By Serge Banyongen*
On February 13-14, the village of Mbat, in the North-West Region of Cameroon, was burned and looted by alleged Mbororo/Fulani militia members.
A government-run school, a church, 205 homes and 155 barns containing maize were destroyed. Goats, motorbikes and provisions owned by local people were stolen. The attack forced 850 villagers to flee into the bush for survival.
No attempt was made by Cameroon’s defence or security forces to prevent the destruction of Mbat or save lives. No comprehensive investigation has been launched, so the perpetrators remain unknown. No aid has been sent to the villagers who have lost everything. They remain without shelter or safety.
In the place of action, there is suspicion, worsening the cycle of fear and blame. The Cameroon government and security services have traditionally protected the Mbororo/Fulani herdsmen who are implicated in the Mbat attack. Some accounts allege that this was an act of revenge, following a January 14 attack allegedly by Amba Boys in Gidado that killed 14 and also destroyed property. If true, this underlines the need for an urgent political solution to the conflict and lawlessness in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West Regions (NOSO).
Exactly six years before the incident in Mbat, on February 14, 2020, the Ngarbuh Massacre was perpetrated in the same Donga Mantung Division: 21 civilians were murdered and burned. The recent sentences given to a handful of perpetrators were important yet incommensurate with the scale of the atrocity.
Ngarbuh, Gidado, and Mbat are far from the only atrocities in the NOSO. However, the presidency remains silent and inert, as if the state has no responsibility to protect its citizens or uphold the rule of law. At this moment, human frailty and reality are forcing the 93-year-old President Biya to manage his legacy. By remaining silent, it shows that he either doesn’t understand how serious the situation is, or he made a conscious choice to go down in history as the president who left his country shattered and strangled.
Such inaction leads citizens to wonder how many officers and politicians have vested interests in continuing the profitable war economy. Civil society leaders conclude that the government’s indifference is deliberate, fostering political disenfranchisement and dismal economic and educational conditions in the Anglophone regions.
The situation in the NOSO is now in what experts call “the violence market,” where actors benefit financially. For instance, armed groups (Ambazonia Defence Forces, the so-called Amba Boys, with their myriad factions like Ambazonia Self-Defence Council, Southern Cameroons Defence Forces, Tigers of Ambazonia, Red Dragons, etc.) extract money from civilians at checkpoints or through kidnapping. The political elites (governmental officers such as Minister Paul Tasong-Njukang, the national coordinator of the PPRD-NW/SW, the Minister of Defence Beti Assomo, the Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atenga Nji and many more), and the military elites are implicated in protection rackets, extortion, lucrative contracts, and trafficking arms, drugs and people.
In Cameroon, violence has been privatized, and everyone involved benefits except unarmed civilians. Those in power have no incentive to end the bloodshed in this war economy. The price is paid by the population and future generations.
The stability and prosperity of Cameroon will remain an illusion while violence and corruption grip the nation. Yet, there is a way forward if the recently re-elected President Biya has the courage and imagination to diverge from his current destructive path. An honest and inclusive national discussion of grievances, and constitutional dialogue could offer all Cameroonians a genuine stake in their society. Yaoundé could suggest a roadmap that establishes a timetable for concrete measures to address peace, justice, accountability, transparency, national healing and devolution.
Such an approach will not produce easy or quick results, but it is surely more appropriate than the continuing suffering of citizens such as those in Mbat.
Time is up! The real dialogue can’t be delayed. Cameroon, beyond the fighters and the benefactors of the blood economy, must come together.
*Serge Banyongen is a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa in Canada.
