Worried by humanitarian concerns and the burden of bearing the brunt of the refugee crossing over into neighbouring Nigeria to find shelter and safety, Delta state based lawyer/activist Oghenejabor Ikimi, is stressing the need for the African Union to take serious strides toward resolving the crisis in the Cameroons. He went further to highlight how the effort will quell the refugee problem building up in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States.
Making his remarks Tuesday, Barrister Ikimi called on the International Community to rein in Cameroun’s President Paul Biya, suggesting that the octagenarian creates a Peace Commission where aggrieved parties could discuss the way forward and wield his presidential powers to grant amnesty to the pro-independence leaders, believed to be under the custody of Yaounde’s judicial police.
In the words of Mr. Oghenejabor Ikimi ”To douse the uprising in Southern Cameroon, I call on the international community to prevail on President Biya, to use his presidential powers to grant amnesty to all the separatist leaders and fighters in the English-speaking region of Southern Cameroon with a view to setting up a Peace Commission reminiscent of the Truth Commission in South Africa, so that the English-speaking people of Southern Cameroon can use the above platform to ventilate their anger, anguish, and complaint about immediate redress by the Biya-led government”.
Disturbed by the humanitarian disaster ongoing around his locality, ”the frightening fall out of the said uprising is the daily influx of refugees into Cross River, Taraba, Benue and Akwa Ibom states of Nigeria”
Going by figures churned up from the Emergency Management Agency of the Cross River State, the Director General John Inaku puts the number at 40,000 Southern Cameroonians believed to have fled their homes and sought refuge in the Cross-River State of Nigeria alone. Facilities to house and host them are overstretched, not leaving out the financial cost incurred by the host state to see to their wellbeing.
Neba Benson,
BaretaNews Foreign Correspondent/Analyst
6 comments
Another commission? Fool somebody else. We want to talk face to face with those in charge in Yaoundé.
1. They shall remove their army
2. Release our heroes out of prison
3. Prepare referendum to vote either for
– 2 state federation or
– independence of Ambazonia
Finished
@George I will admit that for the first time you said something that I can agree with. Dialogue is the best way forward and total autonomie should be our goals, not this bull shit of secession. Let me tell you that the idea of federalism is more popular in cameroon than we can imagine. If that was our aim at the beginning, we would have be here as we speak. Even our big brother Nigeria can’t supports the secession idea since they also facing the same problem gome.
There will be no peace in cameroun until Ambazonia is totally free of lrc colonial encroachment. Let the UN, AU, Nigeria, france, Britain and the international note.
They never be Ambazonia on cameroon soil.
If you like go in deep ocean and look for your imagined Ambazonia there.
It is no joke, no referendum, no federation.
Only Republic of Cameroon will remain forever.
You Ambazozo tok tok is too much, cameroon army dont need any help from abroad to keep safe the country border.
You just sit back behind your keyboard and write nonsense, If you poeple are so confident come to yaounde and release grand bandit Ayuk Sisiku and Co.
Long Live Cameroon
For those LRC internet trolls, this is food for your fried brains that I borrowed from SCBC: “One of the things I found out which I am really interested to develop is the closure of WADA (Wum Area Developing Authority). WADA was a colonial English project. They said this WADA employed over 2000 peasants in the Wum(Menchum Area). It had a massive power generator which supplied electricity to the whole sub division, free of charge, it was a farm and rural development project, just like the ones the English built in Zimbabwe. Uganda, South Africa. It was very life sustaining , WADA was exporting agro products to other Africans countries.WADA also ran an educational learning development program with future plans to make it be Africa’s 3rd Largest School of Agriculture. This was one of the small projects colonial English masters was testing in Southern Cameroon and it became to be a great success beyond ther expectation. Southern Cameroonians weer hard working, very clever and learn very quick, the area was rich with agro soil minerals and the Menchum Sociocultural environment was just a perfect miniature of a new civilization in Africa.WADA set Southern Cameroon on the right direction to development. After English left, for Zimbawe and other African countries to set up similar projects, the Project was live and very self sustaining. they had set the perfect foundation for an Agricultural Explosion in Africa.Almadou Alhidjo was happy and gave the WADA project a boost by letting it be where it was deemed best. Thats called fairness. They comes 1982. What happened when Paul Biya took power in 1982. this WADA was shut down, all the agricultural equipment(tractors, research books, stocks) everything was moved to Yaounde to help develop the present day IRAD in Nkolbison(excuse my spelling), meaning jobs were ripped off the people. development caped to its knees, In just under 4yrs, The Menchum area in Southern Cameroon became one of the poorest regions in the country. More on this topic and others coming. Heads up. Volume 2. What really happened in Nyos, The lake nyos disaster, Was it really a gas eruption or it was was something else”.
Please ignore all these francos writing about our struggle. We will never give up