- Norwegian police have arrested a Cameroonian separatist leader, Lucas Ayaba Cho, on charges of incitement of crimes against humanity, marking the first major attempt to address impunity in the country’s Anglophone conflict. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Arrey Ntui explains the ramifications
What happened?
On 24 September 2024, Norwegian police arrested a 52-year-old German national of Cameroonian origin, Lucas Ayaba Cho, following a months-long investigation into his role in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict. Ayaba Cho heads the separatist Ambazonia Governing Council, commonly known as AGovC, which seeks independence for the country’s two English-speaking regions. He is also the commander-in-chief of the group’s armed wing, the Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF). Although the exact nature of the accusations against him is unclear, initial police reports indicate that Ayaba Cho is being held on charges of incitement of crimes against humanity in Anglophone Cameroon, and was arrested by Norwegian authorities on the grounds of universal jurisdiction for serious international offences, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. His counsel said Ayaba Cho denies all guilt and that the court had misunderstood events in Cameroon. The same day, likely as a result of a multi-country investigation, U.S. agents raided the homes of two AGovC/ADF-affiliated individuals in the U.S., but without making arrests. According to U.S. diplomats, the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspects that the AGovC set up fundraising operations in the U.S. in 2024.
The arrest could mark a pivotal moment in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict. This erupted in 2017, when a peaceful protest movement to prevent the two regions’ legal and educational system from being subsumed under the rules applying to the rest of the mostly Francophone country morphed into armed rebellion. Following a government crackdown on protesters, on 1 October 2017 secessionists proclaimed an independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia, which comprises the North West and South West regions, known during the colonial era as the British Southern Cameroons. Armed groups have used violence and coercion to resist the military and force residents to comply with what they describe as their fight for Ambazonia’s independence, with methods ranging from summary executions and regular general strikes (“ghost town” operations) to attacking government schools. The ADF emerged as one of the largest of these groups: it has about 600 fighters, mostly based in the Momo, Boyo, Bui and Mezam divisions in the North West region and Manyu division in the South West region. It is also active on the Bamenda-Mamfe road to Nigeria, and has developed an alliance with mainly Igbo separatists in south-western Nigeria who want what they consider the Biafra region to break away from that country.
From 2018 onward, the ADF rapidly gained notoriety as one of the Anglophone movement’s most ruthless militias, embarking on what would turn into a years-long campaign of violence against security forces and civilians. The ADF enforced a school boycott by killing teachers and children who ignored the secessionists’ diktat. It prides itself on hunting down alleged informants and government collaborators, whom it labels “blacklegs”. In October 2023, the group publicly executed two men it accused of being government spies, drawing widespread international condemnation after videos of the killings circulated on social media. More recently, in June 2024, the ADF told owners of yellow taxis to paint their vehicles blue and white, the two colours of the proposed Ambazonia flag. Taxi drivers in the North West’s main city of Bamenda who resisted the order were subjected to deadly attacks. The group is also linked to a spate of kidnappings for ransom.
While AGovC collaborates with other separatist movements across the Anglophone regions, some other militias reject the ADF’s brutal methods, warning that its indiscriminate violence damages the independence campaign. For his part, Ayaba Cho has justified the ADF’s activities by defining his military goal as making the Anglophone regions “ungovernable”.
Who is Lucas Ayaba Cho and why does he live in Norway?
Ayaba Cho was part of a wave of Anglophone Cameroonians who left the country in the early 1990s amid heavy-handed repression of student protests clamouring for democratic reforms and Anglophone minority rights. He spent time in custody in the capital Yaoundé for promoting Anglophone Cameroon’s secession, but somehow managed to reach Germany, where he obtained citizenship before moving to Norway.
In 2017, Cameroon’s harsh crackdown on alleged sympathisers of secessionists triggered another outflow of Anglophone citizens, including leaders of the protest movement, who embarked on demonstrations overseas and began organising and funding the militias springing up in the North West and South West regions. Today, most hardline Anglophone separatists are based in other African countries, Europe, or North America. For example, Ayaba Cho’s deputy Julius Nyih resides in Ireland, while the former ADF deputy chief Emmanuel Ngong, who uses the alias Capo Daniel, lives in Hong Kong.
The Cameroonian government has repeatedly complained to Norwegian authorities about [Ayaba Cho’s] activities.
Ayaba Cho has accumulated powerful enemies over the years. The Cameroonian government has repeatedly complained to Norwegian authorities about his activities. Earlier in 2024, a U.S.-based lawyer affiliated with the Cameroonian government, Emmanuel Nsahlai, lodged a complaint against Ayaba Cho with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on behalf of a group of victims of his militia, even though the ICC has no jurisdiction in Cameroon. And in August 2024, during a trip Anglophone religious leaders made to Oslo to push for fresh dialogue to solve the conflict, they questioned Norwegian officials about their perceived indifference to Ayaba Cho’s presence in the country.
Nigeria also has him in its sights. Over the past five years, agitation for the secession of Nigeria’s south-eastern region of Biafra, which spurred a civil war in the 1960s, has grown. Biafra’s separatist leaders gradually warmed to the Anglophone rebels in hopes of negotiating some sort of military cooperation, eventually signing a deal with the ADF in Finland in October 2023. Nigeria’s authorities promptly declared Ayaba Cho an enemy of the state and pledged to ask Norway to apprehend him.
But Ayaba Cho’s arrest may not have been possible without sustained pressure from Cameroonian activists, who for years have lobbied domestic and foreign policymakers to curtail the violence by both sides in the Anglophone conflict. Fighting has killed thousands and deprived hundreds of thousands of school-age children of education. The UN estimates that 1.8 million people in the two regions need humanitarian help and 584,000 remain displaced. Anglophone women leaders spoke up against the AGovC and other armed separatists in 2018 and 2019, calling for a halt to school boycotts. They, and other Cameroonian civil society and religious activists, also publicly criticised foreign governments for turning a blind eye to those separatist rebels who are allegedly orchestrating killings and kidnappings of Anglophone Cameroonians from the safety of the diaspora.
Is this a turning point in the Anglophone conflict?
Ayaba Cho is the first separatist leader to be potentially indicted on allegations of crimes against humanity. A previous high-profile arrest in the Anglophone conflict dates back to January 2018, when Nigerian special forces stormed into a hotel in Abuja to capture the self-proclaimed president of Ambazonia, Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, alongside 46 alleged supporters. After the men were handed to Cameroon, a military tribunal in Yaoundé found Ayuk Tabe and nine of his aides guilty of a raft of terrorism charges and sentenced them to life in prison. (A UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called for their release.) The only other conviction of Cameroonian separatists to date involves six men and a woman who received prison sentences in the U.S. for arms trafficking.
Many Cameroonians are hopeful that Norway’s detention of Ayaba Cho will build momentum for justice and, down the line, help bring the conflict to an end. Much of the terrible violence inflicted on civilians over the last eight years has been carried out with complete impunity. Ayaba Cho’s arrest sends a powerful signal that countries hosting members of the Anglophone diaspora or refugees fleeing the conflict are alert to the crimes that Cameroon’s military and separatists are committing in the North West and South West regions.
Cameroon state media predictably celebrated the arrest, even as the government has thus far refrained from issuing an official statement. Residents of the two Anglophone regions have largely welcomed the news as well, saying that Ayaba Cho and his movement preached too much violence. Few Anglophone leaders have so far disputed the cause of Ayaba Cho’s arrest. Some have even praised Norway’s move, allaying early fears of a violent response in the two regions. Their reactions, and those of social media activists aligned with the separatist cause, demonstrate that the ADF has lost a great deal of public support in recent years.
Ayaba Cho’s arrest appears to have done little to dampen the spirit of the separatist movement.
To be sure, Ayaba Cho’s arrest appears to have done little to dampen the spirit of the separatist movement. On 29 September, a group of ADF militiamen recorded a video threatening to harden their stance unless their leader is released. On 1 October, as is the case every year, rebel militias marked the symbolic day of Ambazonia’s independence by staging military-style marches in Anglophone Cameroon and sharing propaganda videos afterward.
Meanwhile, questions over the future of the AGovC/ADF abound. Many of the larger Anglophone groups have survived the arrest of their political leaders or the killing of senior commanders on the battlefield. And Ayaba Cho’s organisation has a stable command structure which has remained intact despite sackings, defections and the violent deaths of senior commanders. On 26 September, Ayaba Cho’s deputy Nyih temporarily took over the ADF leadership. But the recent events might prompt internal soul-searching and possibly usher in a more moderate course of action, which could restore the group’s appeal on the ground.
What happens next?
Ayaba Cho’s extradition to Cameroon does not appear to be on the table. Norway is unlikely to consider such a request, given widespread concerns about the independence of Cameroon’s judiciary and the fact that it has not tried a case of this nature before.
On the political front, it is unclear whether Ayaba Cho’s arrest can generate fresh momentum for dialogue. In September 2022, Canada facilitated so-called pre-talks between the Cameroon government and four separatist groups, including AGovC. Although Cameroonian President Paul Biya had strong reservations about including Ayaba Cho and his group, considering them the most violent and uncompromising among the four, he eventually agreed to give them a seat at the table, partly to assess their willingness to find common ground. The separatists managed to present a united front during the pre-talks, impressing some government officials with their organisational skills. But because AGovC members had irked Cameroon’s top brass by boasting triumphantly about their exploits on the battlefield during the conflict, hardliners in Yaoundé ended up reverting to a military approach. Biya dismissed the initiative in January 2023 before actual peace talks could begin.
Still, launching a peace process remains Cameroon’s best chance of ending the conflict and the serious crimes that accompany it. Support for dialogue remains high among religious and civil society leaders, but the complexity of the conflict, after eight years of fighting, requires a political effort that the Cameroonian government is unlikely to make in an election year, with presidential elections scheduled for October 2025. On top of that, neither the 91-year-old Biya nor anyone in his government has expressed any desire to initiate a new round of dialogue with separatist groups.
The fear of subsequent arrests on the grounds of universal jurisdiction in countries hosting members of Cameroon’s diaspora as well as sustained pressure from Anglophone civil society could, however, encourage both separatist rebels and government officials to curb violence against civilians. This should include redefining their rules of engagement to prioritise the safety of civilians, guaranteeing unconditional and safe humanitarian access to conflict areas, and immediately ceasing attacks on schools and health facilities. As well as easing the burden on the Anglophone population, these measures could build the necessary trust between the warring parties to lay the foundations for genuine dialogue and, ultimately, a political settlement ending the protracted conflict.
@International Crisis Group (ICG)