News anchor and camera operator Samuel Wazizi, whose legal name was Samuel Ajiekha Abuwe, died in government custody in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, on August 17, 2019, the military announced on June 5, 2020. The circumstances and location of his death remain unknown.
The journalist had been arrested two weeks earlier in relation to his critical reporting on the Anglophone crisis, which began in 2016 with protests in Cameroon’s two minority English-speaking regions, triggering a government crackdown and a secessionist rebellion after attitudes hardened.
Police arrested Wazizi, who hosted the “Halla ya Matta” (Shout out your Problem) weekday pidgin show on Chillen Muzik Television (CMTV), on August 2, 2019, in the city of Buea, in the Southwest Region, the local broadcaster said in a statement, adding that the officers were seeking “information about a certain ‘pidgin news.’”
Wazizi also worked as a freelancer, collaborating with other journalists, according to local journalists Yannick Fonki and Paul Mua, and Derick Jato, president of the Southwest chapter of the Cameroon Journalists’ Trade Union.
CMTV CEO Etienne Nkwain told CPJ that four armed police officers said they were looking for Wazizi to “get a certain information for their boss, the commissioner.” Nkwain said the officers got him to call Wazizi, and they summoned Wazizi to the TV station. Wazizi soon arrived, and they left together, Nkwain said, adding that the officers and Wazizi were friendly towards each other.
Nkwain told CPJ that he became concerned when he did not hear from Wazizi later that day, and called the police station, where officers confirmed they had him in custody.
Wazizi’s friend and former “Halla ya Matta” producer Tah Mai Javis, who spoke to the journalist in police detention, told CPJ that Wazizi had asked the officers if he was under arrest, but they said he was not, and they only wanted him for questioning.
Nkwain said when he saw Wazizi at the police station the next morning, the journalist told him he did not know why he had been arrested and asked him to contact his family.
Javis told CPJ that authorities accused Wazizi of broadcasting about the Anglophone conflict, allowing his farm to be used as a separatist base, and alleged that he filmed abuses by the military and gave footage to international media organizations. Javis said Wazizi denied the allegations.
Wazizi’s lawyer, Edward Ewule, told CPJ that the journalist had been accused of “collaborating with separatists” and “spreading separatist information,” but had not been charged. Ewule added that the police said they found “separatist messages” on his client’s phone but “having such information is part of his journalism job.”
Ewule said Wazizi gave a statement without a lawyer present, but the police later allowed him to see his family and lawyer. He said Wazizi was denied bail because police said his case related to potential anti-terrorism charges.
A journalist who saw Wazizi at the station, told CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals, that Wazizi said to him, “Don’t let me die in here.”
Ewule said authorities told him on August 6 that Wazizi would be handed over to the judicial police, who had authority to investigate anti-terrorism charges, but on August 7, authorities transferred Wazizi to the 21st Motorized Infantry Battalion in Buea. Wazizi’s friends, family, colleagues, and lawyer had no further contact with him and did not receive any official updates until the military announced his death, Ewule said.
The military’s head of communication, Commander Cyrille Serge Atonfack, said in the June 5, 2020, statement that the journalist had died of “severe sepsis” and denied that he was tortured. The statement alleged that Wazizi was suspected of “having connections with terrorists and complicity in terrorist acts” and was a logistician for “various terrorist groups” in Buea and elsewhere in Fako division.
The statement said Wazizi was arrested on August 3 in Ekona, contradicting reports from his employer, family, friends, and lawyer at the time, who said he was arrested on August 2 in Buea. It did not cite any examples of Wazizi’s journalism that prompted his arrest.
Cameroonian journalist Mimi Mefo Newuh, who runs Mimi Mefo Info news site, reported that Wazizi was arrested because of his interview with a survivor of alleged military killings in Ekona, near Buea, on 25, December 2018, and other interviews with a family who said their four-month-old baby was shot by the military in May 2019.
In May 2019, Wazizi made a film for CMTV that included testimony from a family that alleged government soldiers killed their four-month-old baby, Nkwain said. The government denied responsibility for killing the baby.
About a month prior to his arrest, police raided Wazizi’s home and deleted footage he had recorded about the 2018 massacre, Javis told CPJ. Javis said he had cautioned Wazizi against publishing the footage himself.
On June 2, 2020, Douala-based Equinoxe TV reported that Wazizi had died in custody in Yaoundé, citing an unnamed military source, but provided no other details.
The following day, Denis Nkwebo, president of the Cameroon Journalists’ Trade Union, posted on X that the journalist had died at Yaoundé military hospital after months of torture. He told CPJ that his source was a member of the military.
On June 4, 2020, journalists demanding information about Wazizi’s fate were told by Southwest Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai, that Wazizi was in good health when he left Buea and only the central government could explain what had happened.
In its June 5 announcement of Wazizi’s death, the military claimed that the journalist maintained close contact with his family while in custody, including from his hospital bed, that his family had been informed immediately after his death, and that his body was at the military mortuary in Ekounou, but the family had not undertaken any funeral arrangements.
Wazizi’s sister-in-law, Metete Joan Njang, denied this and told CPJ that the first time the family became aware of the journalist’s death was in the Equinoxe TV report. Wazizi’s elder brother, Harry Abuwe, said the same when interviewed at home on June 5, 2020.
As of October 2025, Wazizi’s body had not been released to his family and the government refused to allow an independent forensic pathologist to carry out an autopsy, a lawyer with knowledge of the case told CPJ.
Ewule told CPJ he filed a habeas corpus application in Buea High Court on August 13, 2019, to force authorities to produce Wazizi in court. In the application, which CPJ reviewed, Wazizi denied the allegations and said he “believed he was being detained in connection with the critical views he expressed during the pidgin English news program on CMTV,” Ewule said.
On November 5, 2019, the case was dismissed on technical grounds, Ewule said. He immediately filed a second habeas corpus petition but the hearings were repeatedly adjourned, reported the American Bar Association, which monitored the proceedings.
The president of the Cameroon Community Media Network, Reverend Geraldine Fobang, told CPJ that she was among a group of journalists who tried to visit Wazizi at the 21st Motorized Infantry Battalion in September 2019, but were told he had been transferred to Yaoundé’s Kondengui Prison.
On June 9, 2020, Judge Mbonge Wilson dismissed the second habeas corpus application as Wazizi was not within the court’s jurisdiction when it was filed, another of Wazizi’s lawyers, Emmanuel Nkea, told CPJ, adding that he had appealed and would request a commission of inquiry be established.
CPJ has called for an independent investigation into the circumstances of Wazizi’s death.
On June 5, 2020, the then-French Ambassador to Cameroon Christophe Guilhou told journalists he had raised the matter of Wazizi’s death with Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, who had promised to investigate.
In November 2024, a justice ministry official told the United Nations Committee Against Torture that Wazizi’s case was closed and his file was classified, Mimi Mefo Info reported.
CPJ’s November 2024 calls, emails, and text messages to the office of Prime Minister Joseph Ngute, Minister of Communications Rene Sadi, his adviser Charles Manda, Deputy Minister of Justice Jean de Dieu Momo, and police spokesperson Joyce Ndgem, did not receive any responses.