Social Media Kills Ayah Paul Abine
Yaounde,Cameroon
News spread late Wednesday May 24, 2017 that Chief Justice AYAH Paul Abine who is now locked up for four months at the State Defense Secretariat, SED had died while in jail with several posts on Facebook and WhatApp groups insinuating that the President of the Popular Action Party and given up the ghost.
The information was attributed to former interim leaders of the outlawed Cameroon Anglophone civil Society Consortium, CACSC who in a Facebook dispelled the rumors saying that it was a calculated attempt by unknown men to tarnish their image.
It was later said Ayah Paul was doing fine. The man arrested on January 21, 2017 in Yaoundé has also made an outing on his Facebook page saying the news was FAKE by same men who have repeatedly announced his release.
Get Full Message From AYAH PAUL
I AM STILL ALIVE, PAYING THE PRICE OF MY ‘ANGLOPHONESS’
Dear Universal Children of the most high,
You must have all gotten news announcing me dead on ‘all’ social media networks this day, May 24, 2017. Well, this epistle of mine is enough proof to dismiss the FAKE news propagated by the same network of men of the underworld who have repeatedly announced my release from SED. We all know who these criminals are and their motives too. But I am supremely confident that although my health condition is not at its best, I MUST accomplish my divine mission, within the law, before the Good LORD calls me at HIS appointed time. Be you all, therefore, at peace and prayerful too and refrain from falling prey to such pettiness.
As you may all know, I took out the writ of habeas Corpus (for my immediate release) on March 6, 2017, after 45 days of unlawful detention. It took the Yaoundé High Court fifteen days to rule (give a judgment) rejecting my application.
Then my counsels took out an appeal on March 24, 2017. By Section 587 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, (CPC), the High Court had a maximum of five days to send the records of proceedings to the Court of Appeal, and the latter had at most ten days to deliver judgment (ruling): Section 587 (2) CPC.
But the court of Appeal only delivered its judgment on April 13, 2017: twenty days from the date of filing the appeal (instead of ten). And it took the said court nineteen days to give my counsels a copy of the judgment despite sustained pressure from my counsel.
Aggrieved by the said judgment, I filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on May 05, 2017. Up to the time of writing these words, the court of Appeal has REFUSED, FAILED or NEGLECTED to send the records of proceedings to the Supreme Court, whereas Section 474 (2) CPC enjoins the Court of Appeal to do so within ten days without fail. As it is, nineteen days since, (virtually double the ten days legally prescribed), my appeal is still deliberately withheld without qualms.
It may seem strange to non-Cameroonians that this is being done by junior judges to their colleague who is at the apex of the country’s judiciary. But whoever is familiar with the Cameroonian culture does understand that an Anglophone never expects any better treatment. For if those are the violations the highest Anglophone Supreme Court judge is subjected to, need one doubt the fate of the ordinary Anglophone?
Such is the heavy price of our ANGLOPHONES!