By Basil K. Mbuye
Theodore Leke, SCNC activist, who was arrested, Thursday, January 9 and released by the Tiko State Counsel, Monday, January 13, was re-arrested and detained at the Buea Central Police.
?The Tiko State Counsel discharged me on Monday from the Buea Central Prison and the Prison?s Registrar signed a release warrant and gave me and bid me farewell,? Leke explained immediately after regaining his freedom at 2.30 pm.
He said a young man from the Procurer General?s office, Buea, called him and told him he was free to go home.
?I then went for my motorcycle which had been impounded at the Governor?s office but I was told to wait. At around 7 pm, an official told me to go down to the Buea Central Police Station where a police officer told me his boss had ordered that I be arrested and detained,? Leke recalled.
He said he was detained behind the booking counter as he had complained that he could not enter the cell without a detention note.
?The police boss (Commissioner) only dispatched a detention order to the main gate and then I was shoved into the stinking cell once more,? said Leke, looking flustered.
The activist said he was read the same crimes he had been accused of; insurrection, destabilisation of the country and holding illegal SCNC meetings, and for which he had earlier been detained for four days.
?Something is just not right in this country,? he said, ?the administrators asked me if I have, or knew about the programme of the SCNC, or what they were up to as far as the celebration of reunification and President Biya?s visit to Buea, were concerned.?
He added, ?I was also asked to rally SCNC activists and explain to them to desist from disrupting the reunification celebrations.?
But, Leke said, ?I told the administrators that government should give us a document to say that in the course of time, they would call for dialogue to resolve the Southern Cameroons problem, otherwise it will be difficult to mobilise the Southern Cameroonians.?
The activist said he would not forget the inhuman treatment he received in the hands of his captors after they arrested and detained him illegally.
?I cannot forget about it. I am not heading any of the SCNC factions, nor am I the SCNC Chairman,? he quipped.
Meanwhile, the police resorted to type and demonstrated rather pugnacious attitude towards Leke?s children when they went to visit him at the police cell.
?A police officer told me that I could not see my father if I didn?t come along with food, as if food was a pre-condition for visiting a detainee who happened to be my father,? Vincent Nkamfu, Leke?s son explained.
Nkamfu?s sister, Regina Leke, received harsher reception as she was threatened with detention the day preceding her father?s unconditional release.
?When I went to visit my father, the policeman on duty said I was causing trouble by asking to see my father in the cell and if I insisted on seeing my father, he was going to lock me up for rebellion,? Regina said to The Post.
The Tiko State Counsel who caused the release of Leke the first time is reported to have been disappointed that after he set the activist free, he was re-arrested and detained for the same charges.
An official of the Southwest Regional office of the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms, NCHRF, said, ?it is strange, incredible that in a country that is purported to have reunified, police harass citizens with impunity, more especially when Cameroonians are waiting anxiously for the day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of reunification.?
Over the past 20 years, Leke has been arrested and detained more than 13 times in different police and gendarme cells for his activism in the SCNC.
?I have been detained in Nkapa in Mbanga, Littoral Region, Mamfe, Lebialem, Kumba and Buea, to name these few,? he said.
?I was imprisoned in Nkongsamba for five years for session and it was thanks to Barrister Eta-Besong Jr?s brilliant defence that I was discharged after six months,? Leke added.
He says the Government is not serious about solving the Southern Cameroons problem.
?On January 8, 2004, I was called to Yaounde. I went and was received by Ahmadou Ali, then Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seal, who gave me a message to pass to the SCNC that government had proposed dialogue as means to resolve the Southern Cameroons problem,? Leke said.
He said they held meetings in the Northern and Southern Zones during which period he passed the message.
?At the final meeting in Bamenda chaired by late Albert Mukong, a heated debate ensued whether the SCNC should dialogue with government or not. Finally, a resolution was taken to accept dialogue. The Executive Secretary of the SCNC, Thomas Nwancham, was instructed to write a letter to the Minster of Justice accepting the proposed dialogue. That letter was delivered,? Leke told this reporter.
He said in the meantime, they sensitised SCNC militants on the intent of the letter. Those they met included Fon Angwafor III of Mankon, the Fon of Chomba, Martin Forbuzie, Fon Lucas Njifua of Fontem, Chief SML Endeley of Buea, Nfor Tabetando and Barrister Ekontang Elad, amongst others.
?But eight years after the SCNC accepted the proposed dialogue, we haven?t heard from government,? said Leke.
?We hope that our overzealous administrators will act according to the law and not above the law as it is the case with some of them,? was Leke?s parting shot after granting ??his post-detention interview.
