Cameroon’s Direction Générale de la Recherche Extérieure (DGRE), the country’s foreign and counter-intelligence agency, has long been linked to operations that reach far beyond national borders. Under the leadership of Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, who directed the service from 2010 to 2023, the DGRE gained notoriety for involvement in some of the Biya regime’s most controversial episodes. Eko Eko himself was later investigated in connection with the abduction and killing of journalist Martinez Zogo in early 2023, a case that underscored both the agency’s notoriety and its reach [1].

For Southern Cameroons activists, the most consequential DGRE-linked episode came in January 2018, when Nigerian authorities arrested 47 Cameroonians—including separatist leader Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe—and transferred them to Yaoundé. The operation was widely believed to have been coordinated with DGRE [2]. On March 1, 2019, Nigeria’s Federal High Court declared the deportation illegal and unconstitutional, ordering the government to return the detainees and pay compensation [3]. That order was never implemented. By August 2019, a military tribunal in Yaoundé sentenced Ayuk Tabe and nine others to life imprisonment, sparking condemnation from Human Rights Watch and others over due-process violations and prison conditions [4]. In 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that their detention was arbitrary and violated international law [5].

This cycle of extraordinary rendition, unlawful detention, and judicial disregard bears the hallmarks of transnational repression. Biya’s intelligence services have sought to erase the boundary between domestic control and international law, attempting to extend Cameroon’s punitive reach into foreign jurisdictions.

Legal Campaigns Abroad

Beyond intelligence operations, Yaoundé’s allies have also pursued legal strategies designed to intimidate or silence diaspora activists. In the United States, Los Angeles–based attorney Emmanuel Nsahlai—son of regime stalwart Christopher Nsahlai, a long-time CPDM power-broker and contractor—has filed multiple complaints targeting Ambazonian activists since 2017 [6]. Ironically, Emmanuel once accused the regime of complicity in his father’s death in 2008; yet today, whether out of fear or calculated choice, he has aligned himself with the same regime’s objectives abroad.

Most of Nsahlai’s lawsuits against Ambazonian activists in the diaspora collapsed in U.S. courts, either dismissed on procedural grounds or withdrawn for lack of substance [7]. In a reversal of fortunes, one activist, Dr. Ivo Tapang, has filed a defamation suit against Nsahlai in a California federal court, with proceedings launched in March 2025 [8].

These cases illustrate how Cameroon’s political conflicts spill into foreign jurisdictions. While few attempts to criminalize political activism abroad succeed, the very process of litigation imposes financial costs and psychological strain. In this sense, the courtroom strategy mirrors DGRE’s broader transnational playbook: the goal is not always legal victory, but disruption and deterrence.

Allegations and Attribution

Other names surface in activist petitions and legal submissions. Figures such as Konda Titus have been cited in filings to the International Criminal Court as collaborators in military abuses—claims yet to be adjudicated in any court [9].

Similarly, financial allegations surround the Nsahlai family. While Emmanuel himself has not been convicted of misconduct, Rose-Marie Nsahlai was convicted in 2023–2024 in Virginia for bank-fraud–related offenses, a conviction upheld on appeal in 2024 [10]. This case has fueled broader speculation about the family’s conduct, though it remains crucial to distinguish documented convictions from unverified claims.

A Global Pushback

Despite Yaoundé’s efforts, Cameroon’s regime has struggled to persuade foreign governments to treat political activism, agitation, or self-determination as criminal acts. Residents in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union operate under legal systems that safeguard freedom of expression and association. Attempts to manipulate these systems—whether through intelligence pressure or courtroom maneuvers—have more often than not failed [11].

The contrast is stark: at home, Paul Biya rules through a climate of fear, with security agencies acting as judge and jailer. Abroad, those same agencies encounter the hard limits of democratic institutions and the rule of law. It is precisely within this tension—between authoritarian ambition and legal constraint—that the story of Cameroon’s transnational repression continues to unfold.

References

1. Reporters Without Borders, Cameroon: Journalist Martinez Zogo’s murder investigation implicates senior intelligence figures (2023).

2. Amnesty International, Cameroon: Arbitrary detention of Anglophone leaders (2018).

3. Federal High Court of Nigeria, Abuja, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe v. Attorney General of the Federation (Judgment, March 1, 2019).

4. Human Rights Watch, Cameroon: Anglophone leaders sentenced to life imprisonment (August 2019).

5. United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Opinion No. 59/2022 concerning Julius Ayuk Tabe and others (2022).

6. Nsahlai Law Firm filings, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (2017–2020).

7. Court dockets, C.D. Cal., dismissals of cases brought by Nsahlai (2018–2021).

8. Tapang v. Nsahlai, Case filed March 2025, U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

9. Petition to the International Criminal Court by Southern Cameroons advocacy groups (2020, on file with petitioners).

10. United States v. Rose-Marie Nsahlai, Case No. 1:22-cr-00167, E.D. Va.; conviction affirmed Nov. 2024 by Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

11. U.S. Department of State, 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Cameroon.