Armed conflict in NW, SW: Has gov't abandoned Anglophones to Amba fighters?.

Lives are still being lost and property destroyed with reactions, especially from the government, saddled with ensuring the protection of people and their properties, being accused of losing its guard.

When the crisis sparked in the last quarter of 2016, switching into an armed conflict in 2017, government laboured on all cylinders, battling to arrest the situation. 

Nine years on and still counting, the powers that be seem to have abandoned the aggressive measures to address the situation, leaving the population in a fix.

While most people across the two English-speaking Regions long labelled the separatist push for separation as a disguised war against Anglophones, where the government stands on the matter now, pundits are concurring, it is different from where it was a few years back.

It is now being questioned if the Biya regime has abandoned Anglophones to the heavily armed Amba fighters? The self-styled liberators-turned oppressors, have continued to slaughter civilians, while committing other atrocities albeit patches of gains in recovery, leaving many urging for consistency in the State’s resolve to arrest the situation.

In the last two years, other disheartening incidents blamed on the fighters have been recorded across towns and villages at moments and under circumstances that have raised more questions. In some of these cases, the comportment of local authorities and the central government in Yaounde have been judged to be largely lacklustre.

Many recall how between 2017 and 2021, the least attack in the restive Regions was taken seriously with a myriad of measures activated to salvage the situation. 

Today, locals of communities still bearing the brunt of Amba fighters say it sometimes takes days or even weeks for a local authority to visit an incident scene, talk less of the government reasserting its primary role to guarantee security.

Anglophones left to suit themselves?

While some applaud the government for sacrifices done across the years to safeguard people and their properties, others continue to insist that what has been done remains largely insufficient. 

Those in power, critics say, are vested with what it takes to ensure not even a strand of hair from a citizen’s head is cut off through any form of aggression.

The Biya regime, they are stating, has to fight till the end to protect the population from a group that continues to pose a threat to peace and national unity. 

Today, some analysts say, communities still bleeding from separatist attacks have begun to develop the impression that government has left them to sort things out with the gun-toting youngsters.

Others add to the view that some in the corridors of power see leaving Anglophones at the mercy of the armed gangs as some form of punishment.  Critics argue that the psyche of some in strategic positions within government could be emitting signals that it is ‘among them Anglophones, so let them do whatever they want’.

Prioritising institutions, personalities over general interest?

Discussions on the reading of government’s lukewarm attitude on the armed conflict, it is also being said, is different when it comes to State institutions and personalities. 

Authorities, political watchers say, have remained quick and pressing when an official falls in trouble, including attacks on State institutions, while most communities are left in dilemma. Today, most communities, it is being said, remain abandoned to the marauders passing for Anglophone freedom fighters.

Screaming neglect of Gidado massacre

If there is one incident of Amba attacks on civilians that has projected a message of clear government neglect, critics say, it is the Wednesday January 14, 2026 slaughter of 14 civilians in Gidado, Ndu Subdivision, Donga Mantung Division of the North West Region. The attackers didn’t only kill, but wounded 14 others, set homes ablaze, killing livestock and carting several things away.

Close to a week after the attack, which the Mayor of Ndu, Abdou Kanfon Borno described as a “genocide against Fulanis,” government, many are saying, is still maintaining a provocative silence. Added to that, it is reported, no administrative authority, including even the Divisional Officer, DO of Ndu Subdivision, has visited the affected community!

The Guardian Post gathered that the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, of Donga Mantung and the Governor of the North West Region, have also been lambasted for talking about the killings from the comfort of their offices.

Critics lament that if the government were serious about staying committed to the civilian population in the conflict-hit Regions, it should have, among others, condemned the attack and dispatched a ministerial delegation to Gidado.

They lament that the posture of authorities has left many with the impression that it is now treating Amba atrocities with levity, leaving the weakened population in the eye of a storm.

Community dialogue not enough

Biya’s submission during his inauguration on November 6, 2025, proposing community dialogue as the way out of the crises, observers say, is largely not enough.

Those who continue to pick holes in how the government is tackling the armed conflict now, posit that in the real sense of bringing quietude to the English-speaking Regions, the approach is superficial.

They argue that sending local elite and the population into dialoguing with bands of deadly armed gangs that have killed even security forces, could turn out to be suicidal.

Warning of a possible boomerang, those who disagree with Biya’s proposal share the view that, in as much as elite and traditional rulers may have a role to play, the buck stops with the government to ensure peace returns to the North West and South West Regions. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3679 of Tuesday January 20, 2026