Speaking in a televised address to the nation Tuesday, December 31, 2019, President Paul Biya said the country’s military will fight in all professionalism to protect all citizens.

“For those who persist in going down the wrong road   and continue to use violence, we will have no other choice than to combat them in order to protect all our fellow citizens. Our Defence and Security Forces will, once again, perform their duty with restraint, but without weakness. I wish to reassure them of my full support and high esteem,” Biya warned.

He however agreed that without a doubt, the security situation in the North West and South West regions is one of the most urgent problems at the moment. He regretted that: “The criminal activities of armed groups continue to disrupt public, economic, and social life in these regions, yet various measures have been taken in recent months to reason with these youths, most of who have been brainwashed. They have been called upon to lay down their weapons, and social reintegration prospects have been offered them.”

The leader of the central African nation said decisions had been taken to convince citizens in the two troubled regions of Government’s willingness to devolve to local authorities the powers that would enable them to play a greater role in managing local affairs. He confirmed that provisions were to be made to fast-track the promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism.

The 87-year-old statesman noted that “the Nation at large showed support for Government’s policy by expressing, in various ways, solidarity with the populations who suffered the abuses and atrocities of armed gangs.”

Biya recalled that a Major National Dialogue, which was preceded, by various peace offers to the “insurgents”, accompanied by the release of hundreds of detainees, was effectively held from 30 September to 4 October 2019.

The man who has been president of Cameroon for 37 years and counting said a law on the promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism that provides for equal use of English and French in all public institutions had gone into effect.

He also said a law to institute the General Code of Regional and Local Authorities had been passed by lawmakers which to him is a decisive breakthroughs in the country’s decentralization process, notably regarding the status of local elected officials, the functioning of local assemblies and the allocation of additional, substantial financial resources to regions.

Hear him: “Concerning the North-West and South-West Regions in particular, the special status granted them takes into account the specificities of the Anglophone education sub-system, Common Law and traditional authorities.

“My dear compatriots, as you can see, a new Cameroon is taking shape; a Cameroon that is adapted to present times and looks to the future. To get to where we are, we encountered many hurdles, and as in the past, together, we overcome all of them.

“In this seven-year term of Great Opportunities for Cameroon, the Major National Dialogue has paved the way for our country to resolutely embark on the path to peace, national unity and progress, which are values that have always made our country great.”

Common Law Lawyers in Cameroon went on strike in October 2016 to protest government’s attempts to annihilate the Common Law practice in a constitutionally bilingual and bi-jural Cameroon. The strike lasted for over a year.

Anglophone teachers in the country joined the strike on November 21, 2016 to uphold Anglo-Saxon values under threat in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions. Same day, Mancho Bibixy staged a coffin revolution at Liberty Square in Bamenda to protest against the marginalisation and economic deprivation of Anglophones.

Matters came to a head on Thursday, December 8 when the population of Bamenda took to the streets to denounce the politicisation of a strike action they consider genuine and borne of longstanding grievances.

Days of ghost town have since been observed throughout the South West and North West Regions of the country.

On January 17, 2017, Barrister Nkongo Felix Agbor Balla and Dr. Fontem Neba, leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) were arrested moments after the consortium had been banned along with the SCNC.

Same day, internet was cut in the North West and South West Regions. The floodgate of arrests was thus open with the arrest of Mancho Bibixy on January 19, 2017. Journalist Atia Tilarious Azohnwi, Hans Achomba, Godden Zama, Penn Terence and hundreds of other Anglophones would later be arrested and ferried to detention centres in Yaoundé.

Separatists have since hijacked the corporatist demands of teachers and lawyers, seeking through the use of firepower the creation of a breakaway state called Ambazonia. Thousands of persons have been killed; hundreds of thousands others displaced and property destroyed as government forces battle armed men.

International agencies, including the United Nations say the humanitarian situation in the troubled regions is dire and have since proposed a mediated solution to end the conflict.