Cameroon finds itself at the center of two very different, yet painfully interconnected, crises. On one hand, the country is limping towards a high-stakes presidential election with all the grace of a one-legged duck. On the other, it’s still failing to resolve a brutal separatist conflict that’s turned thousands of its citizens into stateless wanderers. These dual challenges—an uncertain political transition and a festering humanitarian disaster—are defining the national conversation in April 2025. And they’re doing so with a tragic flair that’s become all too familiar.
Let’s start with the political powder keg. With the presidential election just a few months away in October, Cameroon’s bishops have politely, but firmly, asked the national elections body—ELECAM—to stop acting like it’s playing hide-and-seek with the voter list. Their request? Just publish the darn thing. The bishops, joined by a growing chorus of civil society groups and opposition parties, want greater transparency and better preparation for the vote. The concern is not just about the electoral roll but the entire electoral process, which many fear is being stage-managed to benefit the ruling establishment.
This nervous energy comes against the backdrop of President Paul Biya’s 42-year reign. Yes, you read that right—four decades of rule by the same man, who has somehow turned longevity into both a personal brand and a national condition. At 92, Biya has yet to announce whether he will run again, but the mere ambiguity is enough to send the opposition into a tailspin. Enter Ndim Jacob Ngong, a 35-year-old presidential hopeful who has emerged as a bold—if perhaps overly optimistic—challenger. He’s already reported receiving threats against his life, a grim rite of passage for any serious contender in Cameroon’s political scene.
But this tale of electoral woes would be incomplete without the conflict that’s quietly fueling much of the unrest. In Cameroon’s Anglophone regions—the North-West and South-West—an entirely different crisis has been unfolding for eight years. Since 2017, separatists have been fighting to carve out an independent state called Ambazonia, citing long-standing discrimination against English-speaking communities by the Francophone-dominated government. What began as peaceful protests turned into an armed insurgency, which in turn unleashed a brutal military crackdown. The human cost? More than 4,000 civilian lives lost, and at least 712,000 people displaced within Cameroon or across the border.
The spillover into Nigeria tells a particularly heart-wrenching story. Some 87,000 Cameroonians have sought refuge in Nigeria, mainly in the southeastern state of Cross River. There, they live in a strange limbo—not exactly welcomed as citizens, yet not entirely forgotten. Many survive on monthly stipends from the UNHCR, supplemented by vocational training programs that promise a better future but deliver only marginal improvements. Some have picked up sewing, shoemaking, or even plumbing. But most still cling to one desperate hope: returning home. And that hope remains elusive.
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What’s maddening is how avoidable this whole mess could have been. Years of warnings from human rights organizations, international diplomats, and even Cameroon’s own internal commissions have gone largely unheeded. Meanwhile, the government continues to refer to the separatists as “terrorists,” refusing to engage in meaningful negotiations. Dialogue attempts have been sporadic, poorly organized, or swiftly abandoned.
To put it bluntly, Cameroon’s leaders have been more interested in managing optics than managing crises. But while the country’s elites argue over term limits and transparent voter lists, the people are being failed on two fronts. One group is trapped in a country that doesn’t seem ready to hold a fair election. The other is trapped outside it, in refugee camps that were meant to be temporary but are looking more permanent by the day.
And so, as 2025 rolls on, Cameroon continues to walk a political tightrope with no safety net in sight. The government has a narrow window to clean up its electoral act and re-engage in serious peace talks with the Anglophone separatists. Failure to do both may not just deepen the country’s divisions—it could tip the entire state into chaos.
Because here’s the thing about long-running crises: they don’t just fade away. They metastasize. And right now, Cameroon is flirting with a very dangerous transformation. The question is whether its leaders have the courage—and the competence—to pull it back from the brink.
