BY Ernestine Ngum
The 2018 presidential election has come and gone with the Constitutional Council headed by Clement Atangana declaring the incumbent President Paul Biya, flag-bearer of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, who has been in power since 1982, winner of the polls with an overwhelming majority of votes.
But the outcome of the polls as declared by the Constitutional Council didn’t go down well with the militants and sympathizers of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, better known in its French acronym abbreviation, MRC.
The founder and presidential candidate for the MRC party, Professor Maurice Kamto, who was declared runners up in the elections by the Constitutional Council, in a press statement, declared that he won the elections going by the return sheets of the party’s polling agents at the various polling stations all over the national territory. Kamto also indicated that the election was rigged in favour of the CPDM presidential candidate by both the elections managing body Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, and the Constitutional Council.
It is against this backdrop that MRC presidential candidate, Professor Maurice Kamto, announced a series of nationwide peaceful demonstrations and manifestations in protest of what he called their “stolen victory” at the 2018 presidential election. The first of the peaceful protests took place in January 26, 2019 but received stiff resistance from security operatives who opened fire, tear gassed, molested, tortured and arrested hundreds of militants and sympathizers, not excluding the leader of the party, Professor Maurice Kamto, and his entire executive and two brothers, Bomie Kamwa Wilfried and Guetchuang Kamwa Patrick Freddy.
While Professor Maurice Kamto and his entire executive with about 300 militants were whisked to the Kondengui Maximum Prison in Yaounde, Bomie and Guetchuang were incarcerated at the Ndoungue Police Station in Douala V SubDivision, Wouri Division of the Littoral Region. Reports say Bomie and his younger brother, Guetchuang, were released after serious negotiations with the Police while Professor Maurice Kamto, and the Secretary General of the party, Alain Fogue; National Treasurer, Olivier Bibou Nissack, Paul Eric Kingue, Mamadou Mota, Albert Albert Dzongang, Barrister Ndocki Michele and others, who were incarcerated in Yaounde for endangering state security, hostilities against the nation, insurrection propagation of false information and revolution, were only released through a presidential clemency several months after
As if this wasn’t enough, the MRC organised another nationwide peaceful demonstration still in protest of their “stolen Victory” during the 2018 presidential election. This time around Bomie and his younger brother, despite warning from their mother not to join in the demonstration, still joined on September 22, 2020. Family sources disclosed that they narrowly escaped arrest and went underground and their whereabouts still remains cloudy.
As we went to press, the government had launched fresh pursuit for their arrest alongside many other MRC who were involved in the various post-2018 presidential election protest and demonstrations.
Bomie and his younger brother, Guetchuang, and many others who were granted bail in relations with the manifestations of 2019 and 2020 have been declared wanted. Security operatives, according to family sources, are making constant patrol around their neighbourhood just to arrest and prosecute them, for endangering state security, hostilities against the state, insurrection, propagation of false information and revolution, for which penalties range from fives years to life imprisonment.