Why Tiko brigade commander was killed

From Ashu Tidings, on special assignment in Tiko

He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. So does the saying go. The slain commander of the gendarmerie brigade in Tiko, South West region, Jean-Claude Menanga Ahanda, is reported to have had a history of violence and torture. It was therefore not surprising that his assistant, Samson Dachaco, shot him dead on Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at the premises of the brigade.

As investigations continue on the causes of the brutal killing of the “Adjudant-chef-major”, it is important to shed light on the findings made by The Guardian Post concerning a near-similar happening involving the latter and one Emmanuel Moutombi, a young banker in Douala, way back in 2005.

While Menanga Ahanda was heading the Douala IV gendarmerie brigade at Bonamoussadi, Moutombi, who for his part was the manager of a Douala-based microfinance institution at the time, was accused of having broken the safe of the said financial house and taken to the brigade where he was detained.  

The young native of Ndikiniméki in the Mbam and Inoubou division of the Centre region, who held a DEA (Diplôme d’études approfondies) in banking and finance, reportedly underwent severe torture from the commander, incurring wounds and other injuries in the process. Not able to withstand the excruciating pains he was going through, he later succumbed to the hot hands of death.

The matter was reported to the military tribunal in Yaounde which showed quite some clemency to Jean-Claude Menanga Ahanda by sentencing him only to ten years in prison. Not too long after he was incarcerated, the “Adjudant-chef-major” surprisingly obtained freedom in a manner that sent many tongues wagging. More tongues vibrated when he later found himself at the helm of the Tiko gendarmerie brigade where he served for just one year before he was paid back in his own coins.  

“It was not astonishing that he met his doom in this manner,” a source told The Guardian Post in Tiko a day after the killing. “Moutombi’s father had vowed when his only son died that whoever were involved in his death would die in the same way.”

This report is in no way fanning the flames of tit for tat. Nor is it meant to encourage advocates of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It is simply a warning to those who think that they can always do evil and go away with it.