Justice delayed

SCNC condemns continuous detention of Maxwell Oben
By a correspondent in Buea

Maxwell Oben

The controversial matter pitting the SCNC activist Maxwell Oben against the people of Cameroon came up in the Buea court of 1st Instance on 12th June 2015. During the last hearing on 28 May 2015 it was resolved that the matter would be handled by a college of three judges on 12 June 2015 to determine whether the accused should be released from prison detention or not.
    However, the trial judge, Justice Mrs. Beatrice Namangi, was unavoidably absent on that day and the matter could not proceed as scheduled.
A battery of defense lawyers numbering at least 10 or more led by Barrister Stanislaus Ajong, were also present in court to ensure that Oben Maxwell is not denied the right to a fair hearing.
More than fifty youths of Anglophone origin also thronged into the court all dressed in black to show their indignation towards the maltreatment of a fellow citizen.
Meanwhile, about 2 weeks before this last sitting one other SCNC suspect in the matter whose name we could not immediately get was arrested at Mautu near Muyuka. He is now presently detained at the Buea Central Prison alongside Oben Maxwell. It is however not yet clear whether this second suspect has been brought in as an accomplice in the offence which led to Oben’s incarceration almost one and the half years ago or to help the court with evidence that will eventually justify Maxwell’s continuous detention.

     It should be mentioned that recently Anglophones in Cameroon are increasingly waking up from slumber and demanding their rightful position in the union between Anglophones and Francophones. At first it was Anglophone lawyers who petitioned government against what they considered as a conspiracy to erode the common law in Anglophone Cameroon. Later it was the lecturers of the University of Buea who came out in support of the lawyers. Then very recently the SW Chiefs’ Conference also joined its voice to the cry of Anglophones. Sometime ago it was the teachers and the parliamentarians.
    Maxwell Oben was arrested in February 2013 in a bus on his way to Yaounde. He was later charged with “conspiracy to cause a revolution, secession…and planning to provoke civil war.” This was after he was found in possession of a book titled: “Guerilla Warfare, self defense from the attack” by Ernesto Che Guevara of Cuba. Oben had gone to the South West Region ostensibly to visit his friend in Mautu.   
    Few days after his arrest, Maxwell was taken to Yaounde but was later transferred back to Buea to face the Military Judge. Since then the matter has moved from the Military Tribunal to the court of Appeal and finally to the Civilian Court of First Instance here in Buea. Oben has since continued to languish in detention at the Buea Central Prison.
    In its ordinance No. 152/GRD/JI/TMB of 17 December 2014, the Military Tribunal declared its incompetence to handle the matter. Legal experts contend that by virtue of normal justice procedure the declaration by the Military Tribunal should have eventually dismissed the case and the suspect released from detention. But this did not happen.
At the level of the Appeal Court the matter could not be heard because no proceedings had ever emanated from the Military Tribunal which, on its own right, had never established a formal trial.
    At the level of the Court of 1st instance a ruling was made on Thursday 23 April 2015 requesting Maxwell Oben to be granted bail by two Suretees based in Buea with landed property for the sum of 1.000.000 (one million FCFA). In spite of the very difficult bail conditions two Suretees opted to stand the bail test. One Tigifond John made available landed asset worth 80 million FCFA, an offer plausible enough to qualify him sign the bail bond. The offer was rejected because it was not backed by a land certificate.
Also Mola Njoh Litumbe pledged his buildings in London as a guarantee which was equally rejected on condition that the property was out of Cameroon.
        Another apparently impossible dimension to the matter is the emergence of two prosecution witnesses who were supposed to be in court to testify for the state of Cameroon when the matter came up on April 23rd 2015. They were not there and they never had been there since the onset of this matter through the military tribunal and appeal court.
    Putting the above facts together it becomes evident that the authorities do not have any intention to release Oben any time soon. Oben’s situation can therefore be likened to that suffered by Albert Mukong (RIP) in the early years of our Unification which led to the release of his book “Prisoner Without a Crime.”
    Our appeal is that common law lawyers should not relent in their effort to combat such legal cruelty which is very likely to end up in a monumental tragedy in the history of our justice system.