Arrest of Okadaman:

Kumba bike riders in stand-off with police

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Kumba

Irate bike riders mount road blocks demaning release of colleague

Close to 1000 Commercial motor bike riders in Kumba on Wednesday July 19, 2017 blocked the main highway in Kumba to pressure security officials to release their colleague who was arrested over allegations of being a staunch supporter of the ongoing Anglophone crisis and of advocating the boycott of schools come September.

                For hours running, the irate bike riders blocked the Biyaavenue in Kumba which stretches from the Kumba Water Bridge up to the central police station along the Buea Road. They demanded the immediate release of their colleague, Atemkeng Dylan, few minutes after he was arraigned at the Kumba press center. 

                According to one of the riders, the road block was aimed to prevent the forces of law and order from whisking their arrested colleague out of Kumba to Yaounde. The riders insisted for hours that until their colleague is released they will not open circulation.

                The assurance of the Meme SDO, Chamberlin Ntou’ouNdong for them to open up the roads and allow circulation for their colleague to be release met with stiff resistance from the bikers who almost beat up a police officer in front of the SDO. The angry riders refused all pleas and demanded the immediate release of their colleague.

                It only took the swift, tactful and peaceful action of the elements of the gendarmerie and police for circulation to be open hours after without the release of the arrested rider. And the riders only accepted to evacuate the streets after they were convinced that their efforts to obtain the release of their colleague were futile.

                The arrested rider was picked up while analysing a newspaper article on the interim government of the Southern Cameroons headed by a certain Ayuk Julius Tabe.

                Eyewitnesses revealed that the arrest could have been motivated by his firm stance on the non-resumption of schools in the northwest and southwest regions in the month of September for the 2017/2018 academic year. We gathered from reliable sources that Atemkeng Dylan had been tipped for arrest since last year but he was being covered by another security officer who lives beside him until now. We gathered that his arrest has however been successful because the said officer who was protecting him has been transferred out of Kumba. 

                Before now, the crowd that usually gathered in front of the Kumba main kiosk had been an issue of concern to both the administration and the forces of law and order. At the peak of the Anglophone crisis the Meme administration banned public display of newspapers in front of the kiosk in a bid to reduce the number of people who hung around the kiosk to analyse news headlines and make sensitive comments.

                The vendor to the kiosk told The Median that he has on sundry occasions quarrelled with the persons who gather in front of the kiosk for hours analysing news headlines instead of buying the newspapers. He indicated that such category of persons rarely buy papers but take delight in analysing issues they don't have adequate knowledge on.

                Despite the road blocks mounted by the riders and in spite of the stand-off with police and gendarmes, the police still succeeded to whisk-off the rider out of town to Buea, using a civilian vehicle, a source close to the police hinted The Median.