Southern Cameroons: IG concludes Francophone security agents killed journalist Samuel Wazizi ⁰

The Office of the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government says its findings have revealed that Francophone security agents killed Southern Cameroons journalist Samuel Wazizi.

“We find that the wounds as reported by pro Yaoundé uniform officers came from torture by Biya regime security forces,” Professor Carlson Anyangwe told Cameroon Concord News on Thursday.

“It is very disturbing that French Cameroun prison authorities have not conducted a criminal investigation. The Ambazonia Interim Government has concluded its independent investigation into the incident. Journalist Samuel Wazizi was murdered by La Republique du Cameroun agents and not from any undisclosed illness, as initially claimed by the French Cameroun authorities,” Anyangwe added.

The much respected Southern Cameroons front line figure pointed out that the Ambazonia Interim Government found no information suggesting that there was any link between Samuel Wazizi and any armed Southern Cameroons group.

Providing further details, Professor Carlson Anyangwe said on the day of his arrest the late Samuel Wazizi had made a concerted effort to be visible as a prominent member of the Anglophone press to Francophone soldiers deployed to crush the Ambazonian uprising.

News anchor and camera operator Samuel Wazizi, whose legal name was Samuel Ajiekha Abuwe, died in government custody in Yaoundé, on August 17, 2019, according to a statement released on June 5, 2020, by the Francophone dominated Cameroonian military. He had been arrested two weeks earlier in relation to his reporting. The precise circumstances and location of his death, which was not announced until 10 months later, are unknown.

Wazizi, who hosted the “Halla ya Matta” (Shout out your Problem) weekday pidgin show on local broadcaster Chillen Muzik TV, was arrested by police in Buea on August 2, 2019, according to a statement by his employer. The officers “claimed that he was being invited by their boss to get information about a certain ‘pidgin news,’” according to that statement.

Wazizi also worked as a freelancer and collaborated with other journalists on reporting projects, according to local journalists Yannick Fonki and Paul Mua, and Derick Jato, president of the Southwest chapter of the Cameroon Journalists’ Trade Union.

By Isong Asu in London