BY ALICE NJI
The government, through the defence and security forces, has intensified manhunt for a young man, Tengen Ferand Tekuh, who reportedly led protests against the state.
It should be noted that the defence and security forces have been clamping down on all decent and arresting persons who take part in protests against constituted authority. The arrested persons are being tortured and detained under horrible and inhumane conditions. Some have died in detention, while others have simply gone missing. But their families suspect that they may have been killed.
Meanwhile, the defence and security forces have engaged a manhunt for Tengen, who is a member and vice president of a group of young people, known as AZIGO. The group was formed to fight against discriminations and marginalisation of the minority Anglophone Cameroonians by the majority Francophone Cameroonians.
As a member and vice president of AZIGO, Tengen Ferand Tekuh, on January 5, 2024, was at the forefront of a peaceful protest organised in Bamenda to denounce the marginalisation of the minority Anglophone Cameroonians. The group, together with lawyers and teachers, were protesting against issues such as unemployment, arbitrary arrests within the context of the Anglophone crisis, lack of freedom of speech, bad roads, lack of access to education, potable water and other social amenities and insufficient salaries of public servants, among others.
While the protesters were marching on the streets of Bamenda, brandishing placards, banners and peace plants and chanting anti-government slogans and songs, the military swooped on them with brute force.
The armed defence and security forces shot teargas at the protesters, and began brutalising them. Tengen Ferand Tekuh and 14 other protesters were arrested and whisked away to the military camp, while others fled.
At the military camp, the arrested persons were mercilessly tortured and accused of carrying out actions against the state, labelled by the government as insurrection, which attracts a punishment of as much as life imprisonment.
For several days, Tengen and the other arrested persons were tortured and detained incommunicado and denied access to a lawyer.
However, Tengen is reported to have later vamoosed from detention, under circumstances that remain unclear. Since then, his whereabouts is not known. The defence and security forces have thus launched a manhunt for him. We gathered that a warrant of arrest has been issued for him.
If re-arrested, Tengen Ferand Tekuh will be tried, and if found guilty, he will face a lengthy jail sentence. That is if he is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings in the country.
