Musa Usman Ndamba
Today as I speak indigenous peoples of Africa are losing their ancestral lands to the multi-millionaires. Cooperate owners work complicitly with corrupts government officials with impunity, and render communities even more vulnerable to exploitation and human rights abuses
Musa Usman Ndamba is the vice-president of Mbororo Social and Cultural Development Association (MBOSCUDA), a social organisation which has championed the rights, including land rights, of Mbororo pastoralists in north-western Cameroon since the 1990s.
In Cameroon, human rights defenders and journalists critical of the government are particularly targeted and often face harassment. HRDs working on minority and land issues as well as those working on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexed (LGBTI) rights are particularly vulnerable. Security forces have tortured, beat, harassed, and abused citizens, journalists, detainees and human rights defenders, especially those who are members of the LGBTI community. Governmental authorities have also impeded the effectiveness of human rights NGOs by disrupting their gatherings, harassing and threatening violence against their members, in addition to violently dispersing peaceful demonstrations.
