Twenty-year-old spoken word artist Mbungai Marie Josette Leinyuy delivered a moving performance titled “Your Story” during the Restitution 101: A History of Excuses lecture and film premiere in Bamenda on Saturday, leaving the audience in deep reflection over Africa’s struggle to reclaim its stolen heritage.
Performing before an audience of scholars, students, journalists and cultural enthusiasts, Mbungai’s poem captured the emotional weight of cultural loss and the call for justice through restitution.
“History sleeps in glass boxes guarded by silence and British accent,” she began, in a voice that rose with both anger and grace. “They call it preservation, yet we call it possession.”
The poem wove together the story of African dispossession with sharp imagery—gods tagged with serial numbers, drums once called noise, and traditions dismissed as primitive.
“Our culture is not just an exhibit,” she declared. “It’s a heartbeat meant to be danced with and celebrated.”
Her closing lines drew loud applause:
“We are not begging, we are telling. Return what you took—not as charity, but as justice. Restitution is not about the past returning, it’s about the future restoring.”
Mbungai, a third-year computer engineering student at the University of Bamenda’s National Higher Polytechnic, is fast emerging as one of Cameroon’s brightest young voices in spoken word. She holds multiple national awards, including first place in the COCAM 2025 National Debate Competition, second in the National Spoken Word Contest, and several honours from regional and continental creative platforms. In 2025, she was also crowned Miss International Mental Health and International Day of the Girl Child by Her Blueprint Africa.
Her performance was part of the artistic component of Restitution 101, an event convened by Dr Shey Bulami Edward to explore the meaning and process of African cultural restitution. The day featured a public lecture, the premiere of the Ngonnso documentary, and an open discussion on heritage ownership and reparative justice.
Mbungai’s delivery stood out for giving a human and generational face to the intellectual debate. Many in the audience described her poem as a bridge between academic discourse and artistic activism, expressing in verse what scholarship often struggles to say in prose.
Through her words, the young poet reminded the hall that restitution is not merely a legal process—it is a moral and cultural awakening.
By Bakah Derick for Hilltopvoices
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