Nfor Ngala Nfor, National Chairman of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) and five others have been arrested and detained at the Buea Central Prison.

Reports suggest that the SCNC activists were arrested on the afternoon of Thursday, April 2, by a security hit squad led by the Divisional Officer of Buea, Kouam Wokam Paul.

A well-placed security source hinted The Cameroon Journal that the arrests were as a result of a tip-off from an SCNC insider, a claim confirmed by Mola Njoh Litumbe.

“We were informed of a meeting to be held by officials of the SCNC in which very radical decisions were to be arrived at. The meeting venue was in Molyko, a few metres from the 2nd District Police Station in Molyko,” the security source said.

He went on to add that when they arrived at the meeting venue, they met “six SCNC activists” who were already deliberating in what looked like a meeting of SCNC barons.

“I cannot exactly give you the names of all the six persons who fell in our dragnet, but what I’m sure of is that Nfor Ngala Nfor, the purported SCNC chairman and Njousi Abang were among those arrested,” the source who sued for anonymity hinted.

So far, there have been no formal charges against them but The Cameroon Journal learnt they are being held for illegal assembly.

After the arrests, the activists were first ferried to the Judicial Police in Buea and later transferred to the Buea Central Prison, apparently to await trial.

Attempts to reach Nfor Ngala Nfor and Njousi Abang on phone were unsuccessful. However, we got to Mola Njoh Litumbe, Senior Citizen and a well-known states man within SCNC circles. Litumbe confirmed the arrest of Nfor Ngala and five others.

In a telephone interview on Saturday, Litumbe said: “As far as I know, Mr. Nfor Ngala Nfor telephoned me as soon as he got to Buea. He was to meet some of his colleagues somewhere in Molyko. I gave him a six o’clock appointment because I was busy at the time.

Six o’clock came, he didn’t appear and it was only from the internet late at night that David Njousi posted a story that he and five of his colleagues were arrested somewhere in Molyko just before they settled down to have lunch.”

Litumbe added that: “yesterday (Friday), I went looking for him (Njousi) at the Police office, he wasn’t there. Of course, it was a public holiday. I went to the State Counsel’s office, and there was nobody there. It is there that I was told they had already been transferred to prison. So, I visited the prison and they all are alright.”

Litumbe said they told him they are fine, though they had not been charged, reason why they’ve not made any statement.

Quizzed on his perception of the arrests, Litumbe said: “I really don’t know. I think it must have been a meeting which went wrong. The police could not just have swooped on them without being pre-alerted.

According to Nfor, it was a powerful security delegation headed by the DO and about two or three Commissioners of Police, with four vehicles. They must have thought they were going to have a big meeting. That’s how they were arrested.

I don’t know the details beyond that, but I think someone in their group must have pre-alerted the police that they are meeting. Otherwise, how on earth will they know?”

Litumbe, however, said he was not informed of any meeting, that he was only planning to receive Nfor Ngala at his home upon request of the latter. A police source hinted The Cameroon Journal that they might have rushed the arrests, regretting that if they had waited a little, a larger number of activists would have been arrested.