By Sah Terence Animbom
The National Chairman of the leading opposition party in Cameroon; the Social Democratic Front party SDF has recounted his ordeal in the hands of abductors who kidnapped him at his Ntarinkon residence on Friday June 28, 2019 at about 3pm. The Chairman Ni John Fru Ndi was speaking to the press at his Ntarinkon palace on Sunday morning after his release at about 9:30 pm on Saturday June 29, 2019.
Fru Ndi told the press and visitors who came by to console him and to celebrate his freedom once again that he had just returned from the Mbingo Baptist Hospital where he had spent three days for treatment and some medical diagnosis, when suddenly he heard gunshots right inside his own house.
“When I came out putting on just my singlet and without shoes, I noticed my bodyguard had been shot. A very muscular guy dashed onto me and held me on the chest and started pulling me out. As I struggled with him another joined and they pulled me on the floor like a pig until they bundled me into their car that was parked outside the gate. While in the car one of them hit my head about five times with the gun he carried and I told him you are an idiot to be knocking my head like that and he knocked again. They gave me two blows on my stomach telling me they were dying in the bush. I told them they guns they carried were weapons of a coward and that they are in the bush but things are not going the way we thought. They accused me of being a black leg. They then blindfolded me and rode on while shooting into the air to scare people away.” He went on.
“When we arrived their camp, they placed me on a hard Bamboo bed where I slept. I had nothing to eat and I did not take my medicines. After that night they came to me in the morning and told me Mr. Chairman we can now talk. I told them that they don’t treat me Fru Ndi they way they did. I asked them to tell me what was wrong. They brought their camera and asked me to declare there and then that I was pulling all my senators, all my parliamentarians and Mayors out of government and that they were giving me 24hours to do that.” He narrated.
“I said Sir; you don’t hold me at gun point to make such statements. Sorry you cannot do that. I asked them why they wanted me to do that and they said my parliamentarians, mayors and senators were disturbing their struggle. I told them I cannot declare what they were asking me to declare. I told them I must go to Yaounde, meet with my parliamentarians and senators so that we can discuss and arrive at a decision”.
Fru Ndi also said he was accused by his kidnappers of killing their friends in Baba.
The chairman condemned in the strongest terms the kidnappings, burning of houses, stating that “I still maintain that the Anglophones have a problem, I still maintain that the Anglophone problem should be looked into; I still maintain that there is Anglophone marginalization, that the Anglophones have been taken for granted…but the children in their desperate effort to resolve this should not commit more faults and make more errors than what we are facing…if these issues are not condemned and those that are part of it arrested”, Fru Ndi holds that it means those controlling these groups are part of the crime. However it should be noted that this recent kidnap of Fru Ndi (the second in two months), has been widely condemned by many separatist groups.