MIMI Mefo, the voice in the wilderness that Ambazonians have refused to listen to.
By The Editorial Desk | The Independentist
To Mimi Mefo and others urging Ambazonians to participate in the upcoming 2025 elections in Cameroon—we acknowledge the sincerity of your appeal. But we must respond with clarity, memory, and conviction. Your call for engagement within a system that has historically oppressed and silenced our people is not only misguided—it is dangerous.
You speak of Biya’s entrenched political machinery, a regime sustained by decades of manipulation and repression. On that point, we agree. But to suggest that Ambazonians should now lend their voices, votes, or legitimacy to that very system is to ignore the long and painful journey we have taken—a journey marked by betrayal, bloodshed, and the clear understanding that no real change for us can come from within the structures of La République du Cameroun.
Remember 1992. That year, Ambazonians stood in hope and unity, rallying behind Ni John Fru Ndi in what was widely regarded as Cameroon’s first real multiparty election. Fru Ndi won. But the regime stole the election, and the system remained intact. The people’s hopes were crushed. No justice followed. No reforms came. The result was not a stronger democracy, but a more perfected dictatorship.
That lesson was not lost on us. It taught us that participation in a colonial system does not elevate us—it neutralizes us. It converts our dissent into decorum, our resistance into ritual.
Since 2016, more than 60,000 Ambazonians have been killed. Thousands more are displaced, living in refugee camps or as stateless persons. Our schools have been shut down. Our villages burned. Our leaders imprisoned without trial. This was not the result of tribalism or voter apathy. It was the price we paid for demanding what the United Nations promised us in 1961: the right to self-determination.
Today, to suggest that Ambazonians should return to the same electoral system that facilitated our erasure is not just naïve—it is offensive. This is not about choosing between political parties. It is about refusing to legitimize a regime that has already decided our fate without our consent.
Let us be clear. Ambazonians are not sheep without a shepherd. We are a people with a legitimate claim to statehood, a functioning government in exile, and a vision for a free and sovereign Southern Cameroons. We are not drifting aimlessly—we are resisting deliberately.
Elections, in and of themselves, are not evil. But when held under an illegitimate constitution, managed by a compromised electoral commission, and enforced by a military that targets civilians, they become instruments of continued occupation.
Our rejection of the 2025 elections is not a retreat. It is a refusal. A refusal to validate our oppressor. A refusal to forget our dead. A refusal to be drawn once again into a performance designed to pacify the world while destroying our future.
This is not a call to cynicism. It is a call to principle. We understand that many, like Mimi Mefo, desire change. But change must begin with truth. And the truth is this: there is no legal union between Southern Cameroons and French Cameroon. No treaty binds us. No constitution was ratified. No referendum was held. We are not part of Cameroon. And no election conducted by Cameroon can speak for us.
Ambazonians have learned from history. This time, we will not be fooled.
The Independentist
August 2025
