The onetime member of the National Assembly on Tuesday August 6, 2019 made public his party’s Federalist Manifesto at a press conference in Douala. 

The three-page document was read in the presence of His Eminence Christian Cardinal Tumi, representatives of a handful of political parties in Cameroon the among others, The Guardian Post reported. 

Ekindi said it is time to call for reconciliation, bury the hatchet, and to give sincere reasons for those in the bushes in the North West and South West regions to come out.

Various speakers at the conference, who expressed their grievances at the turnout of affairs regarding the Anglophone crisis, in a unitary voice decried all forms of violence saying “now is the time to call for action and not just dialogue, adding that “war has never been the solution.”

“Cameroonian people, the federal state is our future, here it is: The federal state will not make men more virtuous and less corruptible. Nor is it a cornucopia that will dump assets on people and eradicate poverty. But it will make it possible to fight effectively against the disturbances that led the unitary state to failure, ” Jean Jacques Ekindi stated.

The manifesto states that the 10 Regions of Cameroon will be 10 sovereign Federated states while an eleventh State, the federal state or the Federation sitting in Yaoundé, will receive, through the constitution, some exclusive competencies as well as some others shared with the federated states, and also that each state will have at the central level, an administration with three elected branches, the legislative, executive and judiciary.

It further states that with the federal system, there will be a balance of power at the top, the fight against abuses of power, delinquency and crime, the implementation of an administration better controlled by citizens and a more institutionalised and more transparent public finance administration. 

His Eminence Christian Cardinal Tumi expressed his concern with the Anglophone crisis and how assimilated he felt as an English-speaking Cameroonian from time immemorial. 

“I belief the federal state will work and Anglophones will welcome it,” the clergyman said positively. 

Civil society organisations, political parties, and the state have all tried various measures to solve the Anglophone crisis but it all proved abortive. But Jacques Ekindi believes his party’s proposals are irrelevant.

“I don’t consider what is being done because many people are not working. We are very happy that so many people are taking interest in this crisis resolution, but the fact is that it has to be relevant. Many proposals are there, but are they relevant? I don’t know, and if they are not relevant they won’t succeed,” he told The Guardian Post. 

“I believe that what we are doing is relevant; developing the project and investing in the Manifesto,” Jacques Ekindi added.