IGBOZURUOKE MEDIA

 Speaking in an interview, Ngang called on Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, to take decisive action and offer leadership toward a peaceful and permanent resolution to the crisis.

Edwin Ngang, a long-time community organiser and activist for the peaceful restoration of sovereignty to English-speaking Cameroon, known as Ambazonia, has raised the alarm over what he describes as the continued “recolonisation and subjugation” of the indigenous peoples of the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon.

 Speaking in an interview, Ngang called on Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, to take decisive action and offer leadership toward a peaceful and permanent resolution to the crisis.

According to Ngang, who currently serves as a community organiser of the Global Aspire Network Movement under the Republic of Ambazonia (RoA), the struggle for sovereignty is rooted in historical facts, legal precedents, and a call for dignity.

 “Ambazonians are the recolonised and subjugated indigenous Pidgin English-speaking people of the Northwest and Southwest provinces of Cameroon,” he declared, adding that their sovereignty “was timely recovered as the Republic of Ambazonia in 1984 when Restoration Law 84/01 dissolved the fake 1961 Cameroon confederation.” 

Tracing the historical roots of the conflict, Ngang pointed out that the 1961 union between French-speaking Cameroon and British Southern Cameroons was never ratified according to international standards.

 He stated that “the UN Resolution 1608 (XV) of April 21, 1961 confirmed the results of the plebiscite as a vote for creating the Cameroon bilingual Confederation,” yet what followed was unilateral annexation and centralization, culminating in the 1972 referendum that created the “United Republic of Cameroon” and was later nullified by the 1984 Restoration Law.

“This is an annexation and recolonisation problem,” Ngang insisted. 

“Cameroon loves to stoke the natural ethnic and regional differences that exist in its polity to obfuscate the true problem faced by the so called Anglophones in Cameroon.”

“The true problem faced by anglophones is the irredeemable failure of that “fake” 1961 Cameroon Bilingual Experiment.”

“To persist in continuing this Social Experiment which has never been contemplated by France and the United Kingdom tantamount to crimes against humanity worthy of invoking the 2005 Responsibility To Protect (R2p) Protocol of Humanitarian interventionism.”

He criticised what he termed “Pan-Cameroon predeterminism” — the assumption that the fate of English-speaking Cameroonians must remain tied to the French-speaking majority — calling it the “number one enemy” of Ambazonian sovereignty.

 He explained that the Ambazonian Recognition Quest (RQ) has long identified this psychological barrier and has focused on building a grassroots mobilization strategy based on the truths of history and legal facts.

“We understood for anyone to be able to solve the problems of the indigenous English-speaking peoples of Cameroon, they must be willing to let the Truths Of History speak for themselves!” he said. 

“The truth consists of the facts which will set us free, as long as the typical Ambazonian politician sees the truth as his ally, and not as his foe!”

“There can no longer be any discussion in Cameroon on how the constitutional arrangements that were voted at the February 11, 1961 plebiscite were finally implemented to have veered so far off its intended Confederation, into becoming now a one and indivisible state.”

“The Republic of AMBAZONIA therefore pleads for the World to stop viewing the problem via the lenses of pan Cameroon pre determinism! This is because it is bound to hide, if not obfuscate the background information needed to help precipitate the peaceful permanent solution! Cameroon dreads any transparency associated with facts and its accompanying best practices.”

Ngang lamented the internal divisions and resistance to sovereignty-based strategies within the Southern Cameroonian political elite, describing them as “Anti-Sovereignty Elites” who have allowed politicking to overshadow the people’s aspirations. 

“They kept denying, rejecting and substituting the truths with the falsehoods of politickings,” he stated, even though some of them “arrived in the Ambazonian RQ much later in 1995 and had the additional advantage of simply reviewing existing literature and adding value to it.”

Beyond internal challenges, Ngang pointed to the failure of the international community to act decisively. 

Despite submitting multiple letters and petitions to the United Nations and African Union, the Ambazonian government-in-exile has yet to secure recognition. Notably, the Republic of Ambazonia has sought the support of Nigeria since 1990.

 “The first country we sought an audience in quest for recognizing the sovereignty of the Republic of Ambazonia was the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.

He emphasized the importance of Nigeria’s role, citing cultural, historical, and geographic ties, as well as the direct impact of the crisis on Nigerian states like Cross River, Taraba, Benue, and Adamawa, which have absorbed thousands of Ambazonian refugees fleeing conflict. Ngang expressed hope that Nigeria under President Tinubu would rise to the occasion. 

“Nothing offers him the most auspicious opportunity than the AMBAZONIAN RQ where he simply just has to invoke the principle of territoriality.”

This principle, he explained, was “fraudulently exploited by the Republic of Cameroon at the 1994–2002 Bakassi proceedings to secure the undeserving judgment against the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” 

He argued that Nigeria now has the legal and moral grounds to “invoke the principle of territoriality to peacefully and permanently solve the problems created by that 1994 fraudulent use of this principle.”

As part of its current strategy, the agitators for  Ambazonia are promoting the Abuja Legislative Project (ALP), which urges the Nigerian government to either recognize the sovereignty of the Republic of Ambazonia or insist on a “binary YES or NO exclusive referendum” for the indigenous English-speaking peoples of Cameroon.

“This is our most optimised strategy to permanently and peacefully solve the problem of the indigenous English-speaking people, called Anglophones, in Cameroon,” he said, citing a letter dated November 16, 2024, sent to President Tinubu’s office.

 It reads in part: “The ‘NEW NIGERIAN ERA’ can also be logically executed when the Federal Republic of Nigeria invokes the Rule Of Law to solve the rising insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea caused by the AMBAZONIAN ‘self-determination’ crisis in Cameroon.”

The leader appealed to both Nigeria and the wider international community to abandon what he calls a “fire-fighting” approach that reacts only to flare-ups. Instead, he advocates for adopting a “Peaceful Permanent Solution (PPS),” which he argues has been championed by the Republic of Ambazonia since 1984.

“Nigeria, we believe has an opportunity with the Tinubu Administration to correct this decades old problem of ignoring the very legitimate problem of the forcible and illegal annexation of Republic of Ambazonia by La Republique du Cameroun and fulfilling its obligation in AU CONSTITUTIVE ACT, in Article 4(b): This article invokes the principles of territoriality that countries must maintain their boundaries as obtained at their time of independence,” he stated in the interview.

Concluding with a passionate appeal, Ngang declared: “It is time the legislative branch weigh in with a positive nudge so the Tinubu Administration gets to realise that in Ambazonia exists an opportunity for the New Nigerian Era to be implemented.” 

Sahara Reporters