SONARA’s destruction is not just an industrial loss.It is a symbol of how Cameroon is held hostage by a small class that thrives when the country collapses. We must break the silence, Cameroon stands at a crossroads.
By Dr. Tata Fon Emmanuel The Independentist contributor.
There are moments in a country’s history when the truth no longer hides. It rises through the smoke, through the silence, through the pain of ordinary people who have watched their nation break piece by piece. The story of SONARA’s destruction is one of those moments.
SONARA did not simply burn. It burned in a way that forces us to ask uncomfortable questions. And the more we look at the facts, the clearer one conclusion becomes: Cameroon is ruled by people who benefit far more from national collapse than from national progress. This is not a dramatic accusation. It is an observable pattern.
A system that profits from suffering
For decades, Cameroon’s ruling elites have discovered that crises bring money. When hospitals crumble, donors give grants. When epidemics return, new budgets appear. When cholera spreads, the government announces “emergency responses.” When malaria spikes, new programs are launched.
When COVID-19 arrived, billions flowed into opaque channels.
Yet nothing improves. Roads remain broken. Hospitals lack basic equipment. Schools beg for supplies. And ordinary citizens see no change.It is not because the government is incapable. It is because a failing system is profitable for those who manage it. The Anglophone conflict made the pattern impossible to ignore.
For years, the world pleaded with Yaoundé to open genuine dialogue and stop the war tearing apart the North-West and South-West regions. Religious leaders tried. Civil society tried. Scholars tried. The diaspora tried. International partners tried. But the response was always delay, denial, or repression.
Why?
Because conflict brings money too: inflated security budgets, contracts with no oversight, reconstruction funds with no reconstruction, donor sympathy,emergency financial packages.In short:
Violence pays. Peace does not. Post-election unrest followed the same logic.
Instead of strengthening democratic institutions, the leadership allowed tension to rise after elections. Instead of calming the nation, they fueled uncertainty. Instead of transparency, they embraced fear and confusion. Once again, instability brought benefits: new “sovereignty expenses” emergency funds, additional loans, external support. It is a pattern: the weaker the country becomes, the stronger the ruling networks grow.
Then SONARA burned — and the system exposed itself
Before the fire, SONARA refined most of Cameroon’s fuel. Only about 20% of the market was controlled by politically connected importers. SONARA, for all its challenges, gave the nation a measure of economic independence. After the fire, everything changed: SONARA’s production dropped to zero Cameroon became fully dependent on fuel imports and the same political networks gained the entire market, billions of francs began passing through private hands, new loans were negotiated “for reconstruction”, fuel imports became one of the country’s biggest financial burdens.
In this new reality, only one group benefited — the crisis profiteers. Not the citizens. Not the State. Not the economy. The people who gained the most from SONARA’s destruction are the same people who control Cameroon’s most profitable crises.
The official story does not match the facts
SONARA was not an open market stall. It was a heavily secured national refinery guarded by soldiers, checkpoints, and restricted access. It operated under high alert due to the conflict. Yet the country was told that separatists: slipped in, burned a strategic refinery, slipped out, left no trace,faced no resistance, caused no casualties and left behind no evidence.
All this while, there has been no independent investigation, no forensic report, no parliamentary inquiry, no international audit — nothing. Just silence. And the profits that followed. A nation captured by those who prefer ashes to progress.
This is the truth Cameroon must confront:
A strong nation weakens the people in power. A functioning refinery threatens monopoly networks. A productive economy limits political control. An informed population becomes politically dangerous. So the country remains stuck — sick, fragile, and dependent — not by accident, but by design.
SONARA’s destruction is not just an industrial loss. It is a symbol of how Cameroon is held hostage by a small class that thrives when the country collapses. We must break the silence, Cameroon stands at a crossroads. If citizens stay silent, SONARA will not be the last sacrifice. More institutions will fall. More crises will be manufactured. More national assets will disappear into private pockets.
SONARA burned once. But the country will keep burning if we refuse to question, refuse to demand accountability, and refuse to confront the truth. This is not merely an article to inform, It is a reminder — and a warning. Cameroon must choose between continuing on a path where destruction is profitable, or rising to reclaim a future where dignity, accountability, and progress matter more than crisis money.
Dr. Tata Fon Emmanuel
