Comment on Douala protest crackdown: Government fails to learn from historic mistakes by Tebo Lucas

Comment on Douala protest crackdown: Government fails to learn from historic mistakes by Tebo Lucas

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Sep 1, 2020 - 21:01 Updated: Sep 1, 2020 - 21:45
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Comment on Douala protest crackdown: Government fails to learn from historic mistakes by Tebo Lucas

Barely 24 houses after the country’s combative minister of territorial administration Paul Atanga Nji had issued a dire and threatening warning to the opposition party leaders and their supporters to stay off the streets, Supporters of defiant Maurice kamto defile the threats, took to the streets of the country’s economic capital Douala to protests against the outcome of the October 7th polls.

The MRC supporters who were carrying out a peaceful protest had just defiled the minister’s threats of invoking the much treated and controversial anti-terrorism law and faced armed combat gendarmes and police officers who had outnumbered them in a dual which has produced some disturbing images on social media punctuated with massive arrests.

TNN is reporting that at least 20 supporters of the international acclaimed lawyer have been detained at the including the famous Michèle Ndoki who skyrocket into the political arena during the grilling legal battle at the Constitutional Council when post-election petitions were being addressed

Barrister Michèle Ndoki who largely received pass grade during the hearing for her brave and imposing performance grounded in fact and legal mastery was seen on the ground as gendarme officers struggle to arrest her alongside other protesters in Douala today October 27th 2018.

But the heavy crackdown on peaceful protesters by the Cameroonian government is not new as the anti-protest Biya government has on many occasions brutally crackdown on peaceful protesters in the past.

The spiralling Anglophone crisis which is posing a historical threat to the country with thousands dead and over 300 000 displaced started as a peaceful protest by lawyers back in November October 2016 in South West regional capital of Buea.

The protests were met by massive police crackdown with police officers beating and dragging the legal minds in the streets, seizing their wigs and injuring many as pictures blood-soaked lawyers flooded social media then, gaining public sympathy and kick-started the now much talk about Anglophone crisis.

As pictures of yet again, another peaceful protest quickly turned violent in Douala now floods the social media with many decrying government heavy-handedness, many hope the government will quickly understand that military intimidation and bullying cannot be used in the 21st century to contained disgruntled citizens as its actions might just backfire.

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