Children want to go to school. Parents want to send their kids to school. Teachers are handy to teach. The Government says it wants schools to resume. Ambazonia leaders and spokespersons are divided over calls for school resumption. “Everyone” is now singing in chorus for school resumption, including “everyones” who, basking in some “Amba is coming tomorrow morning” utopia had sworn that schools must only resume after independence. At that time a certain Franklin Sone Bayen, in a lone-ranger campaign, though fully supporting the emancipation movement, had been pleading since early 2017 for an end to the school lockdown. The “everyones” who did not challenge Bayen outright, were complacent or, seeking cheap popularity, sang the song of the wrong vocal multitude.
The “everyone” call suggests there will be a similar “grand rentree scolaire” in September everywhere, in the nooks and crannies of Kamerun. But will it? That will depend on the sincerity of the stakeholders to bend over backwards and make it happen and on their understanding of the realities on the ground. That largely depends on whether they MEAN business or they are just DOING business by seeking selfish (langa throat) gain from miming a genuine old song for school resumption.
Also, those who are experts at showing their faces where gain or some kind of praise may be achieved are now muscling their way to own the back-to-school campaign. It is expected that upon school resumption, certain media, even those eating with both sides of their mouth, being patronized to swell contrary songs, will be hired to flood the airwaves and newspaper covers with headlines of “Successful , Massive School Resumption” even in Akwaya!
This is where the various stakeholders stand over the matter:
SCHOOL CHILDREN: They want to go to school. They are conscious of the vital role education plays and would gladly flock to schools across the Anglophone regions if that were possible and safe.
PARENTS: They do not want to be succeeded in the hereafter by school dropouts and vagabonds. If it were possible for all schools in every part of the two Anglophone regions to open its doors and the atmosphere were conducive for schooling, parents won’t hesitate to accompany their kids to school.
TEACHERS: Since the majority of them called off their 2016 strike in February 2017, albeit under controversial circumstances, teachers have been officially available for teaching. But from a teachers’ strike when students went to school while teachers were absent, the movement metamorphosed into students/parent withdrawal from school in solidarity with teachers. Yet, even after teachers returned to classrooms, the parents/students boycott kept schools closed. Later, even the parents and school children who wanted to go to school feared for their lives, under threats from the Amba school ban. If the ban were lifted and parents brought their children to school, teachers would be handy to teach as long as they felt safe.
GOVERNMENT FORCES: They obviously wish for schools to resume. Strategically, school children provide them with some kind of human shield. They often invite civilians where they do not want to be attacked. Sometimes, on the highway, when they are supposedly escorting civilians across combat zones or where Ambazonia combatants have erected roadblocks, commuters notice the military are rather benefiting from the presence of civilians to avoid gun battles. However, in some places, Government defence and security forces have been the ones urging civilians to vacate potential combat zones, both for the safety of civilians but also so that civilians do not serve as human shields for separatist fighters.
AMBA BOYS: Some of them are opposed to school resumption as schools functioning fully would imply to them that Yaounde’s authority still has a hold on zones they have “captured”. They reason that schools are run by ministries of the Yaounde Government. To some Amba Boys, that totally negates their months of combat and the gains they have made in areas where they have erased any form of Yaounde representation, where DOs, divisional delegates, Police, Gendarmerie, military and others have fled. To them, those areas are already “independent”, so a resumption of school would imply a unilateral surrender of captured territory as schools cannot run without local Government representatives returning too. The Amba Boys would have preferred to have their own school system in force as they have imposed their own “judicial system” and traditional authorities. In some areas under their control they sit over cases and pass judgment, especially over land disputes.
GOVERNMENT: The Government is desperate for schools to resume, perhaps out of concern for the welfare of its citizens, but most certainly because the protracted school lockdown under Ambazonia combatants’ orders, questions State authority. Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute begged parents to send their children back to school during a tour of the two Anglophone regions in May this year. Ambazonia leaders and spokespersons are laying the blame at the feet of the Government, challenging it to create an enabling environment by making public concessions that would diffuse tensions across the board.
AMBAZONIA STAKEHOLDERS: There are confusing signals from the most vocal actors in the Anglophone/Ambazonia movement. Below are excerpts of their views:
MANCHO BIBIXY, AGBOR BALLA, FELIX NGALIM: Says Nkongho Agbor Balla in support of the back-to-school campaign: “While we acknowledge the important role played by school boycott towards creating awareness on the status and problems of Southern Cameroon in the union with the Republic of Cameroon, we must recognize that the prolonged boycott has played negatively towards the socioeconomic and cultural advancement in, and indeed the future of Southern Cameroon.”
Meanwhile, an online publication, News Day Cameroon, reported about Mancho and Ngalim’s campaign thus:
“Mancho Bibixy and others of the Coffin Revolution have begged Ambazonia separatist fighters not to heed the call for school boycotts in the North West and South West regions. In an audio message released Thursday July 18, 2019, the activists say the position on school boycott must change, urging secessionist hardliners to work for an effective resumption of schools in the conflict gripped regions come September 2019.
“We had moved from county to county to disrupt classes, the purpose was to make our problem known to the world. We have succeeded to achieve that goal,” Mancho said and added: “We have to change strategy of the struggle.”
Anglophone inmates at the New Bell Prison in Douala this week penned down a message against the crusade of the teacher and journalist. “Some of our jailed brothers are not in support of back to school campaign because they are in prison,” he acknowledged.
The members of the Coffin Revolution movement have sent three key messages to Ambazonian fighters in the restive North West and South West Regions.
“I want restorationists to know that we are fighting for our children and generation to come,” he insisted.
He has implored them to “play a key role in guaranteeing a hitch free back to school for the kids who will run companies, institutions and giant corporations in our communities tomorrow. This will also mount pressure on the Cameroon Government to withdraw forces because the international community has its eyes on them.”
The Coffin Revolution leader also challenged the fighters “to haunt all the fake Amba disrupting classes and bring them to book.” In the audio message, the incarcerated Ambazonia activists denied claims that they received money or favour to launch a back to school crusade. “I maintain that I have not been bought over and I remain fearless,” Mancho emphasized.”
AYAH PAUL ABINE: While some reports associated Ayah to the call by the afore-mention trio which he had described as “noble” while expressions reservations, the retired Supreme Court judge issued a rejoinder in a July 19 Facebook post that he did not:
PA AYAH NEVER SAID THAT
Ayah’s July 19, 2019 Facebook post
“There have been newspaper publications, social media posts and even TV programmes claiming that PA Ayah has joined the drama for a return to school in Ambazonia. PA Ayah wishes to make it very clear hereby that nothing can be far from the truth!!!
“Here is PA Ayah’s position on the issue as previously stated:
In the prosecution of “the Anglophone War … homes are deliberately razed to the ground by the military, resulting, in several cases, in entire villages erased from the surface of the earth! … schools are attacked and/or burnt down on purpose! … the wounded are extracted from hospitals and put to death through extra-judicial killings with impunity! … homes are broken into and innocent persons are callously shot and killed!
What is more and all the worse, the main targeted persons here are the young. No-one is unaware that even babies have been shot and killed in their sleep. Needless talking of young male youth seen in motion!
In the face of such prevailing insecurity, where and how is the child safe??? One would daresay that, in the absence of an official truce and concrete demonstration of the official valuing of human lives, especially Amba human lives, invitation to return to school is akin to invitation to dare death!!! The government must do much more!!!
In the final analysis, then, it is for every parent to evaluate the safety for their children in school and take the necessary decisions. What some quarreled with in the past was the Amba Authorities placing general embargo on children going to school. Now that the embargo has been lifted, one would dare to opine that [school] attendance may not be a collective resolution as safety remains highly staked.
We may not be seen to be luring people’s innocent children into life-threatening circumstances: killing for the fun of it! Making soft targets even softer!
God alone knows how, in the face of the clarity of PA Ayah’s stance by the foregoing terms, anyone could claim, even remotely, that PA Ayah has joined the general campaign for a return to school next September.
For PA Ayah, any such campaign shall only make sense after the secession of hostilities. Anything less smacks of dishonesty and amounts to invitation to collective suicide for the young!!!
PA Ayah never can be party to it!”
MARK BARETA: The former co-interim leader of the Consortium shared his views over the back-to-school debate thus:
SCHOOLING A CHOICE, EDUCATION A RIGHT BUT LIFE IS SUPREME
Mark Bareta’s July 13 Facebook post
At the moment there is no buffer zone in Southern Cameroons. The international community (UN most especially) cannot be more interested in schooling more than life. There is no schooling without life. Life is supreme and it’s sacred, which must be protected at all times. Preaching for effective school resumption will not happen because the armed conflict continues and more importantly Cameroun forces still roam around. By the way in some cities, schooling have been on, GCE written, marking went on well. Restoration Forces did not disturb this process because in these areas fighting hardly occur and security wise they are better but the situation is not the same in about 80 percent of Ambazonia. We have repeatedly said that school boycott is no longer a tool by the separatists. School boycott is now an outcome of insecurity.
If the international community is too interested in schooling, then they must intervene, declare Southern Cameroonians as endangered species, create buffer zones and then schooling effectively will go on otherwise it’s time wasting. Recall that I have constantly used the word schooling rather than education because they are both different. Even as the war rages on, pilot programs can be run that educate our people in different forms because the aspect of schooling alone brings on lots of other activities. Already in some areas in Ambaland where restoration forces are in some form of control, they are allowing schooling under certain conditions etc. To those preaching school resumption get your facts straight and work towards a buffer zone. The onus lies with Cameroun forces.
CHO AYABA: This is part of what the leader of the Ambazonia Governing Council, believed to be responsible for some of the Ambazonia fighters, told BBC on July 16, the day after he defended his PhD thesis in London:
“Less than 48hrs ago, a vibrant Ambazonian teacher by name Mr. Suh from GTC Njinikejem was murdered by Cameroun military just as many were calling on him and his colleagues to return to their classrooms. That is the reality of every teacher in Ambazonia today. In this state of insecurity where there is rampant ill trained trigger happy soldiers of the Cameroun military roaming our streets, killing another teacher would be one more claim of justifiable action even though these citizens do not pose any threat to them.
An independent sovereign Ambazonia will not only guarantee a better education for our children but also present the only option whereby our people can feel safe again for any effective school resumption to begin.”
AFCON final: all-Cameroon show
Though the Indomitable Lions staged a near no-show at AFCON 2019 where they were defending their 2017 title won in Gabon, Cameroon still made a strong presence at the final in other ways. CAF changed its mind from assigning South African referee Victor Gomez and choose Cameroonian Sidi Alioum who had handled the opening game as central referee, accompanied by fellow Cameroonians Evarist Mekouande and Elvis Noupue as linesmen.
Another Cameroonian was seen at center-stage, when Samuel Eto’o appeared as the “chief steward”, marching in front of the final train, AFCON trophy in hand.
Cameroonians also featured prominently on the airwaves. Martin Camus Mimb commentated for African Union of Broadcasting (AUB/UAR), Patrick Mboma was consultant on Canal+ and Joseph Antoine Bell was live commentaries consultant with RFI. Still with RFI, J. Remy Ngono was one of the studio analysts after the match.
It looked like Cameroon was absent at the final, yet present everywhere you turned, though curiously, they all being private individuals gave the impression that Cameroonians are achievers, winning on their own but losing when bad governance is involved.