Anglophone Crisis: Ex-PTA president in hiding as he faces threats of arrest

 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.