After suspending internet in Anglophone Cameroon:

Internet blackout extended to neighboring Francophone towns

Mbanga in the Littoral now also suffers internet blackout. Sources say government is also contemplating cutting internet in Mbouda and Bafoussam in the West region.

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Kumba

In an attempt to completely deprive denizens of west Cameroon of internet connection, the government has extended internet blackout in francophone towns sharing borders with Anglophone Cameroon. This is the case of Mbanga in the Littoral region, which is very close to Kumba and Muyuka in the South West region. 

                According to what this reporter gathered, the internet connection was cut in Mbanga because frontline activists advocating for federation and/or secession are leaving Kumba and crossing over to Mbanga to access the internet and spread propaganda on the ongoing Anglophone struggle.

                The short distance between Kumba and Mbanga passing through the Reunification Railway Line that links Littoral and SW was considered by these activists as a ready solution to the problem of internet blackout in West Cameroon, until early this week when it was cut.

                Authorities who are seemingly monitoring from every angle discovered early enough that Mbanga in Littoral was becoming a habitat for social media fanatics who have taken the Anglophone struggle personal. This reporter also gathered that social media activists of the Anglophone struggle have like Spartans who die but never surrender been moving over to the economic capital, Douala, just to get connected to the internet and realize their objectives on the fight.

                It is a similar situation in the Northwest region as this reporter learnt many inhabitants of Bamenda have been flooding Mbouda and Bafoussam in the West region just to access the internet. There are speculations that in the days ahead there will be internet blackout in Mbouda and Bafoussam.

                Many have interpreted this migration from West Cameroon to neighboring towns in French Cameroon just to access internet as a way to show to the government how determined and how far supporters of the Anglophone struggle can go.

Others have simply interpreted the internet shutdown to mean the beginning of the restoration of the sovereignty of Southern Cameroons, which is now completely cut-off from the rest of the country.

                 Apart from internet shutdown in NW and SW, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MINPOSTEL) has been sensitizing the populations through SMS messages to desist from posting false information on the social media.

                "Dear subscriber you may be sentenced to 20 years in prison if found guilty of slander or propagating false declarations on the social media", reads the SMS by MINPOSTEL.

                Reports say in its desperate move to stop Anglophone activists using the social media, police and gendarmes stationed along the Bamenda-Mbouda highway are now controlling and seizing the phones of passengers, especially the youths. 

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