1 February 2018
Is the Nigerian state right to have deported Comrade Ayuk Tabe, the anglophone separatist leader back to cameroon yesterday Monday from Abuja? I strongly condemn the actions of the government on the matter.
The sit tight dictator of Cameroon has been in power for more than four decades. His regime has been very oppressive. He has killed an imprisoned some of our brothers of Ejagham extraction on the other side of the boarder.
As the killings has been going on, some of our Brothers, mothers and children from Southern cameroon have sought refuge in some Ikom and Boki villages as refugees. The least we can do is to protect them.
Last week we got word that Cameroonian soldiers violated Nigeria’s territorial integrity to attack the camps. To our greatest surprise the Nigerian government made no public comment on the matter.
The Nigerian state and Nigerian government may not be willing to assist people of southern cameroun, but to some of us from Ikom and Boki and the Ejagham nation in general, we cannot pretend that all is well. To some of us, the actions of the federal government of nigeria to have deported Comrade Ayuk Tabe and his group to their oppressors in cameroon is highly condemnable. We are a democracy in Nigeria, our foreign policy in Africa should strive to promote democratic rule and freedom of speech and assembly in the region.
We stand on the side of justice, we call for a revisit of the 1961 plebiscite that ceded our Brothers who we share the same language and culture to cameroun. If the plebiscite cannot be revisited, we request that the rights of Cameroonian english minorities be respected and call on the federal government of nigeria and the United Nations to provide a temporary protective status to refugees in the southern boarder.
If we Must Act, it is now! Southern Cameroon must be free. The Ejagham nation must be liberated!
Princewill Odidi is a Nigerian of Ejagham extraction writing from Atlanta. Princewillodidi@yahoo.com
