monique - Espace Monique Kwachou

So, Let’s Talk A.I – Honestly

September 30, 2026 No Comments

Hello there, dear reader of mine, I have a confession to make. I, Monique Kwachou, writer, holder of a doctorate, educational counsellor, and all the things you know me for, use Artificial Intelligence, AKA AI. I feel like a lot of us don’t want to confess that. I mean, it is not exactly a secret. We all know we use it, but it seems we are all supposed to pretend we don’t. And when we are upfront that we use it, we tend to be vague about how exactly, and how much. Why? Because it raises questions about our intelligence and the originality of our work, and it casts doubt on our ability as a whole. Suddenly, every single thing you have written is scrutinised. Is it AI, or is it you? How much of your thinking is actually yours? I have been musing on the complexity of being wary of AI dependency and cognizant of the risks it poses, while also understanding its usefulness to our generation and the fact that it is not as new as we make it seem. And as with most of my musings, I thought to put this out there for public engagement. First, I must admit that I am writing this from a position of some privilege. Have you come across the tweet that says the millennial African parent’s version of “Oh, I used to walk 5 kilometres to school and back. You people are so lazy, you don’t know how easy you have it” is going to be us telling our children, “I used to research without AI. You kids don’t know how easy you have it”? Well, as a millennial, I can even say I used to research without Google. Because millennials, we have a flex, okay? We did libraries. I know how to use a library. I know the order in which the books are placed on the shelves, because we actually had to find them ourselves. We came of age with the internet. We used Ask Jeeves before there was Google, then Google came and we learned to Google things, all the way to the point that we are now using AI. I think that is partly why I have some confidence about where my own thinking ends and where the assistance begins, and the audacity to put these musings out there. Having earned my PhD before generative AI was a thing, there is little room for anyone to question whether I’m smart, myself included. So I feel comparatively safe making this confession and discussing what I think is being overlooked in conversations about AI use and dependency. And yet, even with that relative security in my own ability, that niggling voice of interrogation still lingers. Are you using AI too much? Are you using AI ethically? Should you have done this without any assistance? And the guilt around it.|So I needed to address it and be honest about my own use of AI. But I also wanted to add something to this whole AI conversation that I don’t think we are talking about enough. Something about the way we are talking about AI right now keeps reminding me of what I see all the time in development work and social justice work. People complain about the fruit of the issue, the leaves, what we can see at the top of the tree, but they do not actually want to address the root. And if you don’t want to ask why the thing is happening in the first place, I don’t think you really want to solve the problem. That’s what I generally believe, anyway. With AI, the leaves are everywhere. There are countless books being published with fake authors, AI-rendered flyers are like eyesores across our feeds, and both our kids and our elderly are taking AI videos and answers as fact. And don’t forget the ever-present environmental threat of the data centres that keep these things running. I get it. The widespread use of AI is concerning, and these problems are real and valid to criticise. That fact is not to be followed by a “but,” rather an “and.” AI poses countless problems, and still, the way discussions about its use are going feels puritanical and hypocritical. I’ve heard this kind of judgement before, from those who say people who have had bariatric surgery or use GLP-1s are on a “fake fitness journey,” or who accuse women who have C-sections of taking “the easy way out.” Those judgements not only ignore what would lead to such decisions, but also suggest there is some sort of award for taking the hard way even when assistance is available… like how we African women are often told to prove our worth by how much we endure or how much effort we have made to earn value, this rubs me wrong. And that is my problem with the AI conversation. I am seeing so much discussion about what AI is doing to us, and not nearly enough about why so many of us are reaching for it. I feel like we are blaming individuals for something that is systemic, and we know it. If we keep looking only at the leaves, we fail to see what is causing this dependence in the first place. So here is what I want to submit: the increasing AI usage and dependency we are so worried about has roots in the kind of world we have built and those roots must be examined. I have considered a few interconnected roots and invite you to consider them along with me. First, let’s be honest, this is a natural progression. The outsourcing our thinking is not new. People love to say, “We all have the same 24 hours.” We do not, and I think to even suggest that is gaslighting. I have somebody who comes and helps me clean my house twice a week. I am also a single woman without children. I do not have

Does Anybody Know That You’re a Christian? And How?

August 19, 2026 1 Comment

Today is a faith anniversary for me. Four years ago today, in 2022, I was baptised. It was not the beginning of my Christian life. I gave my life to Christ in 2007. But that baptism felt, in many ways, like a rebirth, a recommitment of my life to Christ and a conscious decision to say again: Yes, Lord. I am yours. You can read more about that experience [here]. Four years later, I can say that God has done a great deal with that yes.He has grown me spiritually, certainly, but not always in the ways I imagined spiritual growth would look. He has dared me. He has challenged me out of my comfort zones. He has made me revisit some of the contracts I thought I had made with Him and question whether He had actually signed them too. He has challenged suppositions I mistook for convictions, and personal convictions I attributed to the will of God Himself. And, perhaps most uncomfortably, He has shown me again and again that in many situations where I was very sure somebody else was the problem, I was, in fact, part of the problem. All the ways I need grace and have been called to be perpetually dependent on Him. And He has been patient with me. So I have decided that my baptism anniversary is something I want to mark every year, not merely as a celebration of what happened that day, but as an opportunity to look again at my walk with Christ: where I have grown, where I am resisting growth, what God has been teaching me, and perhaps what He has put on my heart to share. This particular word was put on my heart much earlier this year, and I will begin by insisting this isn’t an attack on Christian fellowship, because perhaps “attack” is the wrong word to use. But it is certainly a calling out; a calling out of us all, as a people to whom I belong. So, if “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17), consider this my small attempt at sharpening. I pray it reaches whoever needs it, because I see a great deal of cognitive dissonance in contemporary Christianity. I see us finding elaborate theological explanations for behaviours that, when stripped of the Christian language around them, seem plainly contrary to the love Christ commanded of us. And while God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), I also don’t think we can “faith” our way out of contradictions that are staring us in the face. We cannot slap Scripture onto cruelty and make it holy. Let me state my key point: Christians, I think we have become very confused about whom we have been called to police. If you read the Gospels carefully, really listen to the Gospels of Christ, one thing that stands out is who Christ spent a great deal of His time speaking to and, importantly, who He rebuked; that is the Jews. His own people.He did not spend His ministry talking about how unholy the Samaritans were. In fact, when somebody asked Him who exactly counted as a neighbour, He made a Samaritan the hero of the story (Luke 10:25–37) which likely irked some people. He did not spend His time cataloguing the unholy practices of Gentiles and talking about all the ways in which they were falling short of Jewish law. No, rather, He spoke to the Jews because the Jews had the Word of God. They were the chosen ones. They had the law. They had the prophets. They had the rules they had been given to follow. And what Christ repeatedly confronted was the way they had twisted those things, the way they followed some rules and ignored others, and particularly the way religious authority could be used to burden and abuse other people. Some of Christ’s harshest words, in fact, were reserved for the religious leaders. Matthew 23 is almost uncomfortable to read when you remember that this is Jesus speaking. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” He says, again and again. He tells them that they tie up heavy burdens and put them on other people’s shoulders while being unwilling to lift a finger themselves (Matthew 23:4). And then He tells them that they have become very meticulous about certain aspects of the law while neglecting “the weightier matters”: justice, mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23). In many ways I think the church in its religiousity is currently doing something very similar.We can become extremely particular about unChristian ‘worldliness’ while becoming strangely flexible around justice, mercy, faithfulness and love which are Christlike traits. One of the most poignant Christian lessons I have received came from my sister-friend Lily Haritu. I remember asking her what she thought about a particular practice among unbelievers. I don’t even remember what the practice was anymore. But I remember her response. She basically said: “But that is not for you to condemn“. She would go on to explain that they are unbelievers. They have not professed Christ. They have not taken on the faith you have taken on. You are not called to police them into obeying the rules of a God they have not chosen to follow. What we are called to do is correct those within the faith, lovingly, yes, but correct them. And to those outside the faith, we are called to show Christ. To testify. To live in such a way that somebody might actually want to know this God you say has changed your life.Years later, I realised how scriptural what she told me was. Paul says it almost bluntly in 1 Corinthians 5:12: “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?” I mean, it is right there, and yet I feel like I see the complete opposite happening these days. Most of our sermons are about the sinfulness of the world around us,

On My Latest Experience of Cameroon in Plural

July 8, 2026 No Comments

In my research and in my writing, there is something I have gradually come to realize that we do a great disservice and an undermining of the complexity that is the Cameroonian experience when we simply frame Cameroon as “linguistically divided”; with that description, people often think that the division is simply about language, that when you cross from one region into another you are merely encountering the necessity of speaking a different language. But it isn’t only that; when one crosses from one linguistic space to another, it isn’t only language or even culture that change; one often encounters a different way of life, different conversations, and different realities altogether. Even commerce changes. Spend enough time moving around Cameroon, and you begin to notice that what people buy and even what is available in the markets differ from region to region. Merchants in the Anglophone regions have historically looked westwards. Goods often arrive from neighbouring Nigeria or through Cameroon’s diaspora community members shipping items from the UK, Germany, the United States and elsewhere. As a result, there are products that are commonplace in Bamenda, Buea or Kumba that you might struggle to find in Yaoundé or Bertoua. On the other hand, many Francophone merchants have traditionally sourced goods through commercial networks linked to Douala, France, Côte d’Ivoire and other Francophone countries. You therefore find brands, fashions, food items and consumer habits that feel completely familiar on one side of the country and almost foreign on the other. It is one of those quiet reminders that Cameroon is not simply divided by language; our networks have evolved in different directions as well. Similarly, our entertainment and social interests demonstrate the divide. Francophone Cameroon on Twitter is often completely different from Anglophone Cameroon on Twitter. The stories that are trending, the issues people are debating, and the ‘influencers’ who wield public attention are not the same. It is almost as though we inhabit parallel public spheres that occasionally intersect but often continue quite independently of one another. I have found the same thing in my work on women’s issues and the feminist movement in Cameroon. One of the things that has struck me repeatedly is that what has concerned feminist organisations in the Anglophone regions has not necessarily been what concerns feminist organisations in Francophone Cameroon. And even within Francophone Cameroon, if you move further north, you discover yet another reality. The issues occupying women’s organisations in the Far North are often quite different from those occupying organisations in the South. To me, this is one of the most intriguing things my research and practice have revealed over the years, and I’d argue, one of Cameroonian civil society’s greatest weaknesses. Any movement that is divided, whatever the basis of that division, inevitably weakens itself. We cannot really speak of a national movement if we each respond only to the concerns within our own linguistic, regional, or cultural spaces. I have been thinking about this a great deal in phases of sorts over the past years for different reasons. The first time I thought of this was following a personal evaluation. A few years ago, as I reflected on my years leading Better Breed Cameroon before moving to serve only on its Board, I found myself asking what I had done well, where I had succeeded, and where I had failed. One of the first shortcomings I identified was that I had not engaged Francophone Cameroon nearly enough. Looking back, I suspect that part of the reason was that I come from one of the country’s marginalised communities myself. My instinct was naturally to focus my energy there because there seemed to be more than enough work to do among people marginalised than the majority the system comparatively privileged. But I realise now that this was a strategic mistake. No matter how justified the reason may be, you cannot simply disconnect social change work from almost three-fifths of the country. If we are serious about creating systemic change, then we cannot afford to remain within our own regional conversations. That was one of the lessons I took away from that period of reflection, and it is one of the reasons I have become much more intentional about engaging Francophone Cameroon in recent years. The second phase of this reflection was first sown in my mind far earlier, during one of the very first consultancies I ever did. In 2021, I worked with Global Fund for Women on research exploring youth movements in Cameroon and the priorities of youth-led organisations across the country.What fascinated me was how different those priorities were depending on where the organisations were based. Many of the organisations in the South were prioritising peacebuilding, employment, entrepreneurship and economic opportunity. Organisations in the Far North, however, kept returning to something that, at first, I simply could not understand. Birth certificates. I remember wondering why obtaining a birth certificate had become the focus of entire initiatives. Surely this was something that happened automatically. Surely everyone had one. It was only as I continued researching that I began to understand: If you do not have a birth certificate, there is no official proof of your age. If there is no official proof of your age, then how do you establish that you were a minor when you were married off? If the law prohibits child marriage, to which court do you take a child who has no documentation proving that she was, in fact, a child? How do you prove that a crime has taken place when the very evidence required to establish it does not exist?The more I thought about it, the more I realised that a birth certificate is not just a birth certificate. Without one, obtaining a national identity card becomes almost impossible. Without a national identity card, you are technically in violation of the law because Cameroonian adults are required to carry identification. And anyone who has lived in Cameroon knows how often police officers use identity

Ask Dr Mo Series- March 2026 Compilation

March 31, 2026 No Comments

Throughout March 2026, I have been musing on and responding to a variety of feminism-related questions as part of a challenge from Lorraine Shu Media in commemoration of Women’s Month!If you missed following via my social media, here is a compilation embedded as a vlog. Links to AFF resources mentioned on day 30: English: https://share.google/fO8rVbCbkq6fxghTc French: https://wipc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/The-African-Feminist-Charter-French.pdf

But, what if Cameroon’s greatest problem is… Love?

February 13, 2026 1 Comment

It is the month of love.Everywhere around us, love is being marketed loudly, particularly romantic love. Grand gestures. Gifts. Performative affection. All to prove that you love and are loved. As in past years, my musings for this February tie to this month’s theme, but rather than reflecting on a kind of love, I’m thinking of our (Cameroonians’) collective lack thereof. Because the more I sit with it, the more I feel that one of Cameroon’s deepest problems is not just the corruption, nepotism, tribalism, poor governance, or development failure we so readily name, but a lack of love. A lack of self-love, a lack of love for this country, and a lack of love for each other.I know this sounds soft. Romantic, even. Idealistic…There’s a scene from Harry Potter that I’ve never forgotten. In the final book, when Harry tells Voldemort that he will never understand why he cannot defeat him, Voldemort scoffs: “Is it love again? Dumbledore’s favourite solution?” And Harry basically replies in the affirmative; it is love.It seems like such a minor exchange in a children’s book, but it captures something profound: the tendency to dismiss love as weak or naive when confronted with what we perceive as “real” power or “real” problems. So I know someone reading my claim here will scoff and say, “No, Monique, we have real problems. Economic problems. Structural problems. Political problems.”And yes, I agree, we do.But even if those problems did not originate in a lack of love, they are certainly being sustained by it. Let me explain using an analogy I’ve used with friends in the past: If I come into your home and I see something beautiful, a display cabinet, for instance and how you’ve set up your kitchen, or a welcoming chair you’ve put into your living room, I will admire it. I will ask where you got it from. And chances are, I’ll leave your place planning to get something similar for myself. Why? Because I appreciated what you had, and I want my own space to look good too. That is self-love. Now think about this. We have people in power who travel constantly. They see how things work elsewhere. They experience efficiency, dignity, and beauty through various airports they frequent on official missions and luxurious vacations. Their kids reside in countries with roads that make sense and where they can take walks without seeing a pile of dirt on the road. And then they come back home. They see the dysfunction here. The chaos. The lack of care. And yet they do nothing. The majority of our leaders and our ‘1%’. are okay with their wealthy friends coming to their country to see it unchanged, poorly groomed, without care. If they truly loved themselves — truly — they would want their own things to look good. This is not even about morality. It is basic selfishness. A natural byproduct of a healthy ego. If you love yourself, you want the best for yourself. You want comfort. You want quality. You want to show off. And yet, even in our selfishness, we fail. We have people who steal billions, but cannot enjoy themselves properly at home because the system they refuse to fix still affects them. Do you see how a lack of self-love is at the root of our mess? And it’s not just the leaders who lack it; we as a people collectively need more self-love. Yes, we are underdeveloped largely as a result of historical injustices and oppressive global systems sustaining inequality. But the question remains: do we love ourselves enough to want better? Do we love ourselves enough to create standards and respect them? Do we love each other? Look at any African country that is prospering right now (note: I’m not saying they’re perfect); economically, they’re doing fairly well and progressing compared to Cameroon. If you go to these countries, you see a common factor: national pride. Literally everything in Kenya has the flag on it. Literally everything in South Africa screams “Mzansi”. Every other street is named after Nelson Mandela. Nigerians will criticise their country from one end to the next, but they are prouder than proud of who they are. Senegalese, the same thing. But we Cameroonians? We are proud in competition, and we have very little to compete with, so it’s usually shallow. You’ll hear other countries banter on Twitter, saying they’re so much better than us in terms of development, and a Cameroonian will retort, “But we have Eto’o!” (as if he’s not part of the problematic system). I can’t tell you how often I’ve been in the company of mixed nationalities and heard a Cameroonian put down Cameroon and other Cameroonians. A friend recounts being in a meeting where Cameroon was being considered to host the hub for an international programme, and a fellow Cameroonian dismissed the idea. It is crazy how little we love our own. How desperate we are to just leave the place. Nobody wants to really fix it. We have given up on it. It’s that lack of self-love that is sustaining the system. Yes, the system is already bad, but what is keeping it bad? What is making it worse? It’s our lack of self-love. Before coming to the conclusion that the lack of self-love is at the root of our problems, I thought ours was a problem of elitism. But the more I examined our elitism, the more I realised it was a symptom, not the disease. The elitism we practice and aspire to arises from the fact that we don’t love ourselves or each other enough to believe we all deserve dignity, and because our love, when we would have it, is conditional, reserved for exceptionalism. We don’t care that the system is bad. We just want to benefit from the system ourselves. We want to be the exception to the rule. We want to get into institutions like ENAM (École nationale d’administration et de magistrature) rather

It’s 2026, Can We Afford Not to Fund Who & What We Value?

January 21, 2026 2 Comments

One of the biggest lessons I carry from my years of burnout is this: “heart work” still needs money. Last year, the international NGO and aid sector took a major hit. The aid world shook. Questions surfaced everywhere about whether aid should be reduced, paused, or stopped altogether; about whether foreign aid has actually been sustaining civil society work in Africa or distorting it. That debate is complex. I cannot summarise it in a blog post, and I do not intend to try. What has stayed with me, though, is something related and (in my opinion) less voiced. Even though research shows that foreign aid has never sufficiently funded grassroots care work, advocacy, and community labour, there was a widespread perception that “most of the work” was being sustained by external funding. The fact that we believed this even when it is not true reveals something dangerous: we have lost sight of who is actually responsible for holding up the work that keeps communities alive. This year, I want us to consider putting our money where our mouth and heart are. I want us to consider taking stock of who holds the purse strings behind the spaces and things we value. By us, I mean my Cameroonians first, and my fellow Africans on the continent next. You see, it’s more obvious in advanced capitalist societies in the West. Everything has already been commodified to a T. They know to wield their purchasing power to resist and protect. But in our context, I think we haven’t grasped it yet. But we must. As the world becomes more aggressively capitalist, as wealth concentrates, as everything is monetised, as care, art, and conviction are increasingly turned into “content”, it is imperative that we actively protect and materially support people doing essential work, or they will burn out, fail, or be forced to compromise their values. We must recognise that even (perhaps especially) work that is of the soul, any work that pushes against the system, in fact, any work that does not immediately translate into material value, but holds spiritual, humanitarian, artistic, or community value, still needs to be financially sustained. Because the person doing that work is still living inside a capitalist system. They still have bills to pay. They still have children to send to school. They still need to survive. I learned this lesson firsthand. For the first ten years of its existence, I ran Better Breed Cameroon mostly by myself and 70% out of pocket. I do not discount the fact that people believed in me and sowed into it, but most of that time, leadership and execution rested largely on my shoulders, alongside my doing a PhD, paid work, and life itself. As should be expected, I eventually burned out, and when I stepped back to reflect upon taking a gap year, I came away with one major lesson: even “heart work” (as I called my labour of love at Better Breed Cameroon) needs to be paid and appreciated. Knowing it is your calling is not enough. Passion is not enough. Love is not enough. This is how good work collapses, or worse, mutates and morphs into what is unrecognisable. Not always because the people behind it get greedy (though that happens), but mostly because exhaustion makes compromise inevitable and survival pressures the doers of sacred work to sell themselves. The fact is that it is this need for financial sustenance that led to the NGOization of the resistance, with nonprofits operating very much like for-profits despite supposedly having different ends. So though we are judging the civil society space and watching it shrink in Cameroon (and frankly, everywhere), I want us to note that it is not limited to just NGO/resistance work. All hard-to-commodify work, be it care work or a piece of art or hobbies, etc., all those are at risk. We are increasingly pushed to turn our hobbies into profit, our care and convictions into profitable service. I cannot count the number of times someone has said to me, “Oh, you could turn this into a money-making venture.” And each time, I wonder: “How? It won’t be the same!” Because what drives this work is the fact that I care. So the moment I start chasing views, followers, and revenue, what happens to the heart of the thing? Do I still care about the work, or would I start caring more about performance, reach, and return? Is there a middle ground? I am sure there is. I’m still musing. Perhaps someone who has found that middle can share 🙂 But till then, my conviction at this time is that: we, individuals, must take up our causes and buy into our own sacred spaces. We have to fund what we want to keep sacred. The danger of what can happen when we don’t is everywhere. Everything now wants a subscription. Every platform needs ads. Someone, somewhere, has to be paid. Or worse, someone somewhere wants to make us dependent on them and control us (cough neocolonialism cough). We can say, “This should be free.” But free often just means someone else is paying the cost, with their time, their health, their burnout. I am a Christian. I donate to the Bible app I use because I want it to remain ad-free. I cannot imagine opening my Bible and seeing an advertisement. I give to Wikipedia because I still believe in shared, accessible knowledge, even if it’s publicly co-created. I am not saying this to show off. These are visible platforms with donation links. The harder question is about local work, the invisible labour that keeps communities functioning, or the members of these communities doing what no one else can take time off to do. Yet the most important work we must fund and ensure remains protected is our sacred local work. When work is funded locally (when communities buy into it materially, not just rhetorically) something important happens: accountability becomes possible. It is much easier

On Recap Culture and the importance of Having your Own KPIs

December 19, 2025 No Comments

End-of-year reflections aren’t new. We’ve always done them, some of us in journals, some of us at “crossover nights on New Year’s Eve, most of us around an impending birthday… when the year is slipping away, or you’re becoming older, you suddenly feel an itch to reflect. I think it’s a sign of us being intelligent beings. “I think, therefore I am”, or whatever Descartes said. But these days? Reflection has become… loud.In the last few years, with the advent of things like Spotify Wrapped and other recap features, our end-of-year reflective practices have morphed from introspective moments into a public sport. Our apps now tally up what we listened to, where we spent money, what we read, and who we followed, then turn it into colourful graphics for us to share. It’s everywhere. It’s visible. And as a result, it’s competitive. You might have heard the Instagram reel sound used to capture a full year in pictures: January, February, March, etc. (I have wanted to use that reel sound so badly!) Or you may have seen people recapping all the places they went to over the course of the year and wished that it were you. The truth is, we all know comparison is a thief of joy, but it’s hard not to compare when you have this onslaught of everyone else’s highlights in your face each time you open social media, and you’re all too familiar with your own failings. So what do we do? How do we check out of this competition none of us signed up for? I haven’t come to tell you to ‘just don’t compare’. Rather, I’m here to share a lesson the Holy Spirit taught me in 2023 when I was feeling particularly disappointed in myself for not having achieved as much as a colleague in the Cameroonian CSO space. They had been racking in the awards, and I was about to take a gap year because I was burned out, but I had achieved way less than they had. Then the Holy Spirit convicted me: Were those awards my goals? Were they my “Key Performance Indicators” (KPIs as we say in corporate, lol)? If so, what does that say of me, and if not, why do I think my failure is defined by not having had them? That reflection, prompted by the Holy Spirit, led me to have two conversations with friends Juisi and Valerie Viban. I must say, I didn’t feel like a ‘success’ after that; the reflection forced me to clearly define what being successful in youth work meant to me. And even by my own self-defined KPIs, I knew I could have done better. BUT now, I wasn’t feeling unsuccessful for the wrong reasons. That experience has come to mind several times since then. It keeps envy and discontent at bay often, because when you know what you really want, when you have interrogated your why, and defined for yourself what happiness or success is. What is meaningful to you and not because you think you should have it or because it is expected of you… When you have those personalised definitions, contextualised for your phase of life? It’s all easier to take in. In an older blog post I wrote entitled “Want to have a successful year? How are you defining success?”, I reflect on one of my favourite poems (or is it merely a quote?) that I recently learned is wrongly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson but is really the work of Bessie Anderson Stanley. See the image below of it: I love that piece dearly for the simple way it highlights what truly matters. Notice it doesn’t say achieve everything on your five-year plan. It doesn’t say win prizes or go viral. Because if you were to die next week, wouldn’t it matter more that you contributed something meaningful to society, made those who look up to you (children) smile, and created a handful of happy moments? It doesn’t even say be impressive.It just says: contribute, be affirmed by people of substance (not everyone), bring joy where you can. That is enough. Often, when we look back and write off a year as bad, or when setting goals for the next year. I feel the difficulty itself is realising that we don’t even know what we mean when we say we want a “successful” year. And truth be told, most of us don’t stop to ask that question.We inherit definitions from society, from childhood, from social media… and we start running with them. But it is necessary, imperative, to define success for yourself and to interrogate why you’ve defined it that way. If you don’t, you end up chasing a finish line that isn’t even yours. Or chasing a goal post that keeps moving every time you near it. So, as you look at recaps and evaluate how this year went, think of the poem “What Is Success” and remember that the little things matter: Did you laugh? (Even if it was at TikToks and memes.) Did you bring a bit of joy to someone, anyone at all, a child, a friend, a stranger? Then they have lived easier because you were alive in 2025. Did you appreciate nature, beauty, or a moment of peace? Did you leave even one corner of the world better than you found it? According to that poem, many of us have succeeded without knowing it because these are not things that get awards. Nobody gives you a fellowship for surviving a hard year. There is no prize for emotional labour or resilience. No app will tally how many burdens you quietly carried or how many small kindnesses you offered. And yet, that is success.Maybe you didn’t win anything this year, but you made someone feel safe.Maybe you didn’t hit your goals, but you grew.Maybe the year stretched you, but you didn’t break your principles…Maybe you laughed more than last year.Maybe you left somebody better. If that isn’t success, then

For Cameroonians who are wondering what next?

October 28, 2025 No Comments

Tensions are rising. And while I can’t call that a win, I can say it’s understandable, maybe even necessary. Before sharing this, I had to pray. Because this isn’t about me, it’s about sharing a lesson that’s been growing in my heart for the past year, one that the Holy Spirit has been teaching me through my anger, confusion, and faith. Last year, when Trump won, I was deeply angry, less about the outcome and more about what it revealed about humanity, and the way Christianity was being warped to legitimise a regression into hate. But God showed me the unexpected benefit in this: some things have to come into the light before they can be healed.What we’ve been witnessing, the rise of the far right, the open displays of racism, sexism, and intolerance, etc., these things didn’t appear out of nowhere. They were already there, festering in silence. Those who called themselves “liberal” or “progressive” thought they were winning, but were only louder, not more convincing. People’s minds weren’t changing; we had just learned how to drown out discomfort with better PR. And so, God helped me appreciate (not like nor enjoy) that injustice, hate, and hypocrisy are rising to the surface. It is not only proof that the world is falling apart, but also proof that the sickness is finally being exposed. Because sometimes, the only way to confront darkness is to let it come into the open. You can’t cleanse what you won’t name. I am sharing this lesson from the past year, because I find it particularly valuable to where we are now in Cameroon. Many are upset by the unrest and are “praying for peace”, but too often what we mean is silence, a return to comfort. Because peace without justice is just silence. It’s the quiet that comes from people being too afraid or too exhausted to speak. That’s why I’ve stopped praying for “peace” in the shallow sense. Too often, when we say Father, give us peace, what we really mean is make it quiet again. We want normal, even if “normal” was rotting underneath. But real peace is not quietness; it’s justice restored. The Bible says, Blessed are the peacemakers (Mathew 5:9). Peacemaking is not passive. It’s work. It requires strategy and courage. You can’t make peace unless you first admit there isn’t any. That means naming what’s broken, confronting what festers, and having the uncomfortable conversations that move us toward healing. So if you’re praying for peace, pray also to become a peacemaker, someone willing to have hard conversations, to think critically, to challenge what’s wrong even in your own home. Because peace won’t come from the top down; it starts with us.As I said yesterday, until we start calling out our friends, our uncles, our chiefs, and the elders in our own circles who benefit from upholding this system, nothing will change. This isn’t just about one man or a few men up there. The system survives because of what we have accepted, played into, and kept silent about. And I know many people are thinking they are powerless today, after the declaration of those results and with the spread of violence. But that’s a lie. A dangerous one. That’s one of the biggest lies we’ve been sold. My favourite Alice Walker quote says: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” You do have power.If you’re raising a child to be civic conscious and to shun ethnic bias and other divisions, you’re shaping a future mind, that’s power.If you can speak up, write, and influence others with your platform, that’s power.Even having difficult conversations is a power. You have power over what you allow to slide unchallenged in your circle. You only lose your power when you say, “What’s the point? Nothing will change.” Many of us are tired and resigned right now, but we still have some power. I’m inviting us to start from where we are. Talk to the people closest to you, especially the ones who think differently, who still believe the system works. You have the power to engage those you disagree with, who you know are complicit in keeping us all down, or who don’t know better. Let’s address our own, speak to that uncle who got you your job through his connections with the party.Address that elder in your church who excuses their participation in this system. Let’s have an honest conversation with the colleague who says, “That’s just how Cameroon is”? This is not about attacking anyone. It’s about peacemaking, the uncomfortable, confrontational and patient work of helping people see differently and finding common ground. Because if we are honest, the greatest evil this government has perfected is divide and rule.Francophones against Anglophones.North-West against South-West.Christians against Muslims.Each of us is taught to see the other as the problem. But the truth is, this system harms us all. Even those in power — they, too, are trapped in a machine that feeds them crumbs while robbing everyone of dignity. We need to acknowledge this division for what it is, a tool of control, and find our way back to common ground. So if you’re wondering, what can I do? Start there.Use the little power you have to spark conversations that matter. There’s a technique I use with my students when teaching feminism, and it works for complex topics too: ask questions that make people think. If you know someone who supports the current regime, talk to them. Pray first (genuinely) so you speak with calm and compassion, not anger. Then ask: 1. Do you recognise that Cameroon is not living up to its potential?That most Cameroonians deserve better, that people shouldn’t have to leave the country or bribe their way through life to survive? 2. Do you acknowledge that leadership is responsible for addressing these issues?That those in power are paid by citizens to serve, not to rule over them? 3. If you agree

On post-elections Cameroon, and the Dangerous Death of Hope

October 27, 2025 2 Comments

Years ago, I began using the hashtag #MakeCameroonHopefulAgain. People thought it was a mockery of “#MakeAmericaGreatAgain”. It wasn’t. It came to mind as I thought of what we needed most. We need hope. I write this having just concluded a conversation with a friend where we discussed our sadness at another sham of an election in Cameroon and the violence already spreading. Something she said reminded me of a video I saw recently, one that explained why Gaza matters so much. Now, I know many Africans hear that and go, “Abeg, we have enough problems of our own; Congo, Sudan, Cameroon…” And they’re right. Others counter that the world isn’t even talking about those places with the same energy, and they’re right, too. Both thoughts are valid. But that video said something that struck me and has made me appreciate Africans like Zukiswa Wanner taking Gaza seriously (read about her experience HERE). There’s something about Gaza that demands attention, not because it’s more tragic than others, but because it exposes one of humanity’s most dangerous delusions. That delusion is the belief in the perfect victim. We’ve been taught, through religion, through moral philosophy, through the selective histories on Martin Luther King Jr and Mandela, that if we are peaceful enough, patient enough, and innocent enough, the world will recognise our suffering. That if we document the injustice, appeal to conscience, show the evidence, people will do better once they know better. Gaza is a brutal contradiction of that belief. We have seen everything: the bombed hospitals, the dead children, the journalists silenced, the white allies targeted, and the churches and mosques alike destroyed. It has been filmed, documented, and verified. All the UN agencies have called it a genocide. And yet, the killing continues. If “doing everything right” still ends in annihilation, what happens to people’s faith in peace, in reason, in humanity? I think back to Nigeria in 2020, and the way I felt after the Lekki Toll Gate massacre. We watched that live, too. We saw the lights go out, and the soldiers open fire on young people singing the anthem. The #EndSARS protests may have been violent in many places, but in Lekki, where most are middle- to upper-class, there was a DJ playing music. That’s as peaceful as an African protest can get. It seems like a very resolute party with young people singing, and mostly on their phones. They still got shot by the army, the same army they fund through their taxes. And years later, one of the men responsible is now the president of Nigeria. What message does that send? It didn’t matter that we knew; it didn’t matter that journalists printed evidence of his other crimes. It says: evidence doesn’t matter. Some people can get away with it. Just as their guilt doesn’t hang them, so too, your innocence doesn’t save you. Do you see the issue? The danger? Now, let’s think of Cameroon. If we think critically, we have already seen this thing play out in Cameroon, with a horrific end. The ongoing Anglophone crisis didn’t start with what we now call “Amba”. Before that, there were teachers and lawyers, peaceful, moderate people asking to be heard and for legal systems to be respected and issues addressed. And they were mocked, arrested, and belittled. When you crush the moderates, when you show that peaceful protest and following due process means nothing, you create a power vacuum. And in that vacuum, beasts rise. That is how we now have the scourge of Amba and a people turned on themselves. People keep saying the Anglophone crisis became violent because guns got into the wrong people’s hands or drugs spread among the youth. But no, before the guns and the drugs, hope left their hearts. When people no longer believe that the peaceful path works, when they no longer trust that justice or accountability exist, what else do you expect them to become? You kill the last bit of hope people have in dialogue when you turn dialogue into a bureaucratic charade (see the 2019 “national dialogue”) and use peace marches for your selfish ends. And once hope dies, people devolve. They stop caring. And here we are, seeing the same thing happen again: people’s cries are being ignored in other regions, and the evidence the masses put together is being ignored. We have seen videos of electoral fraud with no accountability. If we keep letting that happen, if we keep mocking peaceful efforts, silencing reason, and ignoring evidence, then we are the ones feeding the beast. As someone who witnessed the crisis go haywire and spoke up against it from the start, this is a perilous spiral. You cannot control the beast; it turns on anyone and everyone. I’m writing this as a follow-up to a video I shared earlier to make a note, because I am noticing a pattern. People are losing faith in processes, in justice, in peace. And when hope goes, violence rises. In fact, violence has risen, and we must acknowledge that it is not because certain people are just violent, but rather it is evidence of increasing despair. Despair is the beginning of chaos. So please, let’s not joke with the widespread expressions of despair. Protect hope.It’s not sentimental, it’s imperative for survival. Before guns get into more hands, let’s make sure hope hasn’t left their hearts.

Somewhere between Belief & Understanding: Lessons from wrestling with God at 36

October 20, 2025 2 Comments

I recently completed my 36th turn around the sun and I would like to share what has been the lesson of this age for me. Before I begin though, I must preface this by saying that I believe in God. Belief aside, even my logic affirms that there is a God. Still, I acknowledge that the questions that follow; Who’s God? How good is God? etc. are valid, but the existence of a supreme being has never been in doubt for me. I’ve had personal encounters, a life filled with testimonies, and the reasoning that there is simply too much intricacy and beauty in creation for there not to be a divine being. I not only believe in God, I am a Christian. Some might argue that’s because I was born into a Christian family, and perhaps they’re partly right; maybe if I were born elsewhere, I’d have clung to another faith. But it isn’t my family that made me Christian. They set the stage, but it was my own encounter with God that sealed it. I gave my life to Christ after a suicide attempt, so my journey is deeply personal (read conversion story here). This year, however, has been one of the most trying for my faith. It has pushed me to wrestle with belief and logic in ways I hadn’t before. In earlier years, I’ve had doubts, yes, but they were mostly tied to depression, suicidal ideation, or difficult circumstances, not solely intellectual questioning. The last time I questioned God this deeply was in 2021, when suicidal thoughts resurfaced after years of dormancy. It was painful to want to die while watching others who wanted to live lose their lives. In 2022, things began to shift. Therapy and a strong Christian sisterhood helped me heal. That season led me to reaffirm my vows to Christ through baptism in August 2022. I wrote about here it at the time. My promise then was simple: Lord, I won’t attempt to take my life again. I’m surrendering the life to you who obviously wants to keep me here. Help me appreciate that, see value in being here and to live for You. Since then, my faith hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been steady, until recently. Between late 2024 and now, I’ve been shaken by what I’ve witnessed in the global Christian community, particularly the rise of American Christian nationalism. Because American culture dominates global media, its distorted theology spreads everywhere. Seeing Christians justify injustice, inequality, and blind leadership in God’s name has been heartbreaking. I found myself asking: Am I worshipping a God of injustice? In those moments, I’ve had to remind myself of who God truly is- based on my own encounters, not others’ interpretations. I’ve had to pray: God, please defend Your name, because what I see doesn’t make sense. Thankfully, God is not threatened by my questions. He welcomes them. And I’ve been blessed with a church home (linked here) and a pastor who encourages honest questioning, and a small circle of Christian sisters who help me stay grounded. Without them, I might have lost my sanity amidst all the twisted rhetoric. Still, I often find myself overwhelmed, looking at the state of the world and thinking, Lord, just blow the trumpet, send another flood and start over (or perhaps not at all), because this seems beyond saving. Recently, I was reminded of a lesson from someone I dearly respect, though I’ve since been disappointed by their alignment with the kind of toxic Christian rhetoric I now resist. A few years ago, we did a peer-review exercise naming each other’s strengths and weaknesses. She told me I had a tendency to question authority too much. At the time, I thought she was using the exercise to criticize me (that was ego), but even then I couldn’t deny she was right. She explained that I often refuse advice from people who haven’t been through what I’m facing, and that I believe I know what’s best for myself. Looking back, I see truth in that. I do question authority. I need people to prove they’re qualified to lead or advise me. That trait has followed me since childhood, my mother used to say I was too strong-willed, too stubborn, that we couldn’t both lead the household. Through therapy, I’ve come to understand where that comes from. It’s a response to being failed by authority figures; parents, elders, people who should have known better but didn’t. When authority fails you repeatedly, you learn to save yourself. You start thinking, If not for God and me, I wouldn’t still be here. That breeds self-reliance and skepticism of leadership. But in African society, that attitude is unsettling. Age, titles, and seniority often demand obedience. People expect you to follow simply because they hold a position. But for me, it doesn’t work that way. I’ve been my own father and mother for so long that I can’t just hand over that trust blindly. Still, I’m learning that this trait, that is- questioning authority, is both a gift and a trauma response. It protects me from blind submission, but it can also hinder faith and trust. God is teaching me balance: to discern when questioning is wisdom and when obedience is necessary. I recently watched a short clip that illustrated this perfectly. A father tells his child to move away from a package on their doorstep without explanation. The child obeys immediately, they soon find out that the box contains explosives. At the time, even the father didn’t know. He just suspected and at his command the child respected. Someone commented, “This is why learning obedience matters. You can question later, but sometimes, questioning too soon can cost your life.” That struck me. I’ve always been the child who asks why before acting. But that story reminded me that there’s a time for questioning and a time for trust. Sometimes, I just need to obey first and seek understanding afterward. That’s what God