Yaoundé, Cameroon (Face2Face Africa) Through the voice of his spokesman, Minister of Communication Issa Tchiroma Bakary (pictured), Cameroonian President Paul Biya has emphatically refuted media reports that the Nigerian-based Islamic sect Boko Haram has an affiliate in Cameroon.
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Various media reports have alleged that Boko Haram has an increasing number of sympathizers in Cameroon, supposedly explaining why the insurgents are able to cross in to Cameroon easily, where they loot and kill local residents in the northern regions of the republic before fleeing back to Nigeria.
Still, Tchiroma recently rejected those claims that a Cameroonian Boko Haram affiliate exists and castigated foreign media reports that the attacks perpetrated in the north of Cameroon are the handy work of an internal rebellion to destabilize and overthrow the incumbent government of President Biya during a press conference that he was held in Yaoundé.
Tchiroma told CRTV:
“At the moment when the noose is tightening around the enemy, some voices inspired by ill-fated intentions have chosen to make one belief that the attacks of Boko Haram against Cameroon are for real the manifestation of an internal rebellion in our country. I would like to strongly condemn such ungrounded and irresponsible allegations likely to cause trouble [and] destabilize.
“This is an opportunity for the government to call on the population to abstain from being distracted by these allegations relayed by some media likely to jeopardize national harmony and unity (…..) I say loud and clear that these allegations are grounded: there is no Cameroonian Boko Haram.”
Several Cameroonian soldiers and civilians have been killed at the hands of Boko Haram since the insurgency in Nigeria, which has at times spilled over to Cameroon. Before Tchiroma held the press briefing, popular French website Mediapart published that the increase of Boko Haram in the Far North of Cameroon is actually a rebellion that is gearing up to overthrow President Biya’s regime that has been in power for 32 years.
According to the news report by Fanny Pigeaud, who was once the French News Agency correspondent in Cameroon, some Northern elite, including ex-members and barons of Cameroon’s ruling party Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), have hired Boko Haram to unseat President Biya.
In addition, Pigeaud reported that Boko Haram has joined forces with some unpatriotic Cameroonians, therefore recruiting and training some young Cameroonians in villages in Nigeria close to the border of Cameroon.
In June, Cameroon’s Speaker of the National Assembly, Honorable Cavaye Yegue Djibril, also declared during one plenary session that Boko Haram has many accomplices in Cameroon. “As we know, many of them are among us, others in the shadows, but in total hypocrisy, pretending to be helping the authorities, but their real objective is to put the country in flames.”
Consequently, many churches in Cameroon are praying for God to cover and ensure the reign of peace in Cameroon.
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