MACRON, CAMEROON AND THE SHRINE
Iactually planned to write this piece before the arrival in Nigeria of the young French President, Monsieur Emmanuel Macron so as to remind him of the unfinished business that his nation has in Nigeria’s South Eastern neighbouring country of Cameroon.
However, the startling performance on the African talking drum by the president of France inside the refurbished Shrine of Fela Anikulapo Kuti in Lagos rekindled this passion to put some lines out to talk about the atrocities happening in Southern Cameroon under the direct command and control of Africa's longest reigning president- Mr. Paul Biya.
This is so that Emmanuel Macron wouldn't dance away his sense of humanity and forget that his forefathers who participated in the scramble for Africa and took control of Cameroon for years as a colony, created more problems for the locals.
We must at the same time admit that the overbearing greed and lust for political power by Paul Biya aided by France has now led to the unprecedented crushing of opposition voices in Anglophone Cameroon who are sick and tired of the repression they collectively suffer from in the hands of the dictator who has imposed himself as a leader since nearly four decades.
Also, this piece is meant to condemn the ignominious role played by the current Nigerian government in the Anglophone debacle in Southern Cameroon which depicts the Nigerian administration as that which hates human rights.
President Muhammadu Buhari, against international humanitarian laws, arrested and repatriated some leaders of the pro-independence movement in Southern Cameroon who had escaped into Abuja to avoid violent deaths in the hands of the repressive and brutal dictatorship of Paul Biya.
Specifically, alleged members of the Ambazonia separatist movement in Southern Cameroon were picked up from their Abuja hotel by the Department of Security Services and detained in Abuja.
Some media reports said these Southern Cameroonian leaders were arrested by the Nigeria Police. The news is that the leader of the separatists, Julius Ayuk Tabe and 11 others who had gathered at Nera hotels Abuja on January 6th, 2018 to deliberate on the refugee crisis affecting their people were picked up and detained even as 39 others were similarly arrested and detained in Taraba State.
The Nigerian administration, against all pressures from concerned human rights organisations returned these leaders of Southern Cameroon to the dungeon of the Paul Biya – led government where they are currently subjected to horrendous human rights violations.
This conduct by Buhari in returning people running away from danger to the source of the danger is offensive to human decency because these persons were simply running away from cruel and violent deaths. So taking them back to be tortured in Cameroon speaks volume of the disregard to the tenets of human rights by the Nigerian government in the current dispensation.
The United Nations Commission for refugees recognises that the gross violation of human rights by government is at the root of refugee crisis.
Both Cameroon and Nigeria have administrators that are haters of constitutional democracy and human rights. The United Nations has clear legal frameworks affirming disrespect for human rights as the genesis of refugee crises. It stated clearly that “Human Rights violations are a major factor in causing the flight of refugees as well as an obstacle to their safe and voluntary return home. Safeguarding human rights in countries of origin is therefore critical both for the prevention and for the solution of refugee problems. Respect for human rights is also essential for the protection of refugees in countries of asylum,”
However, the political authority in Abuja is in a marriage of convenience with the incredibly lawless government in Cameroon. The problems associated with widespread abuses of human rights in Nigeria under the current Buhari’s administration are also a collective fundamental factor sparking off the phenomenal rate of migration by hundreds of thousands of Nigerians fleeing from war, poverty and wanton killings.