Nigeria’s foremost human rights lawyer Femi Falana SAN has dragged the government of Cameroon to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Banjul, The Gambia over the impending trial of 47 asylum seekers and naturalised Nigerians.

The lawyer wants the commission’s urgent intervention to end “the ongoing human rights violations of the applicants who were forcibly returned to Cameroon by the Nigerian authorities.”

Falana is asking “the Chairperson and the Bureau to urgently hold an extra-ordinary session of the African Commission to address the illegal and unfair return of 47 refugees and asylum seekers, and the continuing violations of the rights of the returnees by the government of Cameroon.

“We also urge the Chairperson of the Commission to speak out strongly and condemn the unfair treatment of the returnees by the government of Cameroon, and request the government to immediately release them from unlawful detention.” (NAN)