As Cameroon inches closer to another presidential election, a powerful and emotionally charged open letter has emerged from an unlikely source: Penn Terence Khan, a political detainee imprisoned at the Yaoundé Central Prison. His letter, addressed to Hon. Osih Joshua Nambangi, the Social Democratic Front’s (SDF) presidential candidate, is more than a political critique, it is a deep moral indictment of a party that, in Khan’s view, has lost its way.
Written from behind bars, the letter resurrects the once-revered history of the SDF, a party born in the flames of protest and nurtured by the hopes of the Anglophone population in the early 1990s. Khan recalls the party’s launch on May 26, 1990, a day marked by the deaths of six demonstrators in Bamenda.
It was a moment that galvanized the Southern Cameroonian public, who saw in the SDF a chance to challenge the dominance of President Paul Biya’s centralized government and to restore dignity to the marginalized English-speaking regions.
But that promise, Khan argues, has long since faded.
According to Khan, the SDF’s early commitment to restorative, social, and democratic justice gradually eroded as it was pulled into the gravitational orbit of national politics. In his letter, he claims that the party failed to hold fast to its mission and, in doing so, contributed to the disillusionment that sparked the formation of movements like the Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM) and the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC).
These movements, which would later form the ideological backbone of Anglophone resistance, were born from what he describes as the SDF’s betrayal of its core values.
He draws a direct line from the constitutional promises of 1996, particularly decentralization and “special status” for the North West and South West regions, to the conflict that exploded in 2016. In his view, the central government’s failure to implement those promises, coupled with efforts to erase Anglophone legal and educational systems, led to the uprising. And as Yaoundé responded with military force, Khan accuses the SDF of standing idly by, allowing a new generation of activists and protesters to take up a fight the party had long abandoned.
The central thrust of Khan’s letter, however, is not just a historical account. It is a sharp rebuke of Osih Joshua himself, his leadership, his silence, and his campaign rhetoric. Khan questions how a man who claims to be the only candidate capable of resolving the Anglophone Crisis has failed to show up for the people most affected by it.
He references the harrowing 2025 media coverage of 73 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mvog Betsi, Yaoundé, where families, including children and pregnant women, were evicted from makeshift shelters. Despite widespread media attention, Khan says Osih never visited the site nor extended any assistance. Similar suffering, he adds, is seen in Douala, Bafoussam, and Kribi where reports emerged of a man marrying four IDP women, not out of affection, but to provide them with shelter.
Khan’s critique deepens when addressing the plight of Anglophone detainees. He claims that since 2017, the SDF has made no sustained effort to support or even engage with the hundreds of Southern Cameroonians languishing in prison under the controversial 2014 anti-terrorism law. This law, widely condemned by international human rights organizations, has been used to detain journalists, activists, and civilians. Khan says his own attempts to reach Osih, including a recent letter titled “Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Cameroon,” have gone unanswered.
This silence, Khan suggests, is not just political negligence it is moral failure.
The letter also calls attention to the dramatic decline of the SDF’s political relevance. From once holding 43 seats in the National Assembly, the party now occupies only five. Its share of the presidential vote has plummeted from 17.4% in 2004 to a mere 3.36% in 2018. Khan sees this decline as directly tied to the party’s loss of moral clarity and its failure to address the root causes of the Anglophone conflict.
One of the most controversial accusations in the letter concerns Osih’s alleged signature on a 2021 parliamentary letter initiated by the ruling CPDM calling for the extradition of Southern Cameroonian leaders in the United States.
For Khan, this act confirmed suspicions that Osih was more interested in currying favour with Yaoundé than in seeking justice or reconciliation.
With the presidential election just months away, Khan is clearly skeptical of Osih’s campaign messaging. He argues that real leadership is not about words spoken from podiums, but about tangible action. He challenges Osih to visit the over 80,000 Anglophone refugees living in Nigeria and across West Africa, to offer support to IDPs, and to show compassion to those imprisoned, something he believes Osih has failed to do over the past nine years.
The letter ends on a provocative note. Khan suggests that rather than continuing to campaign on hollow promises, Osih should step aside and support a more capable candidate. His final line is unequivocal: “If you couldn't do these in the last nine years, how can you do it in just three months?”
As Cameroon’s political class gears up for yet another election, Khan’s voice from behind bars offers a sobering reminder that the Anglophone Crisis remains unresolved and that those who once promised to speak for the people must now reckon with what that truly means.
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