The Senior Divisional Officer for Bui Division in the North-West has accused Southern Cameroons teachers of financing the Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards and by extrapolition, the war in West Cameroon.

According to Menyong Gilbert Sunday, prefect of Bui, teachers in his administrative unit are contributing financially to the war effort in support of the separatists fighters.

The Biya appointee opined recently that Southern Cameroons “teachers were taking advantage of the persistence of the Ambazonia conflict and are not going to the classrooms, but receive their salaries at the end of each month.”

The new Senior Divisional Officer for Bui signed a prefectural order asking the six sub-prefects of his command unit to draw up a list of absentee teachers in order to punish them.

The National Union of Higher Education Teachers (Synes) has denounced the prefect’s accusations and promised to take the matter to the administrative court.

As a reminder, the Anglophone crisis began in October 2016 with corporatist demands from teachers and lawyers.

The teachers denounced their working conditions while the lawyers demonstrated against the absence of the English version of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (Ohada).

In five years, these demands have led to a conflict that has resulted in at least 10,000 deaths and more than 700,000 internally displaced persons and refugees.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda