The North West and South West regions have remained restive since the outbreak of the Anglophone crisis in 2017. Investigative findings and reports from many human rights groups and non-governmental organisations have condemned the extrajudicial killings by mostly the military, on civilians including children, pregnant women, and the burning of houses.

Faced with this deteriorating socio-political condition and other security concerns, the government has, in desperate attempts to calm the trouble waters, multiplied efforts at apprehending those considered the brains behind the crisis. This has caused many, especially activists of the outlawed Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC clamouring for the restoration of the total independence of the former British Southern Cameroons, to go underground. As if this is not enough, these SCNC activists are not finding it easy with separatist fighters. Separatist fighters, just like the security and defence forces, have tagged them as sellouts, while the government has declared them wanted.

After releasing a list of Anglophone activists who were targeted for arrest years back, sources say a fresh list of SCNC, and Anglophone activists, both home and abroad, has been re-established for their arrest. More than a hundred names have reportedly been given to intelligence services.

The list with the names of SCNC activists in the likes of Ashley Majoma Nyeango, Roland Muku Asanjie and Odilia Anih Bechu is already making rounds in the hands of security operatives.

Despite the fact that their whereabouts remains cloudy as they are reported to have gone underground, they have been placed under military searchlight and declared wanted for organising several protests across many towns in the North West and South West Regions like Bamenda, Kumba, Mamfe, Buea, Limbe, Wum, and Mbengwi against the worsening frustration, marginalizsation, the unlawful detention and maltreatment of the people of former British Southern Cameroons.

At press time an SCNC member, whose name this reporter got as Roland Muku Asanjie, was reported to be under security searchlight and has been declared wanted according to family sources.

THE SUN gathered Roland Muku Asanjie, a truck driver who transports timber along the Mamfe–Douala corridor miraculously escaped sometimes in April 2022 from prison custody in Douala where he was tortured and detained under horrifying, degrading and inhumane conditions.

The military keeps making impromptu patrols around their neighbourhood  in Kumba, just apprehend and prosecute him on framed up charges, family sources have hinted. According to sources, after the military rescued Roland Muku Asanjie and others from separatist fighters’ captivity far off in the forest in Ediki village along the Kumba- Douala highway on Monday January 24, 2022, they took him home to ascertain if he was not a separatist fighter, but unfortunately for him, after the military conducted a thorough search in his house, they discovered fresh evidence linking him to SCNC. This complicated matters for him, reasons he was whisked to Douala.

It should be recalled that Roland Muku Asanjie was kidnapped on Saturday January 22, 2022, at Ediki, a village in Meme Division along the Kumba-Douala highway by armed men who identified themselves as separatist fighter attached to the Ambazonia Defense Forces, ADF, while he transporting timber from Mamfe to Douala. Reports say ADF accused Roland Muku of smuggling military men into what they called “Ambazonia territory”. The separatist fighters also accused him of betraying the Anglophone cause for freedom and above all for conniving with the government of “La Republic” to steal timber from Ambazonia land. He was tortured, starved and mistreated alongside others while in captivity. Reports say he was rescued thanks to the intervention of soldiers who stormed the area to crackdown on the separatist fighters.

Government forces have engaged in extrajudicial killings, random looting, shooting, torture, molestation using disproportionate and discriminating force, abusing and arresting protesters, burning more than 300 villages, 600 houses, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, attacking hospitals, beating and raping women and girls.

The inhumane treatment meted on civilians amidst the crisis is alarming and international bodies have been called upon to intervene and mount pressure on the government to solve the situation and assist all those who have escaped the armed conflict.

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