By NDI EUGENE NDI

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Cameroon opposition leader Maurice Kamto has been charged with inciting insurrection and rebellion and remanded to prison, his lawyer has said.

Felix Nkongho Agbor said that the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) leader was on Wednesday morning indicted by the military tribunal in the capital Yaoundé on charges of insurrection, rebellion, complicity in destruction, and hostility.

“Prof Kamto and other senior MRC members including Albert Dzongang, Celestine Djamen, Christian Penda Ekoka, Paul Eric Kingue and Prof Alain Fogue have all been transferred to the Principal Prison in Kondengui,” said Mr Agbor.

Prof Kamto, who declared himself winner of last year’s presidential election, was arrested late January for organising and participating in unauthorised street protests and held in police custody for two weeks.

The demos, christened “white marches”, were violently suppressed by security forces leaving at least six people with bullet wounds.

Cameroon's Minister of Communication, Rene Emmanuel Sadi said 117 people had been arrested in the protests for “disrupting public order and perpetrating various assaults”.

They will also be presented before the military court which will decide whether to charge them.

Prof Kamto maintains that he was the winner of the October 2018 presidential poll won by veteran leader Paul Biya.

Official results show the opposition leader got 14.23 percent of the total vote to place second.

MRC has been sporadic organising protests against what they term “an electoral hold-up” and “to reclaim their stolen victory”.

Mr Sadi described the demos as an “unacceptable manoeuvres to destabilise Cameroon under the false pretext of an electoral hold-up.”

President Biya has ruled Cameroon since 1982.