Anglophone Crisis: Why Activists fear returning home.

By   Ndechu James  

Shu Aghanifor :accused of links with SCNC

When Shu Aghanifor Ishmael, started an organization in Cameroon which he named Europe-Africa Development Initiative (EADI), little did he know that he unknowingly inviting trouble for himself and the family. EADI, was supposed to be a humanitarian organization, intended to empower youth, but it was reportedly identified as having links with the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), a pressure group advocating the independence of English-Speaking Cameroonians, who before 1961 were known and called British Southern Cameroonians.

Southern Cameroons, a former United Nations Trust Territory under the administration of Britain, gained its independence on October 1.1961 by joining French-speaking La Republique du Cameroun, to form a single country.

But being the minority these English-speakers have, since their union with the majority French speakers, complained of being grossly marginalized in administrative appointments and development by the latter, who dominate the leadership of the country.

The creation of the SCNC as a pressure group was therefore to campaign for the statehood of the disgruntled English-speakers; but the Cameroon Government described the SCNC as an illegal and secessionist group, and banned it in January 2017, paving the way for the molestation, torture, arrest, and prosecution of the group’s members and supporters.

And so when EADI, whose founder is a rights activist, was accused of being an auxiliary of the SCNC, the organization’s members started running into hiding, to avoid persecution and prosecution. Even relations of workers of the EADI became targets for police investigations, as some of them were allegedly subjected to molestation to push them show the whereabouts of EADI workers.

Even when Shu Aghanifor Ishmael left the country, he is said to have joined radical Anglophone rights activists in the Diaspora such as Mark Barata,Cho Ayaba,Tapang Ivo,Akwanga Ebenezar,Chris Anu, Akoson Pauline, John Mbah Akuroh and Akoson Raymond, whom the Cameroon Government accusing of  sponsoring  protests in Cameroon, calling for the independence of Anglophones and wants them arrested.

The ongoing crisis in Anglophone Cameroon(Northwest and Southwest Regions),known as the Anglophone Crisis erupted in  2016 when common law lawyers and  Anglophone teachers’ trade unions staged  protests in the two pressing  for solutions to their professional  grievances but the Cameroon  government did not sufficiently address the issues at stake

Cameroon Military raid neighborhoods in search of  Anglophone Separatists, demanding their own state

At least hundreds of people have died as government forces engage  Anglohone separatist fighters in deadly clashes .Enormous property have been vandalized destroyed,

More than 30 thousand Cameroonians are seeking asylum in Nigeria, while more reports talk some 200 thousand people being are internally displaced.

The deadly clashes have given rise to a serious humanitarian crisis in Cameroon begging for huge global support, according to the UNO and rights groups.

As the crisis worsens, Anglophones in the Diaspora have been protesting at Cameroon embassies, mounting pressure on the decades-old Biya regime to resolve the crisis by way of genuine dialogue, and not oppression (the option which the Government seems to have chosen against expert advice).

As the deadly clashes between separatists and State security forces continue, the international UNO and rights groups have called for inclusive and meaningful dialogue.