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Cameroonian opposition leader Anicet Ekane died on Monday morning while being held in detention in Yaounde, the vice president of his party confirmed to AFP.
Ekane, a left-wing nationalist figure, had been arrested in Douala on October 24, just a day before the official release of presidential election results that renewed 92-year-old Paul Biya’s hold on power for an eighth term.
He was a close ally of opposition politician Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who challenged Biya’s 43-year rule during the October 12 vote.
“Anicet Ekane died this morning in Yaounde, where he had been transferred after his arrest at the end of October in Douala,” Valentin Dongmo of the African Movement for the New Independence of Cameroon (Manidem) party said.
The details surrounding Ekane’s death have yet to be clarified.
“Anicet Ekane was arrested in Douala and then transferred to Yaounde, where he was held at the State Defence Secretariat (SED). It was there that his health began to deteriorate,” according to Dongmo.
“We repeatedly alerted the authorities, including the military court administration, requesting that Anicet Ekane be transferred to a hospital with the appropriate facilities for better care, but our requests did not receive a favourable response,” he said.
He added that Ekane’s supporters had called for a “medical evacuation” on Sunday.
Ekane and several other opposition figures were detained after openly backing Bakary’s self-declared presidential victory ahead of the release of the official results.
Manidem condemned the “arbitrary” arrests, saying they were intended to “intimidate” the Cameroonian population.
Political analyst Stephane Akoa noted that the SED, an administrative structure under the defence ministry, enables the authorities to “maintain strict control over VIP detainees or those considered as such” without necessarily offering them “better treatment.”
Akoa further stated that Ekane’s death “crudely reminds us that detention conditions in Cameroon are extremely poor, including “in some cases a disregard for human rights”,” despite the international conventions the country has endorsed.
In a statement on Monday, the defence ministry rejected any allegations of wrongdoing, asserting that “he was appropriately cared for by the medical staff”. The ministry added that an investigation had been launched to “precisely determine the circumstances of death”.
Born in Douala in 1951, Ekane joined the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) in 1973 before later breaking away to establish Manidem in 1995.
He was arrested in February 1990 alongside other members of the Yondo Black group, subsequently convicted in a military trial, and later pardoned after several months.
Ekane’s death, which has prompted widespread reactions on social media, capped a long political career in which he led Manidem for years and stood as its presidential candidate in 2004 and 2011.
The government said it learned of his passing “with consternation” and urged citizens to “remain calm”, adding that President Biya had ordered an immediate investigation to determine “the real causes” of his death.
The European Union delegation in Cameroon reiterated its demand for the release of all those arbitrarily detained since the presidential elections. It also emphasised the need for “justice” to prevent similar tragedies.
The delegation pointed to its earlier appeals to “guarantee the safety and physical integrity of all political actors” and to “combat the excessive use of violence and human rights violations”.
