In the absence of an extradition convention between Cameroon and Nigeria, the lawyer at the Cameroon Bar explains that the two countries have used their good political relations. He reacted on Radio Equinoxe.
What could have favored the decision of the Nigerian authorities to extradite the suspected secessionists from Ambazonia to Cameroon? Is there an extradition convention between Nigeria and Cameroon?
I have looked for it, there is no extradition convention between Cameroon and Nigeria. The 1963 text that everyone is talking about is not at all that. It's just a cooperation convention. During the Biafra war financed by France, it was Cameroon that refused France a rear base, because the rear base was in Gabon. France wanted it to be Cameroon but Cameroon refused. So, for a number of years, there has been cooperation between the two countries. So Nigeria was sort of forced otherwise, there had to be reciprocity, that is to say, to also have a backward base of Nigeria on people who from the Delta and others who also want secession to level of Nigeria and there, too, that posed problems.
If there was such a convention, what would have been the procedure for Ayuk Tabe and his companions to be extradited to Cameroon?
In the case of the existence of an extradition convention, it would have been necessary to go from diplomatic prosecutor's office to diplomatic prosecutor's office, that is to say: the Commissioner of the Government of Cameroon who sends the file to the Attorney General who sends it to the Cameroonian Minister of Justice who sends it to the Minister of Foreign Affairs who sends it to the Foreign Minister of Nigeria who sends it to the Attorney General of Abuja and wait for the file for 40 days. With that, the lawyers had the opportunity to have the facts and to have the documents but these documents that will characterize the offense, what they are accused of and at that time to make them leave. So it was too long, I think they did what they did. It has been done in several countries, in Turkey, with regard to Öcalan (Abdullah Öcalan, Kurdish leader, Editor's note), the Turkish leader who was also handed over to the Turkish authorities. We also saw in France with Carlos, on what happened on the attacks in Paris
Source: CIR