YAOUNDE: Cameroon imposed a 48-hour curfew on its English-speaking regions a day ahead of the one-year anniversary of a symbolic “independence” declaration by anglophone separatists, officials said on Sunday.

The anniversary on Monday will kick off a crucial week for the country which heads to the polls next Sunday to vote in an election that anglophone secessionists have threatened to disrupt.

“The movement of people between areas in the northwest is banned for a period of 48 hours from Sunday, September 30 until Monday, October 1,” said Adolphe Lele Lafrique, governor of the largely English-speaking northwest region.

Similar measures were in force across Cameroon’s other anglophone areas, officials said.

Hundreds of civilians and dozens of security forces are understood to have been killed in the majority French-speaking country’s anglophone northwest and southwest this year.

In October 2017, radical anglophone leaders declared a “Republic of Ambazonia” in the two English-speaking regions which were incorporated into francophone Cameroon in 1961.

In Buea, a town in the southwest that has been at the heart of the nascent anglophone insurgency, officials also announced a raft “of special security measures”.

Surge of bloody attacks

Last year’s independence declaration marked the start of a crisis that has cast a shadow over the Oct 7 elections, in which 85-year-old President Paul Biya, who has ruled the country for 35 years, is seeking a seventh term in office.

Biya responded to the nascent insurgency with a crackdown which has seen separatists responding with a surge of bloody attacks in which they have killed troops and police and torched schools and other symbols of the Cameroonian state.

Divisions between the anglophone regions and Cameroon’s authorities dates back a century to when Britain and France occupied Cameroon, taking over Germany’s principal colony in West Africa.

The two countries divided it into separate spheres of influence that were later formalised by the League of Nations, the forerunner to the UN. The much larger French colony gained independence in 1960.

A year later, the British colony also gained independence. Some of the English-speaking areas chose to join newly-formed Nigeria, others to become part of the Federation of Cameroon.

Boko Haram ‘repelled’

Cameroon ’s president says Boko Haram has been defeated in the country, the first such announcement since he declared war on the extremist group four years ago.

President Biya spoke during his first visit to the Far North region since 2012 as he campaigned on Saturday ahead of the Oct 7 election. The 85-year-old, one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, has been in power since 1982 and is likely to win again as the fractured opposition has been unable to put forward a strong candidate.

Addressing a rally in Maroua, Biya said he would focus on rebuilding what has been destroyed in the Far North “now that terrorism has been defeated”.

The region for years has been the target of suicide bombings and other attacks by Boko Haram fighters who spilled over the border from Nigeria, where the extremist group is based. Nearly a quarter-million people in Cameroon have been displaced.

Boko Haram has not carried out a major attack in Cameroon in the past year and the number of attacks has fallen. Its fighters continue to attack military targets and cities in Nigeria’s northeast despite repeated government declarations that it has been “crushed”.

Biya warned Far North residents to remain vigilant despite recent progress including the re-opening last month of 40 schools along the border.

Not everyone warmed to the president’s comments at the rally.

Biya had abandoned the Far North and its people, said Garga Haman Adji, the candidate with the Alliance for Democracy and Development opposition party.

“Biya never visited to encourage the soldiers who fought to defeat Boko Haram. He never visited people suffering from terrorism and is nowhere to beg for votes,” Garga said.

The fight against Boko Haram has raised questions about Cameroon’s security forces. Shocking videos that recently circulated online showed soldiers shooting defenceless civilians including women with young children strapped to their backs, Amnesty International said after expert analysis. Cameroon’s government has announced several arrests related to one of the videos and said any alleged abuses will be investigated.

Biya has not announced any campaign visits to the troubled southwest and northwest where fighting between government forces and the Anglophone separatists has killed nearly 400 people and sent nearly 200,000 civilians fleeing.

A heavy military deployment and the recent crackdown on suspected separatist hideouts especially in the southwest, however, indicates that the president intends to visit in an effort to show the world that in spite of the tensions he remains in control.

Biya last visited the southwest in 2014 and the northwest in 2010.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2018