By Tanji Nguma
Suh Vitalis Ngwai was a
state-employed teacher. He was teaching at Government High School Kombone in
the Southwest, one of the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon plagued by
the Anglophobe Crisis.
Although he was living
in a nearby neighborhood called kwa-kwa, Suh went about his teaching job
peacefully in Kombone until the Anglophone crisis erupted in 2016 over
corporate demands by Anglophone teachers and Common law advocates.
He found himself in a
dilemma as he was accused of double standards by Separatist fighters and
Cameroun Security Forces, and allegedly became a target of attacks and torture by
the two warring entities.
The crisis, which
started as peaceful protests across Anglophone Cameroon, soon turned violent
and bloody, putting many lives in danger and sending many others to their early
graves as Cameroon forces launched a counter offensive against separatist fighters, who were (and are still)
asking for the independence of the two English-speaking regions (Northwest and
Southwest) of Cameroon.
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| Houses of suspects razed during the Anglophone Crisis |
The country’s two
English-speaking regions were formerly called Southern Cameroons -a former
United Nations Trust Territory that was administered by Britain and it gained
its independence on October 1,1961 by joining the majority French-speaking La
Republique du Cameroun, to form a single country.
But after joining the majority
Francophones, the minority English-speakers started complaining of being marginalized
and discriminated against in appointments and development projects by the
latter who dominate the administration of Cameroon.
The on-going crisis has
led to the deaths of over five thousand
people (civilians and soldiers). Enormous property (private and public)
worth hundreds of billions of FCFA have been destroyed,
Over 40 thousand Cameroonians
have fled to neighboring Nigeria where they are seeking asylum. Over 500
thousand people are reportedly internally displaced. Hundreds of others fleeing the crisis are
found in the US, Europe, Asia and in other African countries like South Africa.
As the story goes, Suh
Vitalis Ngwai respected the 2023/2024 school resumption of the Cameroon
government as he went about his teaching in Kombone even as the separatists had
called for school boycott throughout Anglophone Cameroon.
That put him at war with
the separatists who reportedly attacked and tortured him on several occasions,
threatening him with death if he continued going to school.
Other the hand, when a
traumatized Suh, for fear of his life, stopped going to school, he was also
accused by school officials of being sympathetic to the separatist agenda of
dividing Cameroon, which the country’s President Paul Biya has insisted is “one
and indivisible.”
The attacks on him by
the two warring entities left him traumatized, as he started living in hiding
for fear of the unknown.
Reports say when he
decidedly left kwa-kwa, a fief of separatist fighters, he was only lucky to
have narrowly escaped arrest because security forces on, 15 September 2023, raided
their family residence, ransacking it in search of him. The house would later
be razed by unknown persons.
Burning of houses of
suspected separatists, ghost towns, vandalism, arrests, torture of accused
persons, extra-judicial killings, kidnappings, beheadings, sexual assaults and
several other vices have characterized the Anglophones crisis.
The escalation of the crisis has been largely blamed on the social media being used by activists to mobilize anti-government protests. It would be recalled that in the heat of the crisis, Cameroon Government first suspended access to the internet early in 2017 in the Northwest and Southwest Regions for three months and later for another one month.
English-speaking
Cameroonians in the Diaspora have been accused by the Cameroon Government of
instigating and funding separatist fighters.
The Government has blacklisted some Anglophone activists abroad who include Mark Berata, Cho Ayaba,Tapang Ivo,Akwanga Ebenezar,Chris Anu, John Mbah Akuroh,Nso Forcha and Akoson Raymond .Due to the mass arrests back home and the hunt for activists abroad, many Anglophones abroad - even students are scared to return home.
In late 2019, President
Paul Biya convened what was styled National Major Dialogue (NMD), with the
intention of looking for lasting solutions to put an end to the Anglophone
crisis. But the implementation of the recommendations of the NMD, which
included the granting of a special status to the Northwest and Southwest
regions, has not put a stop to the crisis, which is in its 8th year.
