Recently Freed Cameroonian Priest Says Celebrating Mass in Captivity "the joy that I had"

When they resumed their journey the following day, they met some members of the Ambazonia separatist movement (Amba Boys) who arrested them upon the orders of one of their captains, the Cathedral Administrator who doubles as the Diocesan Director of Communication and Station Manager of Radio Evangelium recalled the events of May 22.

“The captain told me that his interest in me is based on the fact that I am a Catholic Priest. He said he wouldn’t have bothered if I was someone else but the Catholic Church is very influential and it is working with the government to fight against them,” said the member of the Clergy of the Diocese located within the South Western region of Cameroon, one of the regions affected by the Anglophone crisis. 

As a Catholic Priest, Fr. Eboka recalled the separatists’ captain saying, they would hold him “so that the money which the government shares with the Church will be given to them to support their struggle.”

“For that they were charging me 10 million Francs CFA (US$18,600.00),” said the Priest, adding, “I was locked up with my rider and they went on with their mission while we were left with four of their soldiers.”

News about his arrest travelled quickly and on Pentecost Sunday, some Christians from the outstation he was headed to visited him and they celebrated the Holy Mass while in captivity, Fr. Eboka told ACI Africa.  

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For the next four days, Fr. Eboka said that he and his rider were given the duty of cleaning the Amba Boys' camp. 

Recalling his experience in captivity in its entirety, the alumnus of Kenya’s Daystar University said that his abductors were not always consistent in the way they addressed him,  “they did not mistreat me at any point in time”

“They gave us food; they told us to take a bath and we got locked up again,” he recalling, adding that his abductors listened to him whenever he intervened for other abductees.  

“Three Christians, two Catechists and another, came to visit again and they were locked up. The captain ordered the Christian to be beaten because the two others were Catechists and he was only a faithful. I intervened; the captain threatened to blow my head with a gun but at the end of the day, they stopped beating him,” he narrated, adding that the three were freed after he negotiated with the captain.

They paid 45,500 Francs CFA (US$84) to secure their release, Fr. Eboka revealed.

According to the Cleric, his release was occasioned by “so much noise in the world about my situation."

"Those who arrested me received instructions from Ambazonians who are in America and in Europe to free me. Because of social and other media campaigns they knew that they had a Priest in custody; they called all leaders on the ground to find where I was being held," said the Communications Director in Mamfe. 

While in captivity, he recalled, he worried more about his colleagues, Christians and his mother but he was "peacefully convinced that there would be a way for us to come out." 

"I had to remain strong for those I was locked up with and encourage them," Fr. Eboka who has been a Priest since May 2012 said.

He expressed his appreciation to the people of God in Cameroon and beyond for their prayers and campaign to have him freed saying, "the voice of prayer is never silent." 

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"Let us pray and be concerned about one another because once we are people of prayer, many things will work," said Fr. Eboka.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.