Nine years ago, in 2016, a deliberately simplistic and essentially misleading narrative sought to portray the armed insurrection in the North-West and South-West Regions as a spontaneous reaction by a disenchanted population led by disillusioned youths.

What was not mentioned was that an armed insurrection always involves long and meticulous planning. A pretext must be found, funds must be mobilised, and men must be indoctrinated, recruited and trained in seditious techniques. Weapons and ammunition to achieve such a project are not miraculously gotten by the insurgents.

In a nutshell, lurking in the shadows forces waiting for a trigger used legitimate corporatist demands as a pretext to set in motion a diabolical mechanism programmed long in advance. Similarly, the formation of seemingly unholy alliances today is not improvised.

This is the result of a carefully planned approach involving the division of roles and areas of activity between two extremist groups: one claiming to be ancient religious fundamentalists and the other emancipationists.

In this context, the supposed ideological differences between these two separatist movements are merely a sham, as they both share the ambition of dismantling our national territory and creating an intellectual void within Cameroon’s intergenerational society.

Therefore, it is no surprise if it were proven that the terrorist movements in the Grand North and the North-West/South-West of Cameroon were answerable to the same sponsor given that the Far-North use Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), and this same phenomenon has recently emerged in the North-West and South-West Regions using the same pyrotechnical devices.

This possibility has been raised during numerous consultations between Cameroonian security forces and their counterparts in other countries around the Lake Chad Basin who are responsible for counterterrorism. The measures agreed upon during these meetings have strengthened the means of combatting the proliferation of Improvised Explosive Devices in insecurity stricken areas.

Many attacks are foiled or repelled, and snares are regularly detected and neutralised on transport routes. Unfortunately, some of these acts of indiscriminate barbarism achieve their goal. This act has in no way has dampen our collective determination. Conversely, the increasingly close collaboration between the people and their Defence and Security Forces is helping to dispel fear that violent extremists want to cast over them.

However, the recent developments in the methods of action of the obscurantist coalitions are more akin to communication operations than to real strategic advancement, and are far from constituting a ‘‘game changer’’ or causing a reversal of the situation on ground, which is irreversibly in favour of the popular republican and security forces.

Through incestuous collusion and villainous allegiances, these terrorist groups are attempting to regain a semblance of composure in the vain hope of delaying their inevitable extinction. The time is coming when the people of Cameroon will say to all the fake and stooges of terrorism, ‘‘Game over!”