Buea’s Paramount Ruler, HRH Dr. Robert Esuka Endeley, has condemned the lockdown in the North West and South West Regions, stating that stopping education does not bring the initiator any sympathy.
Talking over the South West regional station of the CRTV, the traditional ruler made it clear to separatist fighters that stopping education would fetch them hatred both nationally and internationally.
His reaction came amid a two-week lockdown imposed by separatists on the English-speaking regions to sabotage school resumption.
It started on September 9, the official school resumption date in the country.
The Paramount Ruler insisted that education is a fundamental human right that should not be violated.
“Education is the foundational human right and the cornerstone for equity and justice in every society. If the people who are clamouring for this lockdown want justice and equity, the first you give to an individual is education,” he said.
HRH Dr. Esuka Endeley added that education is the only tool that brings freedom to people.
To him, there is nowhere in the world where a revolution or fighting has stopped children from going to school.
He referred to Nelson Mandela’s fight against Apartheid in South Africa, the Indian revolution championed by Mahatma Gandhi, and the fight for racial equality by Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
He said these people, despite what they were doing, never advocated for a boycott of education.
“People should learn that stopping education does not bring you any sympathy both nationally and internationally. It actually weakens your revolution and brings you hatred,” the Paramount ruler of Buea said.
He added that the people who are not being educated will one day turn and hate those who stopped them from schooling while the rest of the world was.
It has been more than one week since schools resumed in Cameroon.
However, a majority of students in the two Anglophone Regions have yet to attend a single lecture.
That is because separatists fighting for a breakaway nation called Ambazonia have stopped them, and if they do violate the order, they could be killed, kidnapped, or have their schools burnt.
That has been the separatists’ strategy for more than seven years now.
According to the latest report from the Norwegian Refugee Council, more than 1.5 million children in Cameroon cannot access education.
The majority of them are in the two English-speaking regions.
The problem in English cameroon started in 2016 as a sit-in strike by lawyers and teachers in the two regions.
They were clamouring for reforms in the justice and educational systems and, most importantly, the rationalisation of Anglophone Cameroonians.
But in 2017, what was just a crisis had escalated into an armed conflict leading to killings and the destruction of properties.
The United Nations has said more than 6,000 people have been killed and over a million have been displaced internally and externally.
