Anglophone Cameroonians in the diaspora are planning to stage protests during “explanation” meetings with the separate delegations sent to Europe and the US by Prime Minister Philemon Yang on the behest of President Paul Biya. The mission statements signed by Paul Ghoghomu, Director of Cabinet at the Prime Minister’s Office say the teams made up of big-wigs of the Biya regime would travel to Belgium, USA and the United Kingdom to provide explanations to Cameroonians about the ongoing crisis in the North West and South West region.
Laurent Esso, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals will lead a delegation to Belgium made up of Lejeune Mbella Mbella, Minister of External Relations, and Tanyitiku Enoh Achuo, attaché at the PM’s Office. They are expected to hold a meeting with the Cameroon community on Saturday August 5 at the Secretariat of the ACP.
A mission statement from the prime minister’s office dated July 31, 2017 says another delegation comprising of Paul Ghoghomu Mingo, Elvis Ngole Ngole, former minister and head of the CPDM academy, Prof Fabien Nkot will hold a similar meeting in the United States while another ministerial delegation has been dispatched to the United Kingdom for the same purpose.
We gathered that Anglophone Cameroonians living in the United Kingdom are planning to stage a protest at the Cameroonian High Commission at 84 Holland Park, London on August 13, when the ministers are supposed to be holding a 3-hour meeting. We also gathered similar protests have been planned in Belgium and the US.
Ahmadou Diebou, Spokesperson of the Belgium chapter of the Southern Cameroons National Council, (SCNC) separatist movement says they have learned the government of Cameroon has hired Francophone Cameroonians from France to attend the meetings on behalf of Anglophones who might boycott the events. “The people who should be talking with the government are those who started the strike. Some of them are in prisons in Cameroon. This is what I think, but we (SCNC) are still deliberating on what to do during the meeting”
Meanwhile in London, Anglophones who have been protesting in front of diplomatic missions, have filed a petition to the Commonwealth headquarters to dismember Cameroon. We learned they are planning a “landmark demonstration”
Spotted among those who have been carrying out the protests, is Ekane Kingsley Ewane, who has once served the Biya regime as scribe of the Cameroon National Youth Council. He was Secretary General for the National Youth Council in Kupe Muanenguba Division and Vice Secretary General for South West Regional bureau of same.
Reports say Ewane was tacitly booted out of the national youth council when it was rumoured that he was a member of the SCNC. We gathered he contested the allegations until 2007 when he was arrested distributing tracts for the movement in Molyko, Buea. He disappeared from limelight until the Anglophones in the diaspora joined the general protests against marginalisation of minority English-speaking Cameroonians. He was spotted in London brandishing placards and the movement’s white and blue striped flag alongside 30-year old Dorcas A Joumai who equally hails from the South West region.
Agbor Ekinneh Ebai, a US-based Cameroonian for his part, holds “The useless trip is mere grandstanding and just a subterfuge to dispense abusive patronage and largess as the crisis has passed explanation point. The delegation will come and meet with CPDM militants for the cameras and nothing will change. These same people have wasted public resources on countless meetings to break the Anglophone resolve to no avail. The demonstrations that await them in the US will only further expose the gov’t’s bad faith at a time the US Senate is holding hearings on the Anglophone problem”
