A Violent Revolution in Cameroon Is Inevitable

For forty-three long years, the state of Cameroon has been ruled by the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) a regime whose control is so absolute, and whose paranoia so deeply woven into its governance, that the very notion of reform is a threat to the system itself.

To outsiders, the question is simple: How has this endured so long?
To insiders, the question is darker: How could it possibly continue?

Across Cameroon, a growing movement of thinkers, activists, and underground writers now argue that the country has reached a point where peaceful change is no longer realistically possible. While they do not agree on strategy, they share the belief that the CPDM has systematically dismantled every non-violent path to reform and in doing so, has created the conditions for a violent revolutionary explosion.

Lets examine why so many Cameroonians have come to that conclusion about a violent revolution.

Forty-Three Years of Closed Doors

Every avenue for peaceful dissent in Cameroon has been sealed:

• Elections exist only in name.

• The courts act as extensions of the ruling party.

• Public protests are treated as security threats.

• Journalists who attempt to investigate corruption face exile or imprisonment.

Citizens attempting to petition the government for reform are met with silence, detention, or forced “re-education.”

In such an environment, many Cameroonians feel the state has not merely ignored civil resistance it has erased the possibility of it.

Economic Collapse as a Catalyst

Decades of corruption have hollowed out Cameroon’s economy:

• Public funds diverted into CPDM elite networks

• Crumbling infrastructure

• Youth unemployment approaching catastrophic levels

• Currency controls that benefit only political insiders

Economic suffering often transforms frustration into urgency. For many young Cameroonians the idea of waiting for reform feels indistinguishable from surrender.

Key Human Rights Violations in Cameroon

• Arbitrary detention and political imprisonment
  Many activists, opposition figures, journalists, and civil-society members have been detained without fair trial or tried in military courts. 

  • For example, Abdu Karim Ali a peace activist was arrested without warrant, tried by a military court and sentenced to life in prison for “hostility against the homeland” and “secession,” after posting criticisms online.

  • Others, including activists, journalists and opposition supporters, remain imprisoned under broad charges like “terrorism,” “spreading false information,” or “insurrection.” 

• Suppression of freedom of expression and press / media freedom
  The government has repeatedly cracked down on journalists and media outlets, especially those critical of the state or reporting on sensitive issues. 

  • Users of social media, political activists, and critics have been arrested for posting content deemed “dangerous” or insulting to state institutions.

  • Human-rights defenders and journalists are frequently targeted, harassed, or detained creating a climate of intimidation where many avoid discussing political issues for fear of reprisal. 

• Violence, unlawful killings, torture and inhuman treatment by security forces
  Security forces have been credibly accused of committing extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, destruction of property, and other grave human-rights abuses especially in the context of conflict regions and protests.

  • In the conflict-torn Anglophone North-West and South-West regions, reports document massacres, sexual violence, abductions, and widespread civilian casualties. For example, the Ngarbuh massacre where security forces and allied militia killed civilians, including children.

• Denial of fair trial, misuse of military courts for civilians, and judicial abuses
  Civilians including peaceful protesters, opposition members, and journalists have frequently been tried in military courts, undermining fair trial standards. 

  • Legal observers and international bodies have described many of these detentions as “arbitrary,” calling for immediate release.

• Suppression of freedom of assembly, association, and civil society space
  Peaceful protests, civil-society organizations, trade unions, and opposition assemblies have often been banned, suspended, or met with force limiting political participation and civic activism. 

  • Organizations monitoring rights and freedoms have themselves been shut down or their activities interrupted. 

• Systemic repression of dissent ahead of and following elections including mass arrests, protest crackdowns, and deaths
  After recent elections, there have been credible reports of mass arrests, killings, and violent crackdowns on protesters and ordinary citizens, highlighting a deepening pattern of state repression. Authorities reportedly deployed military and security forces to suppress protests even where protesters were unarmed and made widespread arrests of opposition supporters and demonstrators. 

• Humanitarian and civilian-population impact during armed conflict
  In regions affected by conflict (like the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest, and areas threatened by extremist groups in the Far North), civilians have suffered mass displacement, loss of life, destruction of homes and infrastructure, and restricted access to education, healthcare, and basic services. 

  • Schools have been attacked or destroyed; health-care and social-service workers have been arrested or targeted. 

• Harassment and persecution of human rights defenders (HRDs), opposition members, and marginalized groups
  People who speak out whether as activists, journalists or lawyers face threats, harassment, violent attacks, or imprisonment. Reports indicate particular vulnerability for HRDs working on sensitive issues. 

  • Additionally, certain communities, minority groups, or those accused of dissent (real or perceived) may be subjected to discrimination, abuse, or state-sanctioned repression.

The Emotional Reality: People Who Feel They Have Nothing Left to Lose

When civil liberties are stripped away and human rights abuses become routine, people begin to believe the status quo is more dangerous than any upheaval that might follow.

This is the psychological landscape shaping today’s revolutionary rhetoric in Cameroon. It is not driven by ideology alone but by despair, exhaustion, and a sense that time is running out.

5. The Dangerous Logic Taking Hold

Many dissident writers now argue:

“If every peaceful path has been eliminated, then the people will eventually choose the only path left to them is a violent revolution.”

Again: this is their reasoning, not an endorsement.

Whether this path is avoidable remains an open question. History shows that authoritarian regimes often fall when they resist even modest reforms. Cameroon may be approaching that threshold.

Conclusion: A Nation Approaching an Uncertain Future

The purpose of this article is not to glorify conflict but to explain why a growing number of Cameroonians believe that confrontation even violent revolutionary confrontation is inevitable.

Their belief is born not from ideology, but from a lifetime of being denied:

• dignity

• voice

• representation

• justice

Cameroon stands on a knife’s edge.
Whether the nation can step back from the brink depends not on the people’s desire for peace which remains strong but on whether the CPDM is willing to allow it.

As history has shown time and again, those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. Nowhere does this warning feel more urgent than in Cameroon, where decades of repression, censorship, political exclusion, and brutality have steadily closed the doors to peaceful change. For more than forty years, citizens have marched, spoken, negotiated, and appealed for reforms within the boundaries of the law only to be met with arrests, intimidation, torture, and the silencing of every voice that dared to call for justice.

The lesson is not that Cameroonians seek conflict, but that a state that criminalizes peaceful dissent ultimately manufactures its own instability. When the right to speak is crushed, when ballots no longer carry meaning, when journalists are jailed, activists disappeared, villages burned, and protesters shot, a nation is pushed to the edge by the very government that claims to protect it. Under such conditions, tension does not arise from the people it rises from the system that refuses to let them breathe.

Cameroon stands at a crossroads. The longer the regime clings to power through force instead of legitimacy, the more fragile the country becomes. The only path to lasting peace is not deeper repression, but the restoration of rights, dignity, and democratic choice. A government that fears its people cannot endure forever but a nation that respects its citizens can finally begin to heal.