By Talla Aghaa Christopher
Since the ban of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, CACSC, the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, and the subsequent arrest of their leaders such as Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla (President), Dr. Fontem Neba (Secretary general), Mancho Bibixy, initiator of the “Coffin Revolution”, Justice Ayah Paul, who advocates legal arguments that Anglophones have a right to self-determination, many activists of the SCNC and the Anglophone cause have gone into hiding or are living in fear of arrest.
Other activists such as Njousi Abang and Godden Zama of the leading opposition Party, SDF, have been arrested and detained pending prosecution while others such as Barrister Bobga Harmony, President of North West Lawyers Association, NOWELA, and Barrister Eyambe Elias Ebai, President of Meme Lawyers Association, MELA, are equally on the run.
The arrested activists who are being detained in Yaounde, are being prosecuted at the military court and are facing charges of hostilities against the fatherland, secession and terrorism, punishable by death penalty or imprisonment of 25 years or more, according to the anti-terrorism law enacted a few years back.
It would be recalled that Anglophone lawyers started their peaceful demonstration to force government to attend to their demands, almost bringing the courts in the North West and South West regions to a standstill; but police in riot gear tear-gassed and molested them in Buea and Bamenda. Anglophone teacher followed with their own sit-in strike on 21 November 2016.
As the teachers observed their sit-in strike, a group of denizens in Bamenda led by a Journalist, Mancho Bibixy, who was carrying a Coffin, paraded the streets of the town, decrying the deplorable state of the roads. The demonstrations soon turned violent and bloody as the protesters clashed with anti-riot police, resulting in the death of several persons.
Also taking advantage of the protest in Bamenda, SCNC activists infiltrated the ranks of the protesters with placards, calling for the restoration of the independence of Southern Cameroons, causing mass arrests of activists.
Four persons were arrested on May 3, 2017 in Bamenda, chief town of the North West region, including two mobile newspaper vendors and a civil society activist, Akame Sindi, accused of being a member of the now banned Southern Cameroon National Council.
Akame and some of her colleagues had visited the police station to offer some food and other supplies to some persons who had been arrested earlier and detained at the judicial police regional headquarters in Bamenda when they were all interrogated and later detained.
According to some security sources, Akame and her colleagues were accused of spreading messages from other activists based in the Diaspora who are mounting pressure on government to free the Anglophone leaders.
Another wave of arrest and crackdown was reported at Ekona, a few kilometres from the capital of the South West region, Buea last week where several youths who took part in a mass demonstration last February were arrested forcing many to flee the town and seek refuge either in the forest or in other towns.
The case of a mother and daughter duo who are believed to be behind the mobilisation for the Ekona demonstration took another turn as it is reported that their land was seized by the military after they escaped arrest.
According to our security sources, Namondo Catherine and her daughter, Doris Ejema Lyonga epse Isoko where in charge of mobilising the community to protest against what they termed Anglophone marginalisation and police brutality. They are also accused of printing banners and placards used for the demonstration that eventually turned violent after police sprayed the protesters with teargas and life bullets.
The angry youths are said to have returned the favour by hurling stone at the police and burning down a makeshift police post at the area.
But since December 2016, ghost towns operations and boycott of schools, called by the now banned Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortiums have crippled activities in the North West and South West regions. The Consortium and other bodies have condemned the repressive measures adopted by government to resolve what is now known as the Anglophone crisis.
The ongoing strike by Lawyers and Teachers calls for federation or independence of Anglophones, characterized by ghost towns and at times vandalism and violence in Anglophone Cameroon.
For Anglophone Cameroonians and SCNC activists, who before now, spoke somehow freely about the cause, invoking their rights to freedom of expression, have since 17 January 2017, according to reports, gone underground following an order of the Minister of Territorial Administration an Decentralization, Rene Sadi, banning the SCNC and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, CACSC. This banning paved the way for the mass arrest of leaders of the banned groups.
It would be recalled that the SCNC, created in 1994, has its main goal the restoration of the independence of Southern Cameroons which gained independence on 1 October 1961 by joining La Republique du Cameroun, to form what is today known as the Republic of Cameroon