Martinez Zogo’s case revives memories of unaccounted death of journalist Samuel Wazizi

For past few days, the Cameroon Government has been turning the heat on killers of Yaounde-based radio host, Martinez Zogo, reviving memories of the unaccounted death of Samuel Wazizi.

A Government communique on Thursday announced that an unspecified number of people had been arrested in connection with the Martinez Zogo case, and others are currently wanted by the police and gendarmes.

As government heeds to calls for justice towards Martinez Zogo, MMI takes a three-year flashback into the death of former TV presenter, Samuel Wazizi, whose death has never been accounted for, despite Government having promised investigations on the case.

It took the government 10 months to announce that he had died in detention and his family said they were never informed about his death.

He was arbitrarily arrested by the police on August 2, 2019, who accused him of hosting separatist fighters on his farm, allegations he had denied.

Few days after his detention at the Muea police station in Buea, he was reportedly transferred to the 21st motorised infantry battalion.

It is believed it believed he was tortured and killed there, but the government told a different story.

On June 5, 2020, that is ten months after his incommunicado detention, army spokesperson Col Cyrille Atonfack said he died of severe sepsis 10 months earlier at a hospital in Yaounde.

The story was disheartening to journalists and to Wazizi’s family, who said they never informed.

Government’s disbelieving explanation was regarded as a clear smokescreen of what had really happened.

Rights groups and journalism associations had asked the government to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death and allegations that he had been tortured by defence forces.

A promised investigation by President Paul Biya has however not been conducted and his body has never been handed to his family three years later.

As the government seeks to punish killers of Martinez Zogo, journalists are still deeply saddened that none of such investigations were conducted in the case of Samuel Wazizi.

Mimi Mefo Info