After receiving threat calls:Biya orders thorough search of Kondengui prison

Millions of FCFA, laptops, cell phones and letters addressed to President Biya were seized by the gendarmes after the search conducted on Tuesday

By Roland Akong Wuwih in Yaounde

Anonymous threats calls by some prisoners in the Kondengui prison to President Paul Biya warning him to release them provoked the government to carryout a thorough search in the prison on Tuesday 12 August.
Prison sources suspect that the calls might have come from the VIP quarters of the prison, where some former senior officials of the regime are in pre-trial detention over charges of corruption. They named: Jean-Marie Atangana Mebara, former secretary general at the president, Polycarpe Abah Abah, former minister of Finance, Urbain Olanguena Awono, former minister of Health.
Laurent Esso, the secretary general at the presidency of the republic, drew the attention of the minister of Justice to the threat calls, who in turn worked with the minister of Defence to organise Tuesday’s search.
Ngafeesson Emmanuel, secretary of state for penitentiary administration, and Jean Baptist Bokam, secretary of state for the gendarmerie, on the instruction of both ministers, stormed the Yaounde Central prison with close to 1000 gendarmes to conduct the search.
In the VIP quarters, the gendarmes said that they discovered and retrieved laptop computers, cell phones, expensive wines and champagnes, plus correspondences addressed to the head of state by some of the prisoners but did not disclose the contents of the letters.
Out of 2 million FCFA retrieved from the special quarters, former minister Olanguena Awono was found with the sum of 68,000 FCFA. Legislation says a prisoner is not supposed to keep more than 20,000 FCFA while in prison.
The sum of 10 million FCFA was found and seized from some prisoners in the female quarters while marijuana and other drugs were seized from inmates in the «Kosovo» quarters of the prison.
The secretary of state for penitentiary administration Emmanuel Ngafeeson described the items found and seized as prohibited items, and that family and friends of the detainees smuggled them into the prison with the help of some warders.
He said the search was occasioned by rumours that some prisoners were planning to make a massive bid to escape from prison.

Courtesy, The Herald