US-based Cameroonian activist, Christopher Anu, who says he is Secretary for Communication & IT at the Ambazonia Interim Government, pushed out an audio record on Saturday inciting the population to embark on days of civil disobedience.

“Last Wednesday, we gave the Mayors, DOs and SDO for Meme Division, and Kumba in particular until Friday, August 21 to unseal every single shop that they sealed in Kumba Market,” said Anu, frontline activist of a group sponsoring armed rebels in Cameroon’s North West and South West Regions in a bid to create a state christened Ambazonia.

The resident of Houston, Texas, says “the Interim Government and the Meme County administrators are declaring a two weeks complete shutdown of the city of Kumba in solidarity with every trader at the Kumba Main Market beginning Monday, August 24, 2020.

“If the administrators will choose to unseal those shops with immediate effect, the lockdown will be canceled. Only the ghost town will remain on this Monday.

“The Ambazonia Restoration Forces are completely in charge beginning Monday. If you love your life, and your business, stay home. The restoration forces will be all over the place.”

Anu’s threats notwithstanding, administrators have always asked locals to trust the government for their protection.

Cameroon-Info.Net recalls that on Monday, August 3, 2020, Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong, Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, for Meme Division said the state is providing security to all citizens, including traders and buyers in Kumba.

The administrative officer was at the Kumba Main Market to supervise the City Council’s sealing of shops that remained closed in respect of a routine Monday lockdown ordered by separatists.

Accompanied by security forces, Victor Nkele Ngoh, City Mayor of the Kumba City Council, KCC, supervised the sealing of all unopened shops at the Kumba Main Market and its environs.

Victor Nkele Ngoh said the decision to seal the shops is intended to punish traders who are respecting ghost towns imposed by separatist fighters and their promoters. He expects that the sealing of shops will serve as a deterrent to other business operators.

To the City Mayor, the socio-political situation in Cameroon’s North West and South West Regions has nothing to do with traders and thus nothing explains their decision to keep their shops closed on a normal working day.

Victor Nkele Ngoh says all those whose business premises and shops were sealed are expected to pay a fine of FCFA 25,000 before they can regain access into their shops.

On whether the security of the traders and their businesses can be guaranteed, the City Mayor said the state has taken measures to provide security. He regretted that the continuous respect of lockdown and ghost town calls has been a huge setback to the revenue-generating potential of the City Council.

The Fiango Market and other business hubs in the city have for the most part remained closed on Mondays, as business operators cite security concerns following threats from armed separatists.

Besides the fact that buyers hardly show up to buy on ghost town days, traders say they are regularly victimized by armed separatists for obeying state authority.

“As you are saying that we should sell on ghost town days, know that those boys (armed separatists) attack us for doing so.  The last time, they whipped me mercilessly and smashed the tomatoes I was selling,” a seller told the SDO on August 3, as she struggled to display her goods with the hope of finding buyers.

“Do not worry. The problem is going to be solved now,” the SDO replied as state forces guarded him. “You are here today. You are selling. We are going to sell the whole day together, not so? I am here.”

Kumba is the economic capital of Cameroon’s South West Region and also the administrative capital of the region’s Meme Division. State forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tent in Meme Division since the current crisis transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.