Paul Biya’s Emergency Plan To Buy Anglophone Consciences Is Useless - Josuah Osih Responds

Cameroonian Prime Minister Philemon Yang detailed Wednesday night, June 20, a plan for emergency humanitarian assistance for the two English-speaking regions of North West and South West.

This plan provides for an envelope of 12.7 billion CFA francs (nearly 20 million euros) to be financed by “the state budget, the call for national solidarity and the contribution of international partners”.

President Paul Biya felt the urgency of not treating the thorny issue of English-speaking Cameroon only by force and security. And it’s a turning point. On the domestic front, the urgency of assistance is real: 160,000 people have fled their homes and 34,000 have fled to Nigeria. More haemorrhage is to be feared if the conflict gets bogged down.

Paul Biya’s Emergency Plan To Buy Anglophone Consciences Is Useless - Josuah Osih Responds

The safe thing is not enough anymore. Finally, Cameroonians vote in 4 months. The separatists would be well troubled presidential. The announcement of this assistance plan allows Paul Biya to tell the English-speaking population that they are not neglected. It is to cut the grass under the foot to the separatist speech. On an external level, we remember this very rare episode in diplomacy. At the end of May, leaving the Etoudi Palace after an interview with the Cameroonian president, the US ambassador denounced “targeted assassinations” committed by the army and revealed that he had suggested to President Biya to think about his legacy.

Clearly, to enter history by not appearing in the presidential election. Washington, Paris. Paul Biya, who is expected to run for another term in October, had to show a policy of the outstretched hand, in a hurry.

This plan does not solve anything

For the opponent and homeless candidate in the presidential election of October, Joshua Osih, this plan will not work and will be useless. “It is amazing that we are back in an emergency plan while Cameroon is on the brink of bankruptcy. We are going into an emergency plan that is not at all framed in the Republic’s budget, which is also surprising. Today we want to spend the taxpayer’s money to try to buy consciences, I think it will not work, “says Joshua Osih, opponent and homeless candidate for the presidential election.

Beyond humanitarian aid, the government said that, since October 2017, 84 soldiers and police have died in this conflict. Yaoundé accuses self-proclaimed armed separatist groups of burning 120 schools and recruiting minors.

False, replies the leader of the AGC, Cho Ayaba Lucas. “The Cameroonian government has declared war against the Ambazonians. From the beginning we had clearly warned the President that we would defend ourselves against the brutality of the regime. We believe that we do not have to apologize to Cameroon, when soldiers fall into this conflict. There are more than 160,000 people displaced by the regime’s actions, burning villages, sending helicopters to fight civilians;

many families have been forcibly displaced. We identified schools that were burned by security forces. This is the case of a high school in Bamenda that the military occupied for several days, high school that was burned in the night. We also know that in some villages, civilians set fire to institutions. But armed separatists are not responsible for the destruction of schools.