Young Secessionist Activist Escapes From Detention

 

By GEORGE FON IN MAMFE

A young man whose names we got as Tiku Kingsley Egbe is reported to have escaped from detention after he was arrested in his hideout in his village Ntenako, Manyu Division of the Southwest Region.

Tiku Kingsley Egbe alongside some other youths were picked up by security officers in a raid that left many others who tried to intervene manhandled and teargassed.

The February 5, 2018 arrests had been described as arbitrary and condemned by Human Rights Groups who say at the time of the arrest, Tiku or the others were not posing any threat to national security or peace in any form.

Tiku is reported to have escaped from the detention facility through an unknown means and ever since, security forces have been on the look out for him.

We gathered that Tiku has severally been accused of being a is a staunch member of the Southern Cameroon National Council, clamoring for the separation of Anglophone Cameroon from Francophone Cameroon, which he has often denied claiming that he was an independent activist fighting for the rights of young Anglophones.

We are however informed that, Tiku Kingsley Egbe had been on the bad books of security officials since 2017 after the banning of the movement in 2016.

Alongside others, he was declared wanted in October 2,2017 for allegedly coordinating and leading a protest match in the form of celebrating the independence of Southern Cameroon on October 1, 2017.

He disappeared from the scene of action till he was apprehended on February 5, 2018.

Sources fear that Tiku after going through harsh detention conditions and after his escape, if apprehended again may likely face the dreaded Anti-Terrorism law where civilians are judged in a military court and end up having a jail sentence of between 10 to 15 years or at worst a life sentence.

Background 

It would be recalled that Anglophone lawyers started a peaceful demonstration in October 2016 requesting the government to consider their demands, this almost brought the courts in the North West and South West regions to a standstill; but police in riot gear tear-gassed and molested them in Buea and Bamenda. Then came the Anglophone teacher’ sit-in strike on 21 November 2016.

As the teachers observed their sit-in strike from 21 November 2016, a group of denizens in Bamenda led by a Journalist, Mancho Bibixy, who was carrying a coffin, paraded the streets of Bamenda town, decrying the deplorable state of the roads, injustice and marginalisation of Anglophones. 

The Southern Cameroons National Council that was formed since 1993 to fight for the independence of former British Cameroons also joined the strike action. Activists in different parts of the North West and South West Regions went to the streets and carried out peaceful marches demanding for their rights and equality in government and other economic and social spheres. 

These SCNC and Civil Society Activists, family relations confirmed, have simply gone into hiding for fear of subsequent arrests and torture, taking into consideration the numerous arrests and inhumane treatment they, like other activists, have been subjected to in the various detention centres with deplorable conditions.