He was arrested on the same day alongside Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor and deported to Yaoundé overnight where they would both spend nine perilous months in the Kondengui Maximum security prison.
Before becoming Secretary General of the banned Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC),[2] he was the Secretary General of University Lecturers’ trade union of the University of Buea (SYNES) before his arrest on January 17, 2017, for staging a peaceful protest in the defence of Anglophone Cameroon common law system of education.
On January 17, 2017, at about 6:15 pm, it was reported that Dr. Fontem Neba was arrested alongside Barrister Agbor Balla, Ayah Paul Abine in Buea by a combined squad of police, gendarmes, elements of the military intelligence unit and the dreaded secret service unit known by its French Acronym as DGR.
The arrest immediately followed the banning of the Consortium which had waged a civil disobedience campaign to protest grave marginalization and systemic assimilation of the English speaking minority in Cameroon by the majority Francophones.
[10][12] On the March 23 the Neba Fondem trial at the Yaounde military court tribunal was adjourned for another hearing on April 27, May 24[13] and July 27 same year[14] and on the August 31 through a presidential decree by president Paul Biya.