The much-purported Acrimony inolving the Nothwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon (aka Northwest/Southwest Divide)

I know trying to talk sense on this NW/SW issue is an exercise in futility, especially since many of the sides do not want to see things beyond their nose, and start acting with one another as genuine partners for a future that would benefit all.

 

All the same, I will go ahead and repost, hoping that it helps us join hands and work together for our troubled land. 

The NW/SW rivalry is mostly at the political level, an asset for those involved in the divide-and-rule game, in a fight for limited resources and twisted interests.

 

At the social or people level,_ it is not a worry, even though the so-called elites benefiting from it would want it so.

 

That does not mean it does not sip through and affect some common folks.

 But when it does so, it is usually through concerted efforts.

 

 Those who propagate division or hatred of "others" are usually those with deep-seated issues against an individual of the group they hate, uncalled-for hatred that they have transferred to the entire group. It doesn't matter if it is anti-Bamilekeism, anti-Banso, anti-Bakwerianism, anti-Betism, etc.

👇👇👇🤣

There is rivalry everywhere, and it is mostly okay since it is based on competition.

 

 Take the case of Germany, in our generalisation, where many people of the other German states or regions are irked by the disposition of Bavarian Germans🤣 (Bavaria is the state with the highest GDP and GDP per capita in Germany), holding that they (Bavarians)think they are better than everyone else.

 

 We can also look at examples of rivalry within particular regions (Oku and Banso for one), within particular cities (the case of Limbe involving supporters of the football clubs Opopo and Elect Sport back in the day; between Manchester’s two football teams--- Manchester United and Manchester  City; or the distinct, friendly rivalry between Buda and Pest, the two parts of the Hungarian capital Budapest).

 

Did politicians screw up the people in the past, even during the federation years? Yes, they did.

 

 Sometimes consciously, other times unconsciously (from incompetence or ignorance). If the politician is our own, our disapproval of them (their actions, that is) is expressed as disappointment and jokes ( an abundance of them in the Northwest about Muna, Foncha, etc.).

 But if the politician is not from the people who got hurt, the people who got hurt take it deeper, and their elites often exploit it, fueling resentment against those hurtful politicians of the “other side” who supposedly deprived them.

 

 Thus fueling distrust against the people the politician who fell short came from.

 

Once again, Southwesterners do not hate Northwesterners or other peoples.

 The Southwest and Littoral are the two most accommodating or civic-nationalist regions of Cameroon. And they are the two regions that have been hurt or burnt the most.

 

 Accepting that does not make you anti-people. It makes you grounded. Shows that you are capable of acknowledging.

 

Our focus now, though we are still burdened by the baggage of history, should be on finding a way out of our current impasse and realising the workable “NEW CAMEROON”.

 

But to move forward, we have to get our act together, we have to control, if not cure (fix) the festering  Amba problem haunting our people and land West of the Mungo and Metazem Rivers.

 

And it has, it needs, to be a collective effort, involving the participation of  Amba stakeholders as well. They are the ones who need to call off their campaign that was intended to be “good”, but that has now become a plague.

 

The Cameroonian people are moving towards the “New Cameroon” sociologically through an evolving Cameroonian civilization that our cities and major settlement centers are molding, unconsciously.

 

 By 2100,  more than 80% of Cameroonians would be living in towns and cities, and the majority of them would be the offspring of interethnic relations; the majority of them would not be emotionally tied to an ancestral village and would not be versed in the ancestral language of their fathers or grandparents.

 

As a consequence, our “New Cameroonian” kids would regard our (their forefathers')  tribal and ethnic biases as an anachronism. We would have become the relics of a misconceived mindset to them. We would have become people with nothing to emulate. Our era would be a “Dark Age” to them, especially if we continue with our current divisive and “native” mindsets. This, especially, if we fail to acknowledge the shortcomings of our past and work hand in hand in forging a political future for all that aligns with the organic future of the “NEW CAMEROONIANIASM”  and “NEW AFRICANISM” of our children and grandchildren.

 

The choice is whether we want to be politically relevant now or not in making the birth of the future less complicated for our kids.

Janvier (T)Chouteu                                                                        January 17, 2026