BY NDIMUH B. SHANCHO
After spending nine months in jailfollowing peaceful protests disputing the outcome of the October 2018 presidential election, the leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, Professor Maurice Kamto, who was released with over 100 militants, September 5, 2019, following a presidential pardon, has vowed to fight on.
Speaking to hundreds of supporters who came to welcome him as he left prison, the opposition party leader said “I tell you one thing, I will never betray you! … I refused to say a word to the press but for you, I would… The regime arrested us arbitrarily and kept us in detention for more than 8 months! If some think that because we were released it is the end of the fight, they are mistaken heavily because we have not gotten all our demands.When you know why you fight, whatever the duration of the fight, you will get the victory.”
Professor Maurice Kamto who was arrested and charged for insurrection in a military court had claimed he is the real winner of the 2018 presidential election in Cameroon, despite official results declaring President Paul Biya as winner for a seventh termwith 71% votes as opposed 14% for his party.
The opposition leader and his militants, who felt cheated engaged in a series of protests, both in and out of Cameroon which culminated in January 26 with Kamto and at over 100 militants across the country arrested.
Determined to find “ways and means to resolve peaceably the crises and conflicts confronting our country”, President Biya ordered prosecutors to drop charges against g Kamto and his militants, a gesture many government officials described as a step towards national reconciliation.
Coming towards the end of the “Major National Dialogue” aimed at resolving the Anglophone crisis that has induced the death of about 3000, displaced over 500,000 and ravaged hundreds of villages, some 333 other people who had been jailed in connection with the crisis in the country’s restive Anglophone regions also have been freed.
Encouraged by this move, UN Secretary General, Mr. Guterres implored the authorities in Cameroon, “to continue to adopt further confidence building and reconciliation measures”.