speeches.

Uchiba Nelson