While the crisis that has been rocking the North West and South West regions, which has spiraled into an armed conflict, rages on, the government has stepped up its crackdown on all those suspected to be activists or Sympathisers to the Anglophone cause.
In this light, security operatives have been indiscriminately arresting Anglophone activists and suspected activists. Sources say the arrested persons are being detained under deplorable and inhuman conditions. Some have reported died in detention.
This has caused many of them to flee into hiding and the whereabouts of many is not known. Meanwhile, as the gun battles between the military and separatist fighters increase, some villagers in some communities have been forced to escape into the forest, for fear of being caught in the crossfire.
One case of an activist who is being wanted is that of Augustine Fomukong Ngoh, whose Anglophone activism started way back while he was a student of Government High School Limbe, in Fako Division of the South West Region.
He is said to have often stood against the fact that the government was sending French-speaking teachers to teach English-speaking students in the Anglophone North West and South West regions.
Ngoh, in 2016, is reported to have led a group of students in a peaceful protest, calling on the government to transfer the French-speaking teachers back to French-speaking schools. He is also said to have organised a protest in his community, asking the government to transfer French-speaking magistrates in Common Law Courts to Civil Law courts in French-speaking regions of the country.
Meanwhile, in 2017, while distributing flyers, T-shirts and other gadgets calling on people to respect the separatist-imposed ghost town every Monday by closing their businesses and sitting at home, Ngoh was arrested by the military. He was tortured and detained, under inhuman conditions, at the Buea central prison, for six months.
He was only released in July 2017 after a lawyer recurred him bail. However, he had to sign an undertaking that he will desist from all Anglophone activism and stop fighting for the independence of Southern Cameroons.
Nonetheless, after his release, Ngoh still continued his fight for the independence of Southern Cameroons. He is said to have still continued calling on people to respect Monday ghost towns, threatening that those who do not respect it that they will be punished.
He also still continued spreading pro-separatist flyers and distributing t-shirts at night.
In July 2022, Ngoh was against arrested, tortured and detained at the Buea Central prison. However, in January 2023, he is reported to have escaped from prison, under circumstances that remain unclear. Since then, his whereabouts is unknown.
The government has declared Augustine Fomukong Ngoh wanted, and a warrant of arrest is reported to have been issued for him.
If rearrested, Augustine Fomukong Ngoh will be tried by a military tribunal under the anti-terrorism law, whose maximum sentence is the death penalty. That is if he is not killed outright like others who have suffered from extra-judicial killings.
Origin Of Crisis
It is also worth recalling that the Anglophone crisis, something that pundits say had been brewing for several years, boiled over in 2016, when Common Law Lawyers in the North West and South West regions went on strike. They were demanding for the return of the federal system of government, redeployment of Civil Law Magistrates back to Civil Law Courts in French Cameroon, among other grievances. Not long after, teachers in the North West and South West regions also went on strike, demanding for the redress of several issues concerning the English system of education.
Things, however, got worst when Anglophones in both regions, who had been fed up with the unfavourable political and economic situation of the country, the use of French as the dominant and official language, and the marginalisation of the Anglophones, joined the strike.
The armed conflict has caused the deaths of thousands and thousands more internally displaced with some living in bushes while several other thousands have fled to neighbouring Nigeria, where they are living as refugees.
Separatist leader, Sissiku Ayuk Tabe, and nine others who were arrested in Nigeria and later extradited to Cameroon are currently serving life sentences at the Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde.
While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause through inclusive dialogue.
Curled From Eden Newspaper