Pro-regime activist, Nchia Roland, predicts collapse of Canada-led dialogue if Amba boys are sidelined

Pro- Yaounde regime advocate, Nchia Roland Mua, has said the Canada-led dialogue will fail if Ambazonia fighters are not ‘key’ part of the talks.

The founder of Anti-separatist agency and presidential candidate of UCPP party said separatist leaders in the diaspora have lost control of the conflict and are therefore not the right people to dialogue with if the conflict must be stopped.

“I wish to let the Cameroonian Government to note very clearly that ending the Anglophone Crisis is working with the radicalised boys in the bushes and not the Diaspora. The Diaspora has little or nothing to do to end the crisis. This is a failed mission as the others,” he said.

He made the statement hours after the Canadian government revealed it will be mediating in talks between the Government of Cameroon and separatist leaders, who have been fighting for a new state, Ambazonia, carved out of the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon.

A crisis that started in 2016 escalated into a deadly conflict one year later after the separatist leaders declared Southern Cameroons an independent country from Cameroon.

History scholars, like the renowned Cameroonian historian Julius Ngoh, have argued that the separatists merely highjacked a lawyers-teachers strike that started in November 2016 to enforce a secretly hatched secession agenda.

The both government and separatist fighters have counted enormous losses since the conflict broke out, with civilians bearing the brunt of the war, human rights groups have said.

Separatist leaders, who have been managing the conflict from Europe and American, have seen their power threatened after most of the fighters on the ground denounced their control and regrouped into a united front called the Ambazonia people’s liberation council.

By Tata Mbunwe