Preventing Ambazonian Church Leaders from Helping IDPs is Equal to Bombing the Church

Two Sundays ago, our revolutionary reflections focused on the need for the church, especially Ambazonian church leaders, both at home and in the diaspora to come to the aid of its members who have now become Internally displaced Persons (IDPs), as a result of colonial brutality across the homeland. The call came following BaretaNews’ observation of some kind of abandonment of the people by the various religious leaders and organizations.

However, our investigations on the ground have now supported and confirmed the allegations that the colonial government has banned not only the Catholic Church, but all other able-to-help religious organizations in Ambazonia from providing any form of relief or humanitarian aid to citizens fleeing colonial brutality and the genocidal atrocities colonial terrorist forces.

The colonial agents had reportedly queried the Arch Bishop of Mamfe, Rev. Adrew Nkea, for distributing foodstuff to people stranded, after the terrorist soldiers razed down their villages. This was confirmed by a renowned Journalist in La Republique’s political capital, when she tweeted a few days back that;

“I am reliably informed that church leaders have been banned from assisting displaced anglophones who fled military brutality and burnings of their houses. A renown man of God has equally received a query from the state for distributing foodstuff to the people in despair,”

Last week, this reporter, while shuttling between Buea and Kumba, came in contact with some internally displaced persons, mostly women and girls from the burned down Kwakwa village in Meme Country. In a chat with the women (some of whom are still teenagers), they informed this writer that, they had been dispatched by their parents, mothers and husbands (who are all living in the forests in Kwakwa), to go and plead with some prominent men of God in Kumba, Buea, Mutengene and Victoria, to come to their aid in the forests, especially with food supplies.

Two days after, while returning from Kumba, some of the Kwakwa women, who this reporter had encountered the previous days were spotted at the park, coming out of a Bus that just came in from Victoria and Buea. It was therefore necessary that we get first hand information from them if the religious leaders they met were able to supply their needs.

According to the women, they didn’t succeed in meeting the said Men of God, but were received their representatives, to whom they expressed their plight in the forests as IDPs. Asked whether the churches or Men of God they went to were catholic, protestant or Pentecostal; they responded that they had visited some protestant and Pentecostal churches as they were directed by their leaders in the forests.

However, the women reported that just a few of the religious leaders gave them some little monies and their transport fare to return to Kwakwa, and that the church will devise strategies on how to better help them. Referring to their encounter with officials of one of the popular religious organisations (name withheld), one of them noted that;

“the Man of God’s people that we saw, said that they cannot be able to bring us rice and other things in the forests because the government has refused churches from helping us… that if they come to kwakwa with food, military people may attack their vehicle,”

“…they only gave us transport money and said they will take our case to the Man of God and call us back… we don’t know what we have done that government doesn’t want churches to he us” she lamented.

It is terrible that the colonialists can go to this extent of refusing religious organizations in Ambazonia, the right to carry out their humanitarian responsibilities in a time of war as such. A war in which the colonial regime is the aggressor.

These are clear indications that the colonial agents do not care whether Ambazonians are alive or not. All they are interested in, is conquering and taking over the territory of Ambazonia and its resources.

With such despicable and abominable decision, it will not be surprising if we suddenly see colonial terrorists chasing innocent Ambazonians running from their brutality into church and killing them. Refusing Ambazonian Church Leaders from Helping IDPs is Equal to Bombing the Church and killing all citizens taking shelter there.

Apart from Spiritual Security, all religious organizations and their leaders in the homeland must therefore take all necessary security measures to protect their institutions and followers from possible attacks from these blood sucking colonialists.

If they are courageous enough to ransack and burn down religious institution, which are considered to be sacrosanct, then there is no limit to which they cannot go, if only it will help them achieve their objective of completely annihilating the Ambazonian people.

James Agbor

BaretaNews Political Analyst