By Tanda Njong
Bong Devine Kenah, a former President of the Parents Teachers Association
(PTA) of Government High School Esu in the Northwest west region of Cameroon is
reportedly living in hiding for fear that he could be arrested either by separatist
fighters or security forces.
Bong, who was elected PTA President of GHS Esu in September
2016 just before the eruption of the Anglophone crisis in October same year,
later fled his village of Esu as school boycotts, violence, vandalism, torture,
killings, mass arrests, and kidnappings became characteristic of the Anglophone
crisis.
He had been threatened and accused and by both separatist
fighters and security forces of being a traitor (commonly known as blackleg).
Bong was reported to have been strongly supportive of the
protesting Anglophone teachers and Common law advocates who sparked off the
Anglophone crisis with their corporate demands. Yet separatist fighters accused
him of being a government informant monitoring and reporting about the
activities of the separatists in the locality.
In the face of such dilemma, the ex-PTA president had to flee
to Douala especially as security raids in his village that reportedly left
several inured and persons dead.
Last January , fresh reports emerged that security forces
have intensified the hunt for separatist fighters and that a warrant of arrest was reportedly issued
against Bong for his alleged links with some separatist leaders.
Wung Marceline Ndum, a mother of several
children and wife of Bong Devine kenah
told reporters that since they got hint that her husband was a target for arrest,
they have been living in fear and anxiety. But she claimed not to know the whereabouts of
her husband.
““My family has been
living in fear and anxiety since the start of this crisis- especially as we’ve got information that my husband is a target
for arrest”, she lamented. “For now, we don’t know his whereas but we believe
he is alive wherever he is. We look up to God for his safety and protection.”
Many Anglophones facing
threats from combatants of the Anglophone crisis have fled the country to the
USA, Europe and Asia and over 40 thousand of them are seeking asylum in
neighboring Nigeria.
The Anglophone crisis started as peaceful protests and in January
2017 Cameroon
government banned the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), a pressure
group that was spearheading the independence of English-Speaking Cameroonians,
when it realized that the group was fueling the crisis
and making it violent.
Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe,first-ever
President of the unrecognized Republic of Ambazonia and his members of
government were in January 2018 extradited from Nigeria to Cameroon. They have
since then been incarcerated at the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in
Yaounde.
