The protest soon escalated into a riot, with over 600 Ambazonian and Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) inmates taking over the prison yard, forcing the guards to pull out.

[9] On July 24, around 100 inmates at Buea Central Prison, acting in solidarity with their fellow detainees at Kondengui, staged a protest of their own.

On July 26, the two competing factions of the Interim Government of Ambazonia (split since the 2019 Ambazonian leadership crisis) issued statements regarding the riot at Kondengui.

The faction loyal to Samuel Ikome Sako gave Cameroon five days to account for the inmates who had been missing following the riot at Kondengui; if it failed to do so, the separatists would enforce a "total lockdown" where "nothing enters and nothing leaves" the Anglophone regions, starting on July 30.

The faction loyal to Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe (who had been detained at Kondengui for more than a year), supported by the Ambazonia Governing Council, refrained from making any ultimatums, declaring instead that a lockdown would be imposed on July 29 and 30 regardless of Cameroon's actions.

[10] On July 30, the ten detained members of the Interim Government of Ambazonia, including Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, declared that they would go on a hunger strike until their lawyers could verify the whereabouts of all convicts who had been missing since the riots.