PHILEMON YANG A MERE FRENCH PUPPET
This is the voice of Ambazonia. Today’s editorial is titled Philemon Yang, the silent servant in France’s colonial script. Today is Thursday, September 4th, 2025.
Fellow Ambazonians, good afternoon. Philemon Yang is no accident of history. He is the love child of Solomon Tandeng Muna, the man who dismantled southern Cameroon’s autonomy in the fraudulent 1972 referendum.
In that betrayal, Muna accepted a bait and switch engineered by France, made vice president of the Federal Republic of Cameroon in 1970. He believed he was destined for the presidency. Instead, after endorsing the referendum that destroyed federalism, the vice presidency was abolished, and he was pushed into the lesser role of Speaker of the National Assembly.
The referendum of May 20th, 1972, remains one of the darkest stains in African decolonization. UN Resolution 1608 had guaranteed a federal union, not absorption. Article 47 of the 1961 constitution forbade any revision undermining the federation.
Yet, Ahidjo, with Paris’ blessing, staged the fraud. Muna endorsed it and, for the time, believed he was the constitutional successor to the presidency. But, in 1979, Ahidjo stripped him of that privilege, promising him the premiership that never came.
When Ahidjo resigned in 1982, he handed power, not to Muna, but to Paul Biya. Muna’s dream collapsed. His disgrace was final.
Philemon Yang’s trajectory mirrors that of Muna. He rose as a minister in the 1970s, was exiled as High Commissioner to Canada for 20 years, and served as Prime Minister from 2009 to 2019, during which the Ambozinian genocide ignited. When villages are burned, when children are shot in classrooms, when teachers and lawyers marched for freedom, Yang remained silent.
His silence was so glaring that even the French-language press accused him of complicity. In 2024, elevated to the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly, Yang once more had the chance to redeem himself. He condemned violence in Sudan, Ukraine, and Myanmar, but never once uttered a word about Ambazonia’s genocide.
Just like Muna, he chose survival over truth. The parallels are chilling. Muna betrayed federalism in 1972, lost his succession in 1979, and died in disgrace.
Yang ignored genocide in 2016, muted the United Nations General Assembly in 2024, and now parades as France’s puppet. From Muna to Yang, France has perfected a cynical strategy. Recycle Ambazonia elites as colonial masks, then discard them once they are spent.
Ambazonians reject Philemon Yang not for his titles, but for his failures. He never defended his people. He never condemned Yaoundé’s military crimes.
He never used the United Nations to speak the truth. History judged Muna harshly. History will judge Yang the same way, as a pawn in France’s colonial chessboard.
But unlike in 1972, Ambazonia will not be deceived again. The liberation of our homeland will not come from recycled elites or French puppets. It will come from the resilience of our people, the sacrifice of our martyrs, and the unbroken will of our nation.
This has been the voice of Ambosinia, truth in resistance, clarity in crisis
PHILEMON YANG A MERE FRENCH PUPPET
