Cameroon’s foremost opposition party, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) is in a tough fight for the release of some of its prominent members including the party leader’s spokesperson, Olivier Bibou Nissack.
Olivier was arrested in September 2020 alongside 20 others and have since been behind bars.
On November 5, 2020, the court rejected a habeas corpus request filed by the defendants as he and others were charged with including attempted revolution, rebellion, and unlawful assembly among.
Olivier’s party as well as human rights activists claim the said charges are politically motivated owing to his political activities.
Shortly after their arrest, they were first held in custody for over a month at the Secrétariat d’Etat à la Défense (SED), in Yaoundé, before being transferred to the Yaoundé Central Prison on November 3 for a six-month pretrial detention period.
“At SED, they were kept in total isolation, deprived of any reading materials, and frequently denied access to their lawyers,” noted rights body, Human Rights Watch.
As Kamto’s spokesperson, Olivier Bibou Nissack coordinated communication activities for the party leader and the entire MRC, wearing what many described as a ‘big shoe’.
As a legal and communication expert, he joined the MRC ahead of the 2018 Presidential elections and was tasked with communicating party values and ideologies in a political sphere that had been polluted by tribalism and several other vices. Despite this daunting task, he remained humble and always wore a generous smile.
At his age, he remained courageous, and did not fear referring to the long serving president and his regime as a band of impostors that need to be dislodge to give the Cameroonian people what is rightfully theirs once more.
He also was a vocal critic of government policy, as well as an advocate for the respect of the rule of law and the fight against arbitrary arrests.
As a family figure, his detention has deprived him from showing love and care to his wife and offspring including his recently born kid.
Olivier Bibou is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of other Cameroonians to have found themselves behind bars for objecting to the Biya regime’s constant oppression.
In addition to scores of opposition party officials and supporters ‘rotting’ in jails, hundreds are also detained in despicable conditions across the country in connection to the Anglophone crisis, as the regime maintains sealed lips over countless malpractices of its armed forces.
The MRC as well as human rights activists have pledged to fight to the finish, to secure the release of all unjustly detained.
Olivier Bibou Nissack, another victim of Biya’s dictatorship and suppression of democracy
