How Nigeria-Cameroon Collabo Nailed Ayuk Tabe, Other Separatists

Anti-government demonstrators block a road in Bamenda, Cameroon, Dec. 8, 2016. Credit/VoA

How Nigeria-Cameroon Collabo Nailed Ayuk Tabe, Other Separatists

Ayuk Tabe Julius, the head of Cameroon’s Angolphone secesionist group, has been jailed alongside 46 others for pushing for a breakaway from French-dominant Cameroon, the VoA, said.

Ayuk Tabe and his nine cabinet members were arrested in Nigeria earlier in January and were handed over to the government of Cameroon in Yaoundé.

The success of the arrest and prosecution of the group was enabled by the collaboration of the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria who worked together to arrest the armed separatists.

“The government of Cameroon takes this opportunity to commend the excellent cooperation existing between Nigeria and Cameroon particularly with regards to security. The government of Cameroon reaffirms the determination of both countries never to tolerate that their territories be used as base for destabilizing activities directed against one of them”, Cameroon government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma Bakari, said.

Since Ayuk Tabe and his group were arrested, they have never been seen in public either in Cameroon or in Nigeria. Armed separatists said on social media that they had been detained in a police cell in Abuja and were refused access to their lawyers.

Fonki Samuel, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, says the arrests of the suspected separatists may lead to further violence and killing.

“What is the option and the way out is the proper, well-staged and organized dialogue. You can not have unity and peace without justice.”

The unrest in Cameroon began in November, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers in the northwest and southwest regions, frustrated with having to work in French, took to the streets calling for reforms and greater autonomy.

Separatists’ movement in Nigeria has died down since last year when the Nigerian Military conducted an Operation Python dance in the South-East Nigeria after which the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu went underground.