A Gendarmerie officer was arrested in Buea and forced to apologise after attempting to frame a civilian by planting a pack of bullets in his car. The officer’s fate remains uncertain, as the case is being handled with a high degree of secrecy.
The ordeal began on May 18, when Lebawa Claver and his two friends embarked on a weekend getaway from Douala to Limbe, a coastal town in Cameroon’s South West Region.
Their destination was Seme Beach, located about 18 kilometers from Limbe. After a pleasant visit to the beach on Sunday, May 19, they decided to return for another day of relaxation on Monday, May 20.
It was during this second visit that their trip took a harrowing turn.
As Claver and his friends approached the beach, they were stopped for a routine control check by a Gendarme officer. Claver was busy paying for their entry tickets while the officer inspected the car.
Unknown to Claver, the officer allegedly planted a packet of bullets in the trunk of the vehicle.
After completing the ticket purchase, Claver returned to find the officer conducting a thorough search of the car, during which he “discovered” the bullets hidden under the spare tire.
“Everything happened so fast. I was confused,” Claver recounted.
“We called for the general of the Seme Beach Hotel, who came. He immediately called for the SEMIL, and they arrived at the scene on time. The call went to SEMIL as if we were terrorists. They came well armed,” he said.
Claver and his friends were immediately tagged as agents of the separatist movement in the English-speaking Regions, where armed conflict has been raging for seven years now.
According to Claver, despite their denial, they were taken into custody at SEMIL Idenau.
“We spent the night there standing up. Three of us are in a very tiny room. There is no space to sit. We stood up for the whole night. They did not make any statements or ask us any questions. They just sent us inside,” Claver narrated.
Fortunately, the arrest did not go unnoticed. Eyewitnesses, disturbed by the sight of the men being handcuffed, made urgent calls advocating for a thorough investigation.
On the morning of Tuesday, May 21, Claver was brought back to Seme Beach to reenact the sequence of events. His testimony, along with that of the officer involved, prompted a deeper inquiry.
Subsequently, Claver and his friends were transferred to the regional headquarters of SEMIL in Buea, where a more comprehensive investigation was conducted.
The bullets found in Claver’s car were sent to Yaounde for verification. The serial numbers confirmed that the bullets were part of a recent military dispatch to Limbe.
Further scrutiny revealed that the Gendarme officer had taken the bullets from a colleague and planted them in Claver’s car.
Following the verification, Claver and his friends were exonerated and released. However, their car remained impounded in Buea for an additional two weeks. On June 7, Claver finally retrieved his vehicle.
“I collected my car back. They arrested the military man,” Claver confirmed. However, he expressed frustration over the manner in which the issue was addressed. “What was triggering was that the day we were collecting the car, they called the military man. He came and stood in front of us, and they told him to tell us sorry. It was as if they would not send him to jail; it was like they wanted to resolve the problem with an apology.”
As of now, it remains unclear if the implicated officer will face trial or if the matter will be settled internally.
