By
John chuchu
A good number of members of Southern Cameroon
National Council (SCNC), a secessionist group that campaigns for the
restoration of the independence of Southern Cameroons from its decades-old
union with the Republic of Cameroon, are running helter-skelter, as a crackdown
on them is intensifying.
It would be recalled
that on January 17, 2017, the Government of Cameroon not only outlawed the SCNC
and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) and all their
activities but also intensified the hunt down of its members, seen as a huge
threat to national unity and integration. In deed, Southern Cameroons and CACSC
activists are tagged terrorists by the Biya regime.
Both groups are
fighting against the marginalization of minority English-speaking Cameroonians
(formerly a UN trust territory, called Southern Cameroon) by majority
French-speaking Cameroonian Government.
The SCNC ban was
prompted by the fact that its adherents had taken an undue advantage of the
Anglophone teachers’ sit-in protest on November 21, 2016 and staged public
demonstrations in Bamenda, which led
to bloody confrontations between protesters
and anti-riot police.
Over 100 of the
activists were reportedly arrested while many others escaped into hiding for
their safety.
But even before the
November 21 protests, the arrests and detention of SCNC activists was a
routine.
One of those who
escaped from being arrested before the Bamenda mass demonstrations was
outspoken SCNC activist Sache Wilson, who served as Assistant Manager of Dream lounge Snack Restaurant, in
Molyko- the neighborhood that hosts Cameroon’s first Anglo-Saxon University of
Buea.
Security forces had reportedly
raided Dream lounge on several
occasions and whisked away customers, alleging that the popular restaurant was
used as a venue for planning SCNC meetings. Worthy of note, was an early July
2016 police raid of the restaurant during which police whisked away some
customers including Assistant Manager Sache Wilson, as the later was accused of
regularly hosting an SCNC meeting there. So suspicious were the police of Sache
that they searched his home to see if they could get any documents or materials
directly linking him to the SCNC.
According to Sache’s
family, they are living in fear because their son was being hunted by the
police.
“What my brother has
gone through in the hands of security agents because of the SCNC struggle is
enough and we have decided to help him leave the country like many others for
his safety,” Sache’s brother who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. “If you
cannot feel free and safe in your own country, it is better you leave for
elsewhere”
It is believed that some
of those fleeing the country are going to join leading Southern Cameroons’ radical
activists on self-exile abroad such as Tasang Wilfred, Tapang Ivo, Mark Bareta
and Akoson Raymond, to lobby the West to help in the restoration of the Independence of Southern Cameroons.
It is public knowledge
that many activists continue to be arrested, molested and prosecuted based on
Cameroon’s terrorism law, which carries a maximum punishment of the death
Since the arrest of
Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho, President of the CACSC and his Secretary-General
Dr. Fontem Neba on January 17, many activists including lawyers and teachers
have left the country.
Anglophones have since then multiplied
protests at home and abroad, calling for their independence from their union
with La Republique du Cameroun on october1, 1961.
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