By Yerima Kini Nsom
The lead counsel for 10 Ambazonia leaders detained in Cameroon has called for their immediate release and compensation, as the leaders’ clock eight years in prison following their abduction from Nigeria.
In a press statement issued in Yaoundé on January 5, Barrister Joseph Awah Fru urged Cameroonian authorities to free his clients and pay reparations for what he termed “eight years of arbitrary detention.” The date marked the anniversary of the 2018 abduction of the group, known as the “Nera Ten,” from a hotel in Abuja.
Barrister Fru argued the extradition of the men, who were registered refugees and asylum seekers, was a flagrant breach of international law. Citing a 2022 opinion from the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN WGAD), he demanded their release and the implementation of the UN opinion in full.
He called on Cameroon to “end arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances” and to pursue a peaceful resolution to the Anglophone crisis through “genuine dialogue and a mediated settlement.”
The lawyer also appealed to the Nigerian government to liaise with Cameroon to secure the detainees’ release, return, and rehabilitation, urging compliance with pending Nigerian court judgments related to the case. He emphasized that both nations must abide by their obligations under international law.
The statement detailed the circumstances of the abduction, alleging the ten were seized at gunpoint by Nigerian and Cameroonian security agents, held incommunicado for 20 days without warrants, and then forcibly repatriated to Cameroon aboard a military aircraft on January 25, 2018.
According to Fru, the men were subsequently held for 11 months at a gendarmerie headquarters in Yaoundé, where they faced “despicable torture and dehumanization” without access to family or lawyers. Transferred to the Kondengui Principal Prison in late 2018, they were later tried by the Yaoundé Military Tribunal.
In August 2019, the tribunal, in a trial the defense boycotted, found the ten guilty of secession, terrorism, and related charges, sentencing them to life imprisonment. Barrister Fru rejected the verdict, citing “procedural and substantive irregularities” related to their abduction and trial.
After the Centre Regional Court of Appeal upheld the sentence, the case was appealed to Cameroon’s Supreme Court, where a first hearing on December 18 was adjourned to January 15. It is also understood that a parallel case is pending before the Supreme Court of Nigeria.