By Ashu Tidings
The trouble in the North West and South West Regions began in October 2016, when Lawyers and Teachers led protests calling for a two-state federation to preserve the Anglophone legal and education systems which they felt were being annihilated by the francophone- led central government.
The military’s heavy-handed response to peaceful calls for greater autonomy prompted Anglophones to form militias popularly known as Ambazonia Defense Forces leading to an armed conflict the following year. Since 2017, the fighting has claimed over 6,000 lives in the Anglophone regions and displaced nearly 800,000 people, the majority of whom are refugees in neighboring Nigeria. Some have been left in constant tears either following the demise of their loved ones or because their homes have been razed. These attacks have been so alarming that human rights groups across the board have concluded that Cameroon is no longer safe.
For over the years now the government of Cameroon has been battling to arrest the situation but tensions continue to intensify with the civilian population in the two restive regions of the North West end South West in peril, panic, and pandemonium. Due to this confusion and fear of the unknown, many youths and businessmen, professionals of all works of life continue to go underground.
The case of Mbang Magelan Younghabi a Buea-based industrial Art Welder, a graduate of the Linbolango Institute in Limbe, South West Region, of Cameroon remains very pathetic.
Reports say the where about of the 32-year-old Human Rights promoter and one-time President of Linbolango Institute Law Society, remains cloudy since September 2021.
What caused the immediate escape of Mbang to an unknown destination in September 2021, reports say is linked to a talk show program in a Buea Private Station where in he was a guest in July 2021.
In that program, he condemned in the strongest terms the attitude of the military. The military is reported to have taken advantage of the crisis, raided villages of the restive Anglophone regions, conducted mass arrests of innocent civilians, and razed villages and homes to the ground causing thousands to remain Internal Displaced while others saw themselves fleeing out of the country. Mbang is reported to have termed the barbaric acts of the military as genocide.
THE SUN gathered that the military stormed the radio station interrupted the program, arrested both Mbang and the station manager, and whisked them to their detention facility where they were manhandled and placed in harsh inhumane detention conditions for several days even the intervention of his Attorney at Law to secure his release remained futile. Mbang Magelan like others was accused of siding with those clamoring for the Independence of Southern Cameroon and the fabrication of Dane guns and pistols for the separatist reasons why the ” war” is unending.
Mbang, while still under military harsh, inhumane detention was coerced to disclose the names of those aiding and supporting the cause for secession. Despite the fact that Mbang rejected all these allegations, and maintained that he is merely a Rights Promoter, he still stayed in detention under degrading conditions.
Reports say a picture of some protesters who took to the streets to condemn the brutal killing by the military of an Anglophone Journalist and Human Rights crusader Wazizi sometime in January 2021 in Buea was presented to him with his face singled out in the picture.
Reports say as plans were underway to ferry Magelan to a more severe detention facility in Yaoundé for him to later stand trial at the military tribunal, like other alleged Anglophone activists who had stood trial and sentenced to life imprisonment upon framed up charges of terrorism, secession, hostility against the state and propagation of false information, he in his harsh detention facility had no other option than to cry out in his vernacular. His action is reported to have attracted the attention of one of the security operatives who coincidentally was his tribesman. This is how the officer, out of sympathy, did his best to smuggle Mbang late at night, from detention to an unknown destination.
Family sources confirmed that Mbang later contacted his father thanks to the officer. His father came and rushed him to a clinic for medical attention. News of Mbang being declared wanted by the Yaoundé regime forced his parents to negotiate his escape from the country
As we went to Press family sources hinted that they are constantly under threats, and pressure from security operatives for them to disclose the where about of their son Mbang Magelan Younghabi for they will be arrested and tortured.
As the crisis continues, to deepen, a report of a survey released by a group of Human Rights Organisations in Cameroon indicates that the lives of activists of Anglophone remain risky. The Yaoundé regime is sparing no effort in tracking down those it considers ” agents of destruction”. Even those abroad considered as activists and preaching against the marginalization of Southern Cameroon by the Yaoundé, have equally been declared enemies of the State of Cameroon and have been tagged for persecution.