Barrister Amungwa Nicodemus, one of the lawyers defending Sisiku Julius AyukTabe the leaders of the breakaway Ambazonia republic is recovering in a private hospital in that one of two plain clothes men that gripped his throat in a strangle hold which knocked him unconscious was a gendarme. It happened in broad day light near Amour Mezam bus station in Yaounde.
Amungwa was on foot when his attackers on a motor bike hit him from behind, perhaps accidentally. But things quickly twisted when he turned and raised alarm about the incident. But to the two bikers, Amungwa was too challenging.
The scene attracted teeming crowd of road users and traders. They shot videos of the men blocking Amungwa from leaving the place. Amungwa is seen in the video trying to leave the place but his attackers would grab him on his T shirt and shove him around.
At one point one of the attackers gripped Amungwa on the throat, his fingers digging into his flesh until cutting of his airway. Then his knees buckled, and he crashed to the ground, unconscious. Apparently shocked by their act, both men would attempt to leave. Bu the crowd that had witnessed the entire scene said no. Some police officers showed up and disarmed one of the aggressors, counted the bullets of his pistil and left.
Meanwhile, the two had earlier called for reinforcement claiming they had been aggressed. By the time gendarmes arrived in a pickup van, Amungwa had already been forced into comatose. His wife had also arrived the scene following a telephone call.
Her attempts to take her husband in a car she came with were thwarted by the gendarmes who insisted to take him in their pickup van. They had their way. Amungwa’s unconscious body was dumped like cargo at the back of the pickup with his feet without no shoes on, resting on the tailboard.
They drove him to the Biyem-Assi District Hospital where he was revived. Then the gendarmes said they would take him to their station for questioning. No way. At least two concerned lawyers who came to the hospital and some family members resisted. Amungwa later went back home. But his condition suddenly deteriorated in the thick of the night. He would return to a private clinic somewhere in the in the capital city.
The president of the Cameroon Bar Association sent his representative to the hospital where other professional colleagues have been flooding with support.
Even on his sick bed, barrister Amungwa who chairs the communication committee of the lawyers defending the Ambazonia leadership in prison was able to synchronize with his colleagues who staged a protest to the disappearance of several anglophone detainees from jail.