BY Sandra Lum
Reports hold that the lives of many alleged Anglophone activists including their relatives both at home and abroad remains a misery ever since the Anglophone crisis, which later on escalated into an armed conflict started.
Many of them have been accused by the government of siding, aiding and abetting with separatist fighters who have picked up arms against the state, demanding for the restoration of the independence of former British Southern Cameroons or the creation of a new country which they have christened Federal Republic of Ambazonia.
Amongst the activists who are in government blacklist, and target for arrest anytime they step feet in Cameroon include the UK-based newly elected Chairman of the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, Robert Tamanji, alongside other members like: Ivo Kuka, Catherine Yambo, Omawah Elenor Charlotte Oyebog, Alain Bougan, Muella Kamgang Armand, 30-year-old Mbong Becky Nganji, amongst others.
Many youths in the English-speaking North West and South West regions are reported to be entangled due to the Anglophone crisis that has been raging on since 2016. Cases abound and Cameroon is no longer a safe place for them.
Even though 30-year-old Mbong Becky Nganji’s whereabouts still remains cloudy since December 2022, a manhunt has been launched for her by the military. Reports say the holder of Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Buea, before going underground in December 2022 for fear of persecution and subsequent prosecution by the Yaounde cruel regime, was a Psycho social worker with the HIV Free Project. The Sun Newspaper gathered that from November 2021 to April 2022 Mbong Becky had passed through hell in the hands of the military. Her baptism of fire, reports say, was on Saturday November 13, 2021 when the military stormed their office and immediately accused them of not only aiding and abetting separatist fighters’s activities but equally clamouring for the separation of former British Southern Cameroons from East Cameroon.
She was later be accused by the military of being a spy and the one providing sensitive information to the separatists to alert them from being captured. Sources disclosed that Mbong, while under cruel detention condition, was sexually assaulted and watched with dismay how an inmate died from military torture.
Their home was razed to the ground by the military, her father and cousin were brutally tortured on allegations that they were supplying arms to the separatist. This torture caused the death of her father.
Mbong Becky, whose family was accused of secession, masterminding and supporting the Anglophone movement from abroad, was only released on bail at the State Prosecutors Chambers thanks to the intervention of their family lawyer on condition that she will be present herself routinely at the State Prosecutors Chambers.
For fear of the unknown, Mbong relocated to Douala to live with her aunt,but received sad news few weeks later that one her closest cousins was shot dead by the military while on his way back home from bible studies. This was on allegations that he was a spy, siding with the separatists and supporting “ghost towns” called by the separatists.
Depressed by this situation, Mbong’s family had no other option than to negotiate her escape out of the country.
Ever since Mbong Becky Nganji disappeared from the country under cloudy circumstances, confrontations between the military and the separatists have intensified while she still remains a target of the military. Family sources say the military keeps making impromptu checks around their neighbourhood. By at press time Mbong Becky Nganji had been declared wanted.
It should be recalled that Common Law Lawyers went to strike in October 2016 to protest government attempts to annihilate the Common Law practice in a constitutionally bilingual and bi-jural Cameroon. The strike lasted for over a year. Anglophone teachers in the country joined the strike on November 21, 2016 to uphold Anglo-Saxon values under threat in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions.
The government crackdown on Anglophone activists has since intensified with arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and extra-judicial killings becoming the new normal, human rights groups have said.
The North West and South West regions of Cameroon have remained restive since the outbreak of the Anglophone crisis in 2016. Investigative findings and reports from many human rights groups and non-governmental organizations have condemned extrajudicial killings, by mostly the military, on innocent civilians including children and pregnant women, and the burning of houses
Reports say this situation has caused many to migrate to French Cameroon, while others have fled to neighbouring countries as refugees. According to statistics from human rights groups, over 7,000 persons have been killed, hundreds kidnapped, thousands of houses and over 400 villages razed with over 75,000 persons identified as Internally Displaced, with over 45,000 as refugees in Nigeria. Some have been left in constant fears either for the demise of their love ones or because their houses have been razed. These attacks have been so alarming that human rights groups across the board have concluded that Cameroon is no longer safe.