BY Sandra Lum
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, that has been in power since 1982, winner of the poll with an overwhelming majority votes.
But the outcome of the poll, as declared by the Constitutional Council, didn’t go down well with the militants and sympathisers of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement better known by its French acronym as MRC. The founder and presidential candidate for the MRC party, Professor Maurice Kamto, who was declared runners up in the election by the Constitutional Council, in a press statement, declared that he won the election. This, he said, was going by the return sheets of the party’s polling agents at the various polling stations all over the national territory.
Kamto added that the election was rigged in favour of the CPDM 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 against what he called their “stolen victory” at the 2018 Presidential Election.
During a preparatory meeting for one of such peaceful protest that took place in March 26, 2023 but received stiff resistance from security operatives who opened fire on, tear-gassed, molested, tortured and arrested hundreds of militants and sympathisers not excluding Adiobo Mouko Raphael, a bilingual teacher under the Ministry of Secondary Education. Reports say Adiobo Mouko Raphael, alongside others, were incarcerated at a police Station in Douala V Subdivision, Wouri Division of the Littoral Region of Cameroon.
Adiobo Mouko Raphael is reported to have been released after serious negotiations with the police authorities. As if this wasn’t enough the MRC organised another nationwide peaceful demonstration still in protest against their “stolen victory” during the 2018 presidential election. This time around Adiobo Mouko Raphael joined in a preparatory meetingof September 22, 2023. Sources disclosed that he narrowly escaped arrest and went underground and only resurfaced after a period of time.
As we went to press, we gathered that the government had launched a manhunt for Adiobo Mouko Raphael for being an MRC fugitive and on grounds that he is sympathizing and siding with Ambazonia seperative fighters in the two Anglophone Regions of the North West and South West.
Adiobo Mouko Raphael’s residence in Buea, according to family sources, is reported to have been razed to the ground by the military after he backed out as military spy to monitor separatist fighters’ activities and relay to them, but he turned against them and started working for the separatist fighters. This is in sympathy with Anglophones who are decrying marginalisation from La Republique du Cameroun and demanding self-determination and sovereignty.
Security operatives, according to family sources, are making constant patrol around his neighbourhood just to arrest and prosecute Adiobo for endangering state security, hostilities against the fatherlaand, insurrection, secession, propagation of false information and revolution which penalties range from five years to life imprisonment.
It should be recalled that sometimes in 2019 Professor Maurice Kamto; Secretary General of MRC, Alain Fogue; National Treasurer Olivier, Bibou Nissack; Paul Eric Kingue, Mamadou Mota Albert Ndzonga, Barrister Ndocki Michele and others were incarcerated in Yaounde for endangering state security, hostilities against the father, insurrection propagation of false information and revolution because they staged a peaceful demonstration protesting what they called their “stolen victory” at the 2018 Presidential Election. They were only released through a President clemency several months later.