By Dr David Makongo | Opinion & Analysis
The people of the North West and South West cannot be asked to surrender another generation to war. In this open response to Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, Dr David Makongo calls for immediate negotiations, civilian protection and a public plan for peace.
Editor’s note: This article is adapted from Dr Makongo’s supplied open response. It addresses remarks attributed to the Prime Minister in reports. A full transcript or recording establishing the wording and context of all four statements has not been verified for this article. They should not be treated as authenticated direct quotations. The arguments below are the author’s opinion.
Your Excellency, I address you with respect as Prime Minister, a traditional chief and a son of the South West. Those responsibilities make your reported assessment of the Anglophone crisis a matter that demands a frank response.
For families living with the consequences of this conflict, the question is not whether the crisis might eventually fade. It is what the government intends to do now to end it.
Exhaustion is not peace
You have reportedly suggested that, if it is not resolved now, the crisis could die a natural death in another 10 to 15 years. I have not seen a full transcript of your remarks. But the proposition as reported raises a fundamental question: what, exactly, is expected to disappear?
Is it the fighting alone? What about the grievances that preceded it, those still in prison, displaced families and people living with kidnapping, sexual violence, hunger and fear?
A parent unable to take a sick child safely to hospital does not experience this crisis as a political abstraction. Neither does a family unable to return home to bury a loved one.
A crisis does not end because its victims grow exhausted or fall silent. Nearly ten years have already passed since the protests of 2016. Another 10 to 15 years could consume a generation’s education, security and prospects. Our people need a plan for peace, not a forecast of exhaustion.
Development requires answers, not indefinite postponement
You are also reported to have linked stalled development to foreign partners continuing to regard the South West as a security red zone.
Insecurity certainly deters investment. It also prevents farmers from working, traders from moving goods and patients from reaching care. But the public deserves specifics.
Which roads, hospitals, factories, agricultural schemes or tourism projects have been delayed? What funding was committed? What practical steps are being taken to make those projects possible?
There is a further question: how much new investment and industrial development reached the North West and South West before the war?
The government owes the population a clear account of opportunities lost during the conflict and a funded programme for rebuilding. Development cannot remain a promise without deadlines or public accountability.
If fighters are tired, create a credible opening
Another reported assessment is that fighters are becoming tired. If reliable information supports that view, it should be used to create an opening for peace.
Where is the offer of serious negotiations? Where are the arrangements for a monitored ceasefire, safe disengagement and reintegration?
Recent lockdowns have again restricted movement and livelihoods. A family frightened to open its shop or travel to hospital cannot be reassured simply by suggestions that some fighters are weary.
The test is whether civilians can live safely. What protection and public assurances were offered during those shutdowns? What will change before the next disruption?
The Far North’s suffering does not diminish ours
The reported suggestion that the real battle is now in the Far North also requires a response.
The Far North deserves the state’s full attention and protection. So do the North West and South West. One region’s suffering cannot cancel another’s.
Our communities continue to report killings, kidnappings, attacks on security personnel and restrictions on movement. The reported civilian killings in Ekona, like every reported killing of a civilian, soldier or gendarme, demand credible investigation and accountability based on evidence.
A conflict cannot be treated as secondary while families continue to live with its consequences every day.
Tell the people what will happen this year
Your Excellency, waiting is not a peace policy.
We need serious negotiations, a ceasefire, protection for civilians, safe access to hospitals and schools, support for displaced families, and a funded plan to restore livelihoods and essential services.
Dialogue must confront the political grievances that began this crisis as well as the devastation caused by the war. It cannot be reduced to asking exhausted communities to endure a little longer.
Please tell the people of the North West and South West what the government will do this year to bring them peace.
Another 10 to 15 years of war could destroy far more than any future development plan can rebuild.
