BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
A prominent business man, who lives at Bekoko the gateway to the South West Region from Douala, was kidnapped by separatist fighters two days after his daughter travelled to the United States for studies.
According to credible sources, Peter Buma Daiga was kidnapped around 7:20pm at his doorsteps as he returned home from a business trip on Tuesday, June 11, 2019 and was only released on Sunday June 16 after paying a ransom.
Though the economic operator has refused to say how much he paid as ransom, his kidnap was not unconnected to information that his daughter had just travelled to the United States.
Mr Daiga is the owner of ETS Buma, a local company that owns a fleet of petroleum tankers that travel regularly to the South West Region to transport petroleum products from Cameroon’s lone National Refining Company, SONARA.
Prior to his kidnap, separatist fighters called him several times asking him to financially support their armed struggle for Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) independence and he had refused to comply to their demands.
Mr Buma told The Sun Newspaper that, “My captors took me away at gunpoint right at my doorsteps, put me in a car and drove off to a destination which remains unknown to me. Just yesterday again, I received another threatening call from another group.”
He added that, “They said I have sent my daughter to study in the United States while they fight for liberation and that my daughter was engaged in the School Resumption Campaign and she must pay dearly for this, insisting that there’s no hiding place for blacklegs.”
While struggling to hold back his tears, Mr Buma regrets that his captors have vowed to kidnap his daughter whenever she returns for supporting the back to school campaign in which they volunteered to encourage children to go back to school in the troubled North West and South West Regions.
The Daiga family has been on the radar of separatist commanders since August 2018 after her daughter, Kehsen Valencia Daiga, volunteered to participate in a door to door ‘Back to School Campaign’ designed to encourage families to send their children back to school following a school boycott campaign.
Even after his release, Mr Buma Daiga still receives threatening messages and phone calls from strange people who say they are members of armed groups fighting for the independence of Ambazonia.