Appeasement Time?

Three Lawyers Visit Sesekou Ayuk Tabe & Co at the SED

Sesekou Ayuk Tabe may be brought to the public soon

The news that started like a rumour has finally been confirmed. Lawyers to defend the Chairman of the Interim Government (IG) of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia, Sesekou Ayuk Tabe Julius, can now visit him at the Gendarmerie Headquarters, SED, in Yaounde.

            Sesekou Ayuk and 46 others were visited by three lawyers on Friday last week, at the SED, it has been confirmed. The lawyers are Barristers Mujem Fombad, Chief Abia Ngute and Louisa Asongwe.

            We could confirm that the three lawyers met and talked with the detainees on several issues but dwelt essentially on their eventual trial which is expected to begin sooner than later.

            Arrested in Abuja, Nigeria on 5 January 2018 as they were holding a meeting ostensibly to discuss the Anglophone struggle, Sesekou and the others were days later, airlifted to Yaounde and kept incommunicado in an unknown ‘prison’. Nobody had seen or had access to them since for six months that they were arrested.

             Their incommunicado detention left many wondering if they were still alive and safe. Not even confirmation by the government spokesman, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, on RFI, months ago, that “all the persons arrested in Nigeria and brought to Cameroon are alive and safe” could convince the supporters of Sesekou that he and his collaborators were safe.

            The confirmation therefore by their lawyers that they actually met and talked with them is not only proof that they are alive but will certainly help to douse the frustration and tension that was since created in the minds of their followers by their incommunicado detention.

            A source at the SED told us that the President of the republic has ordered for Sesekou and the others to be tried in court, and for the trial process to be speeded up so that they can be freed or jailed if found guilty.

            The source said the investigating magistrate at the Military Tribunal in Yaounde will, beginning today, start interviewing them towards establishing their charges.

            Apart from their lawyers, close family members of the detainees can also now visit them at their cells at the SED. Thus the detainees can now be seen especially by their wives and/or husbands and siblings, who had lost all hope of ever seeing them again.

            By allowing lawyers and family members to see the Anglophone detainees, President Paul Biya has proven that he perhaps wants to try a peaceful approach in solving the escalating violence in the two Anglophone regions this, after the military option has proven too costly and counter-productive.

            President Biya on Wednesday last week instructed the Prime Minister to launch an “Urgent Humanitarian Relief Plan” for internally displaced persons and refugees brought about by the ongoing war in NW and SW. The PM announced that the sum of 12.7 billion cfa has been budgeted for the relief project. At a national solidarity campaign also launched on Thursday, the sum of over 237 million was collected for the rehabilitation of the displaced persons and reconstruction of destroyed property.

            With their trial about to open, it is hoped that Sesekou and the other detainees will soon be brought to the public eye anytime soon.