You won't exactly feel me; You won't understand what exactly it feels to be in the country, witnessing all the painful drama. You won't understand until you visit 'anglophone' detainees in detention; you would understand better why I wept, if you weren't in court yesterday.
At the close of the trial/hearing, the military judge will ask the detainees if they had something to say. Most/all who spoke were in tears, pleading for intervention regarding their prolonged detention alongside its conditions, difficulty in seeing their visitors, supplies, etc. An extremely emotional presentation. Then it was Mancho Bibixy's turn and few could hold their emotions during/after his pronouncements.
He will talk on behalf of all, pleading that they be freed while he pays the ultimate price, bleeding tears of pain and sacrifice in his heart for the others whose pronouncements he appeared to barely support.
Unknowingly to me, I was suddenly in tears the moment those words got to my inner-self, piercing the heart like the biblical lance on Jesus' before he gave up the ghost. None therein appeared to have been indifferent as he voiced out those words, asking at the same time what his crime was.
All night, those words of his kept talking to me, as I recalled the others who equally spoke before him in tears, trying to feel what they feel in their daily routines in prison. You reading me can't fully grasp my emotions until you partake in their cross, to which I equally partook when Ayah Paul Abine was therein for close to 8 months, alongside my personal Calvary which lasted, but just for a couple of days.
The detainees need everyone's support, be it spiritually, financially, morally, physically and mentally. Wherever you find yourselves, within or without, you could reach out to them be it in Bafouasam, Buea, Yaounde, through their families, NGO's, Civil Society organizations, trust worthy individuals, the Church....
REMEMBER: IT COULD HAVE BEEN YOU OR ME IN THEIR PLACE...
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