For the first time since the start of the conflict in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon, government has come out openly to confirm that it had been and continue to have talks, directly and indirectly, with all the separatist leaders at home and abroad.
The revelation was made on the sidelines of the second lap of Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute's peace mission to Bamenda, August 5, 2021, and during an audience granted the journalists at Ayaba hotel. In response to numerous worries and questions from journalists living and working in Bamenda on why government could not just go ahead and dialogue with separatist leaders, rather than undertaking same of sameness consultative meetings in the regions, Felix Mbayu, Rapporteur General of the 2019 MND and secretary to the Resolutions Follow-up committee, was categorical government has since been doing all in its favour to get all movement leaders to the dialogue table and in the process, making lots of concesdions but separatist leaders remain intransigent on the position of independence, which is against all theories and practices of dialogue and negotiations. Government challenged any separatist leader to come out and declare if ceaseless efforts have not been made to dialogue with him or her.
Needless to mention that the Prime Minister's visit to follow-up implementation of the Resolutions of the Major National Dialogue gave him an opportunity to reveal that work on the much-talked about Bamenda-Babadjou road and the ring around Bamenda city, is beginning in earnest in the weeks ahead with the World Bank finally giving its clearance.
Another revelation was the fact that as boys are fighting and self-immolating themselves in the bushes, and as people in local communities suffer untold hardship because of the conflict, each time government reaches out to separatist leaders in the diaspora with peace offering, their conditions are always motivated by personal interest than the general good.
Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute during the briefing with the press sort to stress the fact that Southern Cameroons was never independent per se as their independence was conditioned on joining either The Republic of Cameroun that had obtained independence in 1960 or by joining Nigeria.
The Prime Minister recalled how Bamenda people, with the exception of Nkambe, voted overwhelmingly to reunite with mainland Cameroon. This, because of the persecution they suffered in the hands of unscrupulous Ibo businessmen. It was for this reason that the Prime Minister urged the Bamenda to back to regain their independence, nobility, dignity and elegance from separatist leaders who are unscrupulously exploiting them, depriving their children of education, and inciting them to undermine republican institutions.
He took time off to remind journalists that as constitutional law professor, he never doubted the fact that laws are dynamic and that is why there's still room for improvement on the Special Status content that could even beat the talk about federation, but wondered whether it was of any earthly use at this material moment trying to change what is still to be experimented, as Cameroonians can only judge the merits of the Special Status regions beginning next year when they start functioning on their self-voted budgets.
On the sidelines, Felix Mbayu, Minister Delegate at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Charge of the Commonwealth, regretted the fact that it could be Bamenda people spearheading division in the country when it has been demonstrated in truimphant detail that by his nature, a Bamenda can only survive when he has larger space to operate. He recalled for purposes of appreciation the fact that Bamenda people are found in all corners of the earth, and that they show their entrepreneurial prowess when they have larger space to operate rather being limited to a geographical location.
Like Isaul in the bible, the visiting delegation from Yaounde was of the impression that Bamenda people need to move awsy from being mere hunters, as has been the case since the outbreak of the crisis in 2016, to becoming real cultivators of development and unity in diversity.
By Nkwain Colbert
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