By SAH TERENCE ANIMBOM
Video footages appeared on social media in the evening of Friday, April 24, 2020, showing the Registrar-In-Chief at the Boyo High Court and Fundong Court of First Instance, Fru Emmanuel, councillor and renowned tailor Lainsah Banaki Amos of the CPDM-run Fundong Council as well as Awoh Paul Ngwainbi, a business man and worker with the Fundong Council branch of Elections Cameroon.
The video depicts that they are in the hands of ‘Amba boys’ somewhere around Belo. In the video, they are asked by the person filming to identify themselves as they give their names and the various positions they hold. Fru Emmanuel, the Court Registrar however looks courageous and manages a dry smile unlike Lainsah Banaki Amos who is definitely scared as he expects the unknown from his captors. Awoh Ngwainbi Paul, the ELECAM worker has been well beaten and wounds left on his body as he is seen bleeding on one leg with another one bandaged with some pieces of cloth.
Awoh Paul is the only ELECAM staff in the entire North West Region who had never abdicated his place of work but had been courageous enough to stay at his duty post in Fundong Sub Division which has been a bed rock for ‘Amba boys’, even when his hierarchy started insinuating that he is on the ground because he works with ‘Amba Boys’. Reliable sources hinted The SUN that Awoh Paul had responded by simply stating that he was born in Fundong, where he grew up and has built his house, as well as having his businesses established there hence he can’t run to somewhere else.
Up to the time of his kidnap, he had been involved in inter urban transport operations, passing by the ‘Amba boys’ control posts along the Bamenda Fundong road on almost daily basis without any issue. Whatever led to a change of heart towards him on the side of the boys is the question every other person who admired his courage is asking.
Lainsah Amos on his part had escaped from Fundong to Yaounde where he established his business after he was threatened and asked by ‘Amba boys’ to present his eight rounds short gun to them, accompanied with many other deadly threats. He has since then almost a year and a half ago not boldly tried returning to Fundong as he did this unfortunate day when he was kidnapped.
Fru Emmanuel is a man who has carried out a lot of significant development in Fundong town though not a native of the place such that he had started feeling more like a Kom man than a Mankon man. He has once in a while been frequent in Fundong even in the heart of the crisis there and was among the very few persons of such administrative portfolios who are not entitled to body guards who still dared to enter Fundong.
Worth noting is that the trio were all in the same car being driven by Awoh Paul when they were kidnapped. Someone who was also in the car at the time of their interception by the ‘Amba Boys’ around Sho in Belo Sub Division was simply asked to go while the three were bundled away. It would appear Awoh Paul was beaten because he tried to talk tough to the boys whom he sure might have been seeing everyday or almost every day.