By Sah Terence Animbom and Moma Sandrine
Headline news on some press organs on Monday, October 15 alleged that the Chairman of the SDF, Ni John Fru Ndi’s residence in Ntarikon, Bamenda was attacked allegedly by “Amba fighters” and his driver shot by soldiers on Saturday. The news spread like wildfire as many wondered when and how all this occurred.
In a bid to find out more details on the story, The SUN newspaper reporters paid the National chairman of the SDF a visit during which he had a brief chat with them stating that his residence was not attacked but acknowledged coming in contact with Amba boys at Baba II. He however refused to get into the details of his encounter with the Amba Boys.
Nonetheless, he narrated that after his driver, Salifu Waziru, had dropped him off at his residence in Ntarinkon Bamenda, he left with one of his guards on a bike and was riding home. This was at about 6:15pm some 15 minutes past curfew time. They rode into a police patrol team somewhere around Bamenda Food Market who were so brutal and uncompromising though it was only 15 minutes into curfew time. They shot at the bike rider who refused to stop since he was certain that he and the others will be arrested and the demand will be extremely high.
The bullet missed him and the police fired more shots causing the third person on the bike to fall though not hit by the bullets. One of the bullets hit a metal splitting the petals causing one to hit his driver on his ankle.
Salifu is responding to treatment and chairman Fru Ndi says it is too rash for military to start being as brutal as shooting at bikers with civilians on their backs at such a minimal time into curfew hours. He says people can be trapped in extremely unavoidable situations like the one Salifu was trapped in.
The SUN also gathered from another very reliable source that Chairman Fru Ndi encountered Amba Boys in Baba II while on his way to his village to talk to his villagers and caution them to stay away from trouble from both ends as they are all caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and are not safe either from the military or the Amba side.
It is worth noting that the Amba boys in Baba II are alleged to have been causing the population of the village untold stress. It is said that they even went as far as stopping villagers from going to their farms and extorting money from villagers.
Fru Ndi thus needed to approach his kinsmen as a member of elite class of the village so as to discuss with them given that many had cried foul of the Amba activities in their community which were rather causing them untold suffering as they say. It was thus during this trip that he encountered the Amba boys at the entrance to Baba II where they had a heated exchange with Fru Ndi speaking very courageously and objecting his views. Fru Nd is said to have expressed his anger to the boys who shot into the air to scare him.
The meeting with the Amba boys apparently did not end well though Fru Ndi has refused to delve much into it. He, however, maintains that all citizens, big and small, are trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea.