Some residents of Mairogo and Tosso villages in Taraba State, Northeast Nigeria have raised an alarm over alleged intimidation by Cameroonian soldiers who have been crossing into Nigeria in search of Ambazonian separatists.
The Ambazonian separatists are seeking a new country out of the Anglophone parts of Cameroon, citing “endemic marginalisation” and have been fighting with the central government over the control of its territory.
Calling on the Nigerian Federal Government to intervene, Chairman Kurmi Local Government Area in Taraba State where the villages are located, John Joseph Amamzalla, said the foreign soldiers were harassing and intimidating the villages for allegedly accommodating separatists.
He said the soldiers were trooping to many villages under the pretext of searching for runaway Ambazonian separatists.
The chairman said the invasion of foreign soldiers has forced Nigerian citizens in the affected villages to flee to Baissa, headquarters of the local government.
He called on the Nigerian government “to take urgent action by sending security agents to villages that share boundary with Cameroon to stop further encroachment by soldiers from the country.”