The Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience (APOC) have petitioned the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, The Right Honourable Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey to withdraw observers from the La République du Cameroun presidential poll on 12th October 2025.
Through Counsel, they argue that the Commonwealth’s good name is under threat of rolling in the mud due to La Republique du Cameroun’s conduct of the genocidal war of aggression against Ambazonian civilians over the last 8-years.
Among other human rights and international law abuses, the APOC list village burnings, mass displacements and the refoulement of some of their number with the complicity of other Commonwealth member states.
The 8 year old conflict has seen massacres in villages, such as Ngarbuh where civilian women and children were killed by units of La République du Cameroun’s forces, who first denied it, then later blamed a “bavure” and instituted an infinite investigation.
They have also fired into school-run traffic respectively in Buea and Bamenda, killing two kindergarten girls, killings for which no responsibility or justice have been seen or done.
By agreeing to validate those elections and lending their name to a tainted process, the Commonwealth risks confirming the perception that their much vaunted values only apply to the white citizens of the club, as they have consistently tolerated abuses by dictators in black member states, regularly validating dubious polls.
The La République du Cameroun poll is already tainted by the fact that the favourite incumbent has not appear either to declare his candidacy nor to campaign. It is, therefore, going to be unreasonable for the Commonwealth to line itself behind the authors of such an “irregular” process and still claim to be the promoters of democracy and good governance, quite apart from having tolerated the ordeal of the APOCS over so many years.
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