Ayah Paul’s Death: A perfect Example of Anglophone Cameroon Marginalization and Victimization

He possessed the rare breed of Anglo Saxon values of truth and accountability to constituents. A judge who held true to the dictates of the Common Law System of all equal before the law. Illegality to him was a poison he could not take, neither was political corruption that enriches him against the masses. Paul Abine Ayah (1950 – 25 December 2024) was an Anglophone Cameroonian politician who was a member of the National Assembly of Cameroon and a member of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM). He later joined the opposition party, PAP (Peoples Action Party). In August 2007, he was elected as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly of Cameroon. He was a deputy for Manyu in the Southwest part of English Cameroon(Ambazonia).

Life and career

Ayah graduated from the National School of Administration and Magistracy (ENAM) in Yaoundé in 1976 and went on to become the vice-president of the Court of Appeal in Buea, until becoming member of the National Assembly of Cameroon in 2002. His constituency centered around his hometown, Akwaya, which is accessible by a poorly maintained road and foot track from Mamfe in Anglophone Cameroon.

A man of Values and Principles

In early 2008, Ayah was an outspoken critic of the 2008 changes to the Constitution of Cameroon, which removed term limits that would have prevented President Paul Biya from standing for re-election in 2011. According to Ayah, the changes were “not democratic”, and he said that if the bill was adopted it “will take us back some 200 years.” Despite not being present at the vote in the National Assembly and declaring that he had not made a procuration for his vote, a vote was reportedly made in his name.

On 3 January 2011, Ayah resigned from the CPDM and stood for the presidential election. He was later appointed a sitting judge at the Supreme Court of Cameroon. On 4 March 2019, he announced his resignation as president of the PAP.

Arrest and Release

Ayah was arrested on 21 January 2017, in connection with advocating for Cameroon to return to federal system of government as it was in the 1960s. He was tried at the Yaoundé military tribunal with Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), which is now banned and illegal by the government of Cameroon in relation to the civil war in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon. Ayah was released from prison by a presidential decree on 30 August 2017 after spending more than eight months in detention in Yaounde prison. He was tortured and his eyes damaged. He never regained his health. His family contents that Hon. Ayah was killed when he was arrested. Prior to his arrest, he has never been to a hospital. His pension which he earned was also suspended by the government as punishment for his stance against impunity on the minority English-speaking people. In the video below, the late Ayah paul explains his treatment by the French Cameroun dictator- Paul Biya.