Motorcycle taxis, a common form of transport in the city, are being used by unidentified armed men, presumably separatist fighters, to carry out attacks, Bamenda's city mayor Achobong Tembeng Paul and North West Governor Lele Lafrique Tchoffo Deben Adolphe said Friday, September 4, 2020.

A police inspector was killed on Tuesday when armed men on motorbikes opened fire on a law enforcement patrol team at Small Mankon.

Citing the exigencies of security and public order, City Mayor Achobong said public and private motorbike riders will not be allowed to ply the city’s urban perimeter until further notice.

Friday’s Municipal Order is approved by Simon Emile Mooh, Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, for Mezam. It adds to a March 13, 2020, Regional Order of North West Governor Lele prohibiting the circulation of motorbikes from 6 p.m. to 5.30 a.m. in parts of the region.

The Governor said the order restricting the circulation of personal, service, and commercial motorbikes within Bamenda is the outcome of a crisis meeting grouping members of the Reformed Motor Bike Riders’ Union, Drivers’ Union, Taxi Drivers’ Syndicate, and other legalised trade unions. The meeting was co-presided by the SDO of Mezam and the City Mayor of Bamenda, Lele added.

State forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since the current crisis transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.

Tit-for-tat killings have become part of daily lives in some parts of the English-speaking regions.

Security has been boosted after Tuesday and Wednesday's attacks with soldiers and police searching vehicles, homes, businesses, and people, locals say.

"A terrorist group instigated from the diaspora, whose local network has already been identified, specialised in the abduction and killing of teachers, kidnapping and wounding of school children, raping and brutal murder of women, carried out a series of attacks in Bamenda with firearms on board motorbikes on September 1 and 2, 2020 killing a personnel of the public security and obstructing the population of Commercial Avenue from going about their daily activities," Lele said in a press release on Friday.

“The government has taken elaborate measures to dismantle these terrorist groups, cause them to assume responsibility for their inhuman actions and guarantee the protection of the population and their properties,” the Governor assured.