The identification of English-speaking activists arrested in January 2018 in Nigeria has not been easy for Cameroonian justice. At the premises of the State Secretariat for Defense and during the trial at the Military Court of Yaoundé, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and company denied, each time, their nationality Cameroon. Between the judge who insisted that they are Cameroonians and the separatists who claimed the imaginary Republic of Ambazonia, tension was often raised during the debates to cause the dismissal of the trial.
For example, on January 10, 2019, during the second hearing of the Public Ministry case against Ayuk Tabe and company, the main leader of the separatist movement solemnly declared: "I am not a Cameroonian, I am a citizen of the former Southern British Cameroons, today called Ambazonia ". Some of his co-defendants later made it clear that they were refugees in Nigeria. In response, the government commissioner told the defense that justice was in procession of evidence that the defendants are Cameroonians. "We have their national identity cards and their passports. Some of them have been state employees, and you tell us they are not Cameroonians?"
Finally, at the final hearing on 19 and 20 August 2019, the judge decided to sentence 9 of the 10 separatists, for "lack of National Identity Card". Only Tassang Wilfried Fombang was found "not guilty of default of national identity card, unincorporated offense. The acquittal of this charge, "explained Lieutenant-Colonel Misse Njone Jacques Beaudouin, president of the Yaoundé Military Court, immediately. But this judge sentenced all ten separatist leaders to life imprisonment for "complicity in acts of terrorism, apology for acts of terrorism, recruitment and training, financing of acts of terrorism, secession, revolution, armed gang, insurrection, hostility against the homeland and spreading false news ".
Below, the identity of the ten secessionists condemned.
1) Ayuk Julius Tabe
2) Nfor Ngala Nfor
3) Tassang Wilfried Fombang
4) Henry Kimeng
5) Corneilus Njikimbi Kwanga
6) Fidelis Che
7) Cheh Augustin Awasum
8) Egbe Ogork
9) Eyambe Elias Ebae
10) Shufai Blaise Sevidzem Berinyuy