Barrister Emmanuel Nshalai, Counsel for victims of torture of the Anglophone crisis, says Norway is ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the case he filed against Ayaba Cho Lucas, head of the Ambazonia Governing Council, a separatist organization in Southern Cameroon.
Nshalai told SBBC that the Norwegian embassy in the United States reaffirmed that Norway is “committed to fighting impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes affecting the international community,” recalling that the country is a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC.
The commitment, he said, is contained in the response addressed to him by the Norwegian authorities following his request addressed to them for separatist leader Ayaba Cho Lucas , a long-time Norwegian citizen, to be brought to justice for his alleged involvement in atrocities committed in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon.
In the complaint filed by Mr. Nshalai in March 2024, he lists the various atrocities orchestrated by Ayaba Cho Lucas, leader of the separatist movement Ambazonia Governing Council.”The Norwegian government has acknowledged receipt of our correspondences regarding Ayaba Cho Lucas and the complaint filed against him with the International Criminal Court (ICC). They have agreed to cooperate in the criminal investigations concerning him and to collaborate with the ICC,”said Mr. Nshalai, contacted by SBBC.
It also emerged that the lawyer had threatened to sue the Norwegian government before international courts, accusing it of not extraditing one of its citizens to answer for these acts.”We then informed them that we would file a complaint against them if they did not take action against Ayaba Cho Lucas,”confirmed Mr. Nshalai.
Ayaba Cho Lucas , born in August 1972 in the North-West region of Cameroon, is an Ambazonian activist. He is the former Secretary-General of the Southern Cameroons Youth League (SCYL) and is the current head of the Ambazonia Governing Council, a separatist organization in Southern Cameroon.
Ayaba was expelled from the University of Buea in 1993 because he led a solo protest against the increase in tuition fees; he has been in exile from Cameroon since then. He eventually ended up in Norway, where he studied human rights and development at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and from where he has based his activism ever since. In January 2017, Ayaba was reportedly the target of an assassination attempt in Brussels, Belgium.
As the head of the Ambazonia Governing Council, Ayaba and President Benedict Kuah oversaw the creation of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, which carried out their first guerrilla action on September 9, 2017. This was the first armed action by Ambazonian separatists in what would become the Anglophone crisis. It occurred seven weeks before the interim government of Ambazonia was established and months before it approved an armed struggle.
The AGC’s relations with the interim government were often strained. In March 2019, Ayaba refused to attend the Southern Cameroons General Conference in Washington, D.C., calling some of the participants “facilitators.” The AGC is therefore not part of the Southern Cameroons Liberation Council. During the Ambazonian leadership crisis of 2019, Ayaba supported Sisiku Julius AyukTabe against Samuel IkomeSako “on principle.” Ayaba argued that it was wrong to attack AyukTabe, who had been in detention since January 2018.
In July 2019, Ayaba claimed that Cameroon had practically lost the war and that separatist forces controlled 80% of the Anglophone regions.
On April 9, 2021, Ayaba held a joint press conference with Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), where they declared an alliance between Biafra and Ambazonia. Ayaba also proposed an alliance with democratic forces in Cameroon, suggesting that Ambazonia should help overthrow Paul Biya.
Ayaba Cho Lucas published the book “Not Guilty: An African Refugee Experience,” which recounts the journey of a black refugee through the complex and restrictive economic center of Fortress Europe, seen through the eyes of an individual.
