We of the Cameroon Concord News Group developed interest in Mr. Cho Ayaba Lucas when we got intelligence that he had an inappropriate relationship with one Emerald Johnson living in Nigeria. Emerald Johnson had hosted Cho Ayaba Lucas (now with a PhD attached to his name) in her motel while he visited Dadi in Manyu on November 2017, to tour a camp he claimed his ADF boys were being trained.

Lady Emerald Johnson didn’t only host Dr. Ayaba, she accompanied him, sitting in the back seat in the car with him to Dadi. Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report told the world that it wasn’t a coincidence that Dr. Ayaba Cho chose Emerald Johnson and her hotel facilities to host the meeting in Calabar that saw the arrest of innocent needy Southern Cameroons refugees who had gone there hoping they would get some money after Ayaba addresses them.

Unfortunately for those who ignored the signals we incessantly flashed out and went to the meeting, they were picked up right at their hotel locations before the meeting even started. News began to filter out immediately after the arrest from the police station in Calabar as one of them had succeeded to sneak his phone into the cell. From behind bars, he began sending text messages to others who had stayed back in Ikom. He said what happened to the NERA 10 in Abuja has happened to them, that they have all been abducted.

When things took the wrong turn, Cho Ayaba and his criminal gang spun the news, denying knowledge and responsibility for the meeting entirely! First, he accused the Ambazonia Interim Government of calling the meeting, actually naming the then Acting President, Dr. Sako and Homeland Security Secretary, John Egywang as the ones who called for the meeting. He said that the disgraced Sako Ikome set up the meeting purposefully to get his supporters abducted like in the Abuja case. To some other people, he said that the IG had called for the meeting to persuade his ADF members to defect him and join the joint initiative that was being put together by the IG for self-defense. When contacted, both the disgraced Sako Ikome and John Egywang denied ever knowing about the meeting.

Now, it was well past midnight on 29 November 2021 in Bamenda the chief city in the North West when gunmen pulled up in an AK30 car and snatched Mr. Ndopping Roger Ndem and his breastfeeding wife. The spokesman for AGovC/ADF, Capo Daniel went on social media and demanded a ransom payment. Abductions are now common in Southern Cameroons, but the Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima called the instance “an attack on the Ambazonia liberation struggle… aimed at helping Biya and French Cameroun”.

While they are yet to be released, the incident has once again raised questions about the threats faced by innocent Southern Cameroons citizens in Ground Zero, as many are seeing the abductions as teleguided by leaders of AGovC/ADF, one of the numerous armed militia groups committing horrible crimes in Southern Cameroons.

Some of the ones kidnapped were initially leading mass protests against La Republique du Cameroun in Ground Zero and had taken the lead, with mass rallies frequently staged amid the heavily fortified streets in Bamenda and Buea.

Southern Cameroonians living in Ground Zero are now being monitored by the Francophone dominated Cameroon government intelligence agencies and armed militants of AGovC/ADF. One Southern Cameroons analyst based in Bamenda who commented on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of this kidnapping matter, told Cameroon Concord News that AGovC/ADF militias were trying to frighten Southern Cameroons civilian activists through kidnappings and assassinations.

The kidnappings currently being carried out by Mr. Cho Ayaba Lucas and his men is a vain attempt at sending a message to Southern Cameroons civilians that the AGovC/ADF militias are the most powerful [force] today in Southern Cameroons. However, it is shining a light on the Cho Ayaba corruption that took him to London for an oil deal.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai