Was the disappearance and subsequent murder of political activist, ,Djoubairou Yerima, commandeered from the General Delegation of National Security in Yaounde?
That is what Actu affirms in a report published last Tuesday. The news organ says it stumbled on an internal document dated January 2, 2025, from the deputy director of general intelligence to the regional delegate of national security in Adamaoua instructing him to ‘take all necessary measures’ to prevent an alleged arson attack on ELECAM offices, attributed to DjoubairouYerima.
Curiously, the activist had already been arrested a week before this note was written, on December 24, 2024.
He is reported to have been arrested by four armed men in an unregistered 4×4 vehicle. This temporal inconsistency raises serious questions about the real motivations behind this instruction and the fate of DjoubairouYerima.
DjoubairouYerima became known for releasing a video denouncing electoral fraud in Adamaoua. In this recording, he directly accused Ali Bachir, a former deputy and member of the central committee of the RDPC, of being involved in the fabrication of fake voter cards. The video, which went viral, apparently triggered his kidnap.
The note dated January 2, 2025, accusesDjoubairouYerima of planning to set fire to ELECAM offices. However, this accusation seems contradicted by the fact that the activist had already disappeared for more than a week at the time the document was written. For the family and human rights defenders, this note is a pretext to justify his arrest and disappearance.
‘This case is very worrying. DjoubairouYerima was kidnapped, and now we discover a note that criminalizes him after the fact. All this looks like an attempt to cover up the truth,’ denounces a human rights lawyer.
DjoubairouYerima’s family, along with several civil society organizations, are calling for an independent investigation to shed light on this disappearance. ‘We want to know what happened to Djoubairou. If he is detained, let us be told. If he has been murdered, those responsible must be identified and brought to justice,’ insists a family member.
This case comes in a tense political context, less than a year before the presidential election in October 2025. Human rights defenders fear that this disappearance is just one example among many of the repression against dissenting voices in Cameroon.
Meanwhile, DjoubairouYerima’s family continues to demand justice, hoping that the truth will come to light about the fate of their loved one, whose only fault seems to have been denouncing electoral irregularities.
