“How Many Cameroons Are There?” That is the loaded question the mother of Ambazonia Republic’s Campaigner Mama Grace Anu fired at the military judge in Yaounde.
It was supposed to be their fourth Habeas Corpus hearing in Yaoundé High Court. But this was only her first time in court since Mama Anu and daughter Beza Berist were arrested in August. Until this day, Tuesday, November 12, all attempts by lawyers to have an expedited hearing in previous sessions were stone walled with laughable excuses from the court, leading to four straight adjournments.
Last Tuesday, however, things were a little bit different. Unlike in previous court sessions, this time mama Anu and daughter Berist were brought to court, however, not to answer charges relating to their arrest, but to demand their own freedom and reasons they have been locked up since August 4th under severe torture.
Obviously, this is the reason why mama Anu couldn’t wait to ‘cross-examine’ the judge all by herself. In an instant while one of her lawyers was still making a deposition to the judge, mama Anu jumped up from her seat, excused the lawyer before asking the judge “I wan for ask you say na how many Cameroon e dey?” (How many Cameroons are there?)
Both the audience and the judge were stunned, protocol broken with the court erupting into laughter before the judge quieted everyone.
Then the judge, responding that there is only one Cameroon, asked mama Anu the reason for the question. Very upbeat and feisty, she busted again, this time in anger stating she doesn’t understand why a “small boy go com for ma house, hold ma hand, drag me and brook my hand and instead for put he for prison, na me dem puttam for prison.” Once more the court erupted in laughter.
But apparently, the judge didn’t get the message. Mama Anu was essentially saying that they have the wrong persons in jail and so, only because she and the daughter are Southern Cameroonians. If Cameroon is a country where all are treated equally, the unlawful and brutal act of the officer who arrested them without a warrant should have been the one in jail.
If Cameroon is one, Mama Anu felt that the real criminal would not be free and the innocent ones held in detention. As old as she is – 80 years, this woman knows she lives in a country where the weak are battered, while the powerful genocide perpetrators walk free. She knows that Cameroon isn’t one country, that she and the daughter are in detention not because they committed any crime, but because they are Southern Cameroonians.
She had rightly confided to a visitor to her SED cell that she is in detention at her age because she is a mother and a woman. That she was paying for the “sins” of her children.
Instead of dismissing the case. the judge adjourned it a fifth time because SED officers couldn’t present the court with copies of the suppose warrant, they used to arrest mama Anu and daughter.
Another admission of a two Cameroon. In normal circumstances the judge would dismiss the case and free the victims for inability of defendant/plaintiff to produce evidence, but not in this French Cameroun system.
They are scheduled to be in court again on Tuesday the 19th November 2019.