My dear people,
Happy Independence Day to Ambazonians everywhere—across the Midland, Savannah, and Atlantic zones, across our 13 counties and 61 Local Government Areas, and throughout the diaspora. October 1 is not merely another date on the calendar. It carries history, memory, and continuing disagreement over the constitutional fate of the territory once administered as the British Southern Cameroons.
United Nations records place October 1, 1961, at the center of that history. UN General Assembly Resolution 1608 (XV) provided for the termination of the trusteeship over Southern Cameroons on October 1, 1961, upon its joining the Republic of Cameroun, following the 1961 plebiscite. The same resolution called for urgent discussions to finalize the arrangements by which the agreed policies of the parties would be implemented. (Digital Library) But October 1 now carries another meaning for the generation shaped by the past decade.
The year 2026, marks ten years since the protests and political mobilization that began in 2016 transformed the Southern Cameroons question. The crisis did not begin with armies. It began with lawyers, teachers, students, and citizens raising concerns about the treatment of Anglophone legal and educational institutions. Human Rights Watch documented the late-2016 protests, the government’s response, and the January 17, 2017 arrests of Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho and Dr. Fontem Neba. (Human Rights Watch)
That history matters because armed conflicts do not simply appear from nowhere. They develop through grievances, political decisions, repression, radicalization, organization, and escalation. For many Ambazonians, the arrests of lawyers, teachers, and activists did not extinguish the political movement. Instead, mobilization expanded through communities and the diaspora. Then came another decisive chapter.
In January 2018, Nigerian authorities arrested Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe and other Anglophone activists. Human Rights Watch reported that 47 people were subsequently handed over to Cameroonian authorities and held incommunicado for months. (Human Rights Watch) Political organizations nevertheless continued, and competing leadership structures emerged. Dr. Samuel Ikome Sako became a prominent figure in one branch of the Ambazonian Interim Government. Human Rights Watch has subsequently described separate factions associated with Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Samuel Ikome Sako. Human Rights Watch
Whatever one’s assessment of individual leaders, one historical point is clear: Arresting leaders did not make the underlying political question disappear.
Ten years later, that may be one of the most important lessons of this period. In September 2026, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute was reported in Buea as saying that the crisis should be resolved rather than allowed to continue and that, if unresolved, it could eventually “die a natural death” after another 10 or 15 years. The remark was reported in the context of a Southwest community dialogue meeting. Human Rights and Legal Research Centre
Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, the persistence of the conflict demonstrates that political disputes do not necessarily disappear merely because time passes. But Veritas Network remembers something else today. TEN YEARS HAVE COME AT AN ENORMOUS HUMAN COST. Families have buried loved ones. Communities have been displaced. Children and young people have lost years of education. Villages and homes have been destroyed. People have disappeared into detention. And civilians have suffered abuses committed by both government forces and armed separatist groups. Human Rights Watch has documented unlawful killings, kidnappings, attacks on schools, destruction of property, arbitrary detention, and other serious abuses by actors on both sides of the conflict. (Human Rights Watch)
So on this Independence Day, we should remember courage without romanticizing suffering. We remember the lawyers. We remember the teachers. We remember the students. We remember the prisoners. We remember the displaced. We remember those who never returned home. We remember families who have carried grief for a decade.
And we remember those who have worked to ensure that the history of this period is documented rather than erased.
To those documenting, advocating, educating, caring for families, preserving archives, supporting communities, and recording events—your contribution to history matters. But this tenth anniversary should also be a moment of responsibility. Whatever political future emerges, the society our children inherit will require more than slogans. It will require institutions. Justice. Schools. Hospitals. Economic opportunity.
Accountable leadership. Archives. Reconciliation. Protection of civilians. Respect for human dignity. And citizens who understand that sovereignty, in whatever form it is pursued or exercised, carries responsibilities as well as rights.
If the future is to honor the sacrifices of the past decade, preparation for that future must begin now. We must document rather than forget. We must educate rather than distort. We must preserve our languages, traditions, institutions, and historical records. We must protect civilians. We must reject collective punishment. We must demand accountability for abuses regardless of who commits them. And we must ensure that future generations have access to the documentary record necessary to understand what happened, why it happened, and how different people experienced it. THAT IS WHY VERITAS NETWORK EXISTS. VERITAS means TRUTH. Our mission is simple: Record it. Verify it. Preserve it. Pass it forward. Today, as we mark 65 years since October 1, 1961, and 10 years since the beginning of the modern struggle that emerged from the 2016 protests, we are reminded that memory is not useless. Memory is power. History is power. Truth is power. And a people who understand where they came from are better equipped to make informed decisions about where they are going.
Happy Independence Day to Ambazonians across Midland, Savannah, and Atlantic, across all 13 counties and 61 LGAs, and to compatriots throughout the world. 65 YEARS OF HISTORY. 10 YEARS OF STRUGGLE. A FUTURE STILL TO BE WRITTEN. VERITAS NETWORK.Documenting our history. Preserving our memory. Informing our people. October 1, 2026
Veritas Network
