Akwaya people rally to back Southern Cameroons’s independence struggle ⁰

Hundreds of people from the Akwaya County have staged a demonstration in support of an independent state of Southern Cameroons. Some closed to 900 men and women from Tinta, Big Nyang, Abonadou took to the streets in Akwaya town on Saturday, expressing support for the interim leader of the Southern Cameroons Governing Council and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

The Akawayas waved the Southern Cameroons flag and clamored for the release of Lord Justice Ayah Paul Abine. A representative of the Southern Cameroons Governing Council, who was present at the march, said the event was in solidarity with all prominent Manyu citizens arrested ever since the beginning of the Southern Cameroons revolution including Dr. Felix Agbor Balla and Dr. Fontem Neba.

Our chief political correspondent in the Mamfe County observed that there were plenty of reasons behind the Akwaya rally. “The first is that the people of Southern Cameroons are demanding their own sovereignty. Others are saying they just want to create a fairer society. But a majority says that Ambazonia needs its sovereignty.”

Despite fierce opposition by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo government, more than 80 percent of Southern Cameroonians have backed independence for Ambazonia, according to officials of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

Yaoundé is fiercely opposed to any independence bid by Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun political elites are hoping that the Southern Cameroons revolution would fail due to division among the 4.5 million residents of the territory.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Mpke Tambe in Akawaya