The tenth anniversary of Cameroon’s anglophone crisis has reignited fierce debates over who truly controls the narrative—and who is exploiting the chaos. In a scathing editorial marking a decade since the first protests in October 2016, Cyrille Atonfack Guemo, communications chief at the Ministry of Defense, dismantles the separatist movement’s claims of liberation, exposing what he calls a calculated deception.
From grassroots demands to armed insurrection: a manufactured uprising
It started with legitimate grievances from teachers and lawyers in the North-West and South-West regions, but Cyrille Atonfack Guemo argues the escalation into armed conflict was anything but spontaneous. His analysis suggests a carefully orchestrated transition: one requiring years of logistical preparation, deep-rooted support networks, and substantial resources to recruit, indoctrinate, and arm fighters across distant locations.
Such a transformation, he contends, could not have occurred overnight. It begs the question: who pulled the strings behind the scenes, and what long-term agenda did they pursue?
The illusion of emancipation: a project built on destruction
Separatist leaders have long framed their struggle as a fight for freedom and self-determination. Yet Atonfack Guemo dismantles this narrative by painting a stark contrast between promise and reality. How, he asks, can people be liberated when their basic survival is denied? In regions ravaged by violence, civilians face impossible choices: flee their homes or risk kidnapping, extortion, or worse.
The civilian toll has been catastrophic. Schools torched. Hospitals destroyed. Healthcare workers targeted. Women and girls subjected to systematic abuse. Communities, once self-reliant, now survive in displacement camps—stripped of dignity, stripped of hope. Far from building a new society, separatist factions have imposed a reign of terror disguised as revolution.
Who really benefits from the crisis? The paradox of separatist wealth
Atonfack Guemo levels a damning accusation: that far from fighting for the people, separatist leaders have enriched themselves off the suffering of others. While civilians starve and villages burn, their commanders live in opulence abroad—safe from conflict, educating their children in elite foreign institutions, and flaunting wealth inconsistent with a liberation movement.
This duality speaks volumes. How can those who claim to love Cameroon justify turning its people into pawns in a deadly game of power? Their rhetoric of altruism rings hollow when every action—every burned school, every extorted ransom, every enforced exile—undermines the very people they claim to represent.
The end of an imposture
The separatist project, he asserts, was never about freedom. It was about domination. Atonfack Guemo concludes with a warning: time is running out for those who have hijacked the anglophone cause. The Cameroonian people see through the deception, and the days of this cruel imposture are numbered.
Only through vigilance, patriotism, and a return to constitutional legality can Cameroon reclaim its future from those who would profit from its destruction.