Cameroon govt warns citizens about fake claims by Nithyananda’s ‘Kailasa’

The News Minute | The notice is reportedly in the wake of the circulation of a forged document claiming the approval of “the transfer of parcels of land” under the Cameroon national territory to Kailasa “for an amount of 3,500,000 Euros.”

The Republic of Cameroon has reportedly called upon its country’s citizens to ignore the existence of the “fictive state” of the United States of Kailasa, founded by rape-accused self-proclaimed godman Nithyananda. Cameroon’s Minister of Finance Louis Paul Motaze has issued a press release dated April 12, Wednesday, to this effect, the Cameroon News Agency reported. The announcement comes reportedly in the wake of the circulation of a forged document titled ‘Bilateral treaty for recognition of the sovereignty of the United States of Kailasa’, which the minister alleged is aimed at obliging Cameroon to “recognise the existence of the fictive state” and “approve the transfer of parcels of land” under the national territory “for an amount of 3,500,000 Euros.”

Motaze, as per the press release shared by the news agency, has said that only the Head of the State (in this case, the country’s President Paul Biya) “has the powers to sign and negotiate such conventions.” Calling people’s attention to the falsified nature of this document which has forged Motaze’s signature and fraudulently affixed the seals of the State of Cameroon, the release also said that competent investigative authorities have been deployed to identify the authors of the document in circulation.

Kailasa, as part of its efforts to establish its own ‘legitimacy’, has over the past several months resorted to making claims of international recognition and “bilateral relations” with various foreign countries, several of which have subsequently been debunked. Earlier in March, the city of Newark in New Jersey in the United States scrapped a sister-city agreement with Kailasa, stating that the agreement was reached upon based on deception and was hence “groundless and void”. “As soon as we learned about the circumstances surrounding Kailasa, the City of Newark immediately took action and rescinded the sister-city agreement on January 18,” Newark Press Secretary Susan Garofalo later said.

On February 24, a woman who goes by the name Ma Vijayapriya Nithyananda had attended the19th United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESR) meeting, claiming to ‘represent’ the ‘United States of Kailasa’ and thus weaving a narrative that the fictional country has been recognised by the UN. Vivian Kwok, a media officer at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, however later told the BBC that Kailasa’s inputs at CESR’s meeting would not be taken into consideration because its comments were “tangential to the topic at hand.”

Nithyananda claimed to have established the ‘Hindu nation’ of Kailasa in 2020, months after he fled India while being investigated in connection with an alleged child abuse case at his ashram in Gujarat. The Karnataka Sessions Court has also issued a non-bailable warrant against him in connection with allegations of rape.