Oku Brigade Commander Arrests 600 Civilians, Demands ‘Ransom’

Over six hundred people have been arrested in Oku, Bui division of the North West region, on the orders of the Gendarmerie Brigade commander, Joh Bolivar Idjandja. Idjandja has then set up an extortionate amount that each individual must pay.

Reports say the gendarmerie brigade commander for Oku ordered a raid of at least twelve villages in the administrative unit, arresting locals indiscriminately.

The incident occurred on Thursday, August 24, 2023, with more than fifty people arrested per village.

Twelve villages were raided, and about 600 people were reportedly arrested for unknown reasons.

Local sources say Joh Bolivar Idjandja has demanded a minimum of 500,000 FCFA each before any of the arrested are released.

Individuals who do not pay the money, MMI learned, face the possibility of being sent to Bamenda for prosecution. This prosecution will be based on the false accusation that they are Ambazonia separatist fighters.

“The brigade commander of Oku Subdivision has organised random arrests in 12 villages out of the 36 villages in Oku, arresting more than 50 individuals per village and demanding between 500,000 FCFA to 2,000,000 FCFA per person before their release,” an indigene of good standing told MMI

Our source adds that “He is intimidating these individuals, saying if the money is not given, he is going to send them to Bamenda as Amba Supporters.”

The brigade commander is described as one of those using the crisis in the North West and South-West Regions of Cameroon to exploit the harmless population.

Life was gradually returning to the war-torn area before now.

The action of gendarmerie officers, according to them, is pushing the community back to the old ways.

” The truth is, Oku is gradually returning to normalcy, and this behaviour from Joh Bolivar Idjandja, the brigade commander of Oku, is making Oku unstable as many people are considering running away,” he lamented.

“We have had enough, and the brigade commander should be stopped as he will soon collect money that might take away his life,” he warned.

Arresting harmless civilians for ransom has become the norm in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, where an armed separatist conflict has been raging for more than six years, with the government battling armed separatists who want to create a state they call Ambazonia.

Separatists and government forces continue to commit atrocities, including arresting and kidnapping people for ransom.