Monthly Archives: October 2018

7, October 2018

Biya regime closes borders ahead of presidential polls ⁰

Cameroon national borders will be closed ahead of the presidential polling day on Sunday, the country’s minister of territorial administration Paul Atanga Nji said on Friday.

“National borders shall be closed 48 hours to polling day. They will be reopened the following day after voting.” Nji told a press conference in the capital Yaounde.

The authorities announced the measure as the election is taking place in a context of growing tension in the Anglophone regions where separatists are fighting to create a new nation called “Ambazonia”.

Armed separatist forces have vowed they will disrupt voting in the regions.

Nji also said that the circulation of goods and persons within the territory by road, railway, and airlines is banned as from 6 pm October 6 to 6 pm October 7, adding that assembly of persons in front of polling centers are also banned.

Over 6,500,000 registered voters are expected to vote during Sunday’s presidential race, according to the Cameroonian electoral body, Elections Cameroon.

The outgoing president Paul Biya, leader of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, is seeking to extend his 36 years in office by winning a new seven-year mandate.

Source: Xinhuanet

7, October 2018

October 7: ‘Massive fraud’ planned for polls ⁰

An opposition contender who will seek election in Cameroon’s impending presidential polls alleged on Friday that a “massive fraud” is underway to ensure the sitting president wins a seventh term.

Maurice Kamto’s campaign chief Paul-Eric Kingue said that efforts to rig Sunday’s ballot “had the blessing” of the Elecam electoral commission.

“We won’t accept any result if this kind of fraud continues,” he said at a media briefing by Kamto’s Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) party in the capital Yaounde. Kingue called on party supporters to “fiercely resist” rigging.

The MRC has alleged that polling cards have been forged and that voter registration has been allowed to continue despite the process being officially closed. “In 62% of areas, the (ruling) Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party is still adding names to the voter roll,” said Kingue.

“But this year, 2018, will not be like 2011,” he vowed.

In the most recent presidential elections in that year, President Paul Biya won a sixth term in office with 78% of votes in polls the opposition and observers accused of being flawed. “We’re not preparing for war, but wherever there is fraud, there will be a firm response,” said Kingue.

Rumours have emerged in recent days of a possible coalition between opposition presidential contenders. Kamto’s campaign director confirmed that “talks were underway” with rival opposition hopeful Akere Muna – but Kingue was unable to confirm if a deal had been struck.

Biya, 85, has been in power for 35 years and will face-off against eight opposition contenders. The front-runners are Joshua Osih, Maurice Kamto and Akera Muna.

AFP

7, October 2018

Southern Cameroonians boycott Cameroun election as violence worsens ⁰

Many Cameroonians face being unable to vote in the country’s election on Sunday because of insecurity and fear driven by worsening violence in its anglophone regions.

Paul Biya, the 85-year-old who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, looks set to capitalise on a divided opposition to easily win his fifth election since reluctantly adopting a multiparty system in 1992.

Separatists in the English-speaking regions have announced a boycott of the poll, and many voters there have said they are too scared to go to the polls. At least 400 civilians have been killed in unrest in the past year, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

“Who can vote when our brothers are dying? How can we even vote, when you don’t know how safe it will be?” asked Chimene Ngum, a 23-year-old student in Bamenda, capital of the anglophone Northwest region.

The rebellion that erupted in the country’s two anglophone regions was triggered by the violent repression of a peaceful protest a year ago, after lawyers complained that magistrates were being appointed to their courts despite their poor English. It spread to the regions’ teachers and students, then activists symbolically declared the two anglophone regions the independent republic of Ambazonia.

A taxi passes an electoral poster for President Paul Biya in Yaounde.

Biya’s government responded with a wave of arrests and killings.

For years, anglophones have felt deliberately sidelined and neglected, their infrastructure left to crumble. Last year, for instance, Biya’s home region was allocated almost twice the money that the anglophone regions got combined, the public investment budget shows, despite their vital importance to Cameroon’s economy. Much of the country’s oil production is off the coast of the Southwest region, and onshore are its biggest cocoa-growing areas.

Biya was due to visit Buea, the Southwest regional capital, on Wednesday for a rally, but called off his trip at the last minute after the “Amba boys”, as the forces of the Ambazonian separatists are known, issued more threats. It would have been the first trip he has made to the anglophone regions since 2014, in which time he has spent at least 260 days on private trips abroad, many to Geneva.

Teachers who were bussed into a heavily securitised Buea to participate in the ruling party’s rally said they were threatened that there would be consequences if they did not attend. Meanwhile, gunfights broke out between Ambazonian and Cameroonian forces in villages near the city.

It is unclear how many of the 4000 polling stations due to open in the anglophone regions will function on Sunday, though some are determined to cast their ballots.

Supporters of President Paul Biya repairing a car on their way to a rally in Maroua

“I am going to the polls this Sunday, despite the fact that our brothers don’t want us to. They should understand that this is the only way we can get the change we want,” said Judith Mafor, a supporter of the main opposition party. “We have tried with guns and this has taken us to the graves and to the bushes.”

Others said they would not risk voting and described feeling powerless.

“We vote all the time and the outcome remains the same,” said Josephine Ngum, a tailor from Bamenda. “Why do I have to vote again? In a country where real democracy is instituted, when someone’s term of office is over, he steps down for another person to take over. This is not the case with Cameroon.”

Chimene Ngum said she didn’t even have a voter’s card. “Even if I had one, I wouldn’t vote because the results would still be the same. Paul Biya always wins,” she said.

After Robert Mugabe’s fall from power last year, Biya took up the mantle of being Africa’s oldest president, making Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, 74, and Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, 75, seem young.

Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang, 76, currently holds the title for the longest-serving president in Africa, having ousted his uncle in a military coup in 1979. Biya, who rules his cocoa and oil-producing country essentially by decree, is second.

Culled from The Guardian

7, October 2018

Biya’s Continued Stay in Power: Drama begins as ELECAM rejects Muna’s withdrawal, Matomba denies coalition ⁰

Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, the organizing body for the October 7 presidential elections has officially rejected the stepping down of a key candidate, Akere Muna.

Muna, one of nine candidates announced a coalition with a former minister, Maurice Kamto, late Friday. But ELECAM through a press release with hours to the vote said it rejects the move.

Muna had written to the body to officially retract his candidature but ELECAM said it was impossible to admit Muna’s request because it had no basis in law, much less with just hours to the opening of polls.

Opposition coalition shrinks after ‘growth?”

Meanwhile news that the opposition coalition in Cameroon had grown to three has since been denied by Serge Espoir Matomba, leader of the PURS. Reports suggested that he had backed the Kamto-Muna alliance.

News of his decision to step down in support of former minister Maurice Kamto had been expected through the better part of Saturday but in a Facebook LIVE posted in the evening, he denied any such alliance.

Twenty-four hours prior, Akere Muna had announced that his party hand entered an alliance with Kamto with the view of presenting a united front. The current development means that even though nine candidates are on the ballot, there are seven aspirants to choose from.

Incumbent Paul Biya is facing a stiff challenge to his over three-decades in charge. The coalition has come late in the day but some political watchers say it could prove crucial.

Source: Africa News

6, October 2018

Still Time to Increase Chance of Peaceful Poll in Cameroon – A Letter from Crisis Group ⁰

Dear friends of Crisis Group,

On 7 October 2018, Cameroonians will vote in a precarious presidential election. The political climate is tense, the economy unsteady and the country is threatened by Boko Haram in the Far North and armed separatists groups in the Anglophone regions in the Northwest and Southwest. A few days ahead of polling day, communal tensions are also growing, while new movements are forming across the country, which, though still embryonic, reject the election.

Crisis Group has been closely following recent developments in Cameroon and their implications for the upcoming election, along with a steady flow of reporting since 2014 on Boko Haram in the country’s Far North, and on the Anglophone crisis since 2016. Our publications provide an overview of key issues surrounding the vote. We have prepared a full reading list, and outline some of our key publications below.

Today, our briefing entitled Cameroon: Divisions Widen Ahead of Presidential Vote was made available in full in both English and French. In it, we argue that the government and armed Anglophone separatists still have time to declare a ceasefire to improve prospects for a peaceful poll in areas affected by the conflict. In addition, the government should strike a more conciliatory tone toward the Anglophone conflict and make moves to curb rhetoric stigmatising specific ethnic groups across the country. Outside powers – in particular the African Union, France, the UN and the U.S. – should use the days before the election to push for a ceasefire while taking a firmer line against leaders implicated in violence on either side. They should also call on the government to refrain from cracking down violently against any protests that take place around the vote.

In September, Crisis Group issued a statement calling for national and international support for the proposed Anglophone General Conference. We argue that the conference could offer a decisive breakthrough in the Anglophone crisis if all parties, including the separatists, attend.

As fighting between government forces and Boko Haram insurgents in Cameroon’s Far North diminishes, a lasting peace depends on how the government deals with former members of the jihadist movement, its former prisoners and the vigilante groups set up to fight it. Our August report advocates for community service, public confessions, symbolic ceremonies and vocational training to help reintegrate those who do not pose a threat.

The danger of bloodshed around this weekend’s vote is high in Anglophone regions, and insecurity in the Far North will hinder the administration of the poll. In a more peaceful climate, the election could offer the political renewal Cameroon needs. As things stand, it risks further polarising society. Though time is short before the vote, these parties could take steps to calm tensions and reduce this risk.

Dr. Comfort Ero
Director, Africa Program
International Crisis Group

6, October 2018

Nigeria: Opposition PDP holds critical primaries to choose Buhari opponent ⁰

Nigeria’s main opposition party will have its unity tested in the aftermath of this weekend’s primaries for the presidential flag-bearer, which is being contested by several political heavyweights in the party.

Both the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will hold primary elections this weekend to select their nominees for presidential polls scheduled for February 2019.

While President Muhammadu Buhari is likely to be unanimously endorsed to contest a second term at the APC convention in Abuja, the opposition PDP which was in office from 1999 until 2015 has a tighter race in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

PDP’s candidates

The leading contenders in the race to be PDP presidential flag-bearer are former allies of Buhari, who fell out with his administration, and defected to the opposition.

But since then, Buhari’s party has seen a wave of defections in protest at his leadership style and a surge in PDP contenders that could give it momentum as the vote approaches.

Perennial presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, a 71-year-old former vice-president from the northeastern state of Adamawa, was the one of the first big names to throw his hat in the ring.

Then, after lawmakers crossed the floor in July, former Kano state governor Rabiu Kwankwaso emerged as a leading opposition candidate, promising he can secure the key northern state.

Sokoto state governor Aminu Tambuwal joined the PDP defectors and declared his candidacy to pry northern voters away from Buhari, who enjoys mass support across the north.

Finally, the ambitious Senate leader Bukola Saraki, a former Kwara state governor who is seen as the shepherd of the defectors, announced he would campaign for the top job.

The likely chosen candidate is expected to come from the Muslim-majotity North, following an unwritten rule in Nigeria that the presidency should alternate every two terms between a candidate from the north and south.

Unity beyond primaries?

Rising tensions and divisions have been reflected in hotly contested local party primaries, said Idayat Hassan, director of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja.

“These primaries have been fractious,” she said. “It’s one of the most contentious in a long time.”

After the PDP officially chooses its presidential candidate, the party will select a running mate, who will likely come from the largely Christian south.

“What we’re waiting to see is if the (PDP) will be able to continue as one,” said Hassan. “Now they are putting up a united front — but will that continue?”

AFP

6, October 2018

Southern Cameroons crisis hits economy ⁰

As Paul Biya seeks a seventh term in office in Sunday’s presidential election, the economic outlook for Cameroon is far from rosy. In reality businesses are shutting down as unemployment is increasing in the country’s restive Anglophone regions.

Coffee and cocoa are key economic mainstays of the country’s two English-speaking regions.

“Previously when you come to the market, you see a lot of people here. But now you don’t see anybody around. Now people are not coming to the market because they are afraid of the crisis”, said popcorn vendor Kenji Jude.

“All the customers have gone. Most of the time we come out but there is not customer to buy. So it is not making work because the customers are out, they have gone. The place is empty”, said butcher Wilfried Eron.

“Our President has been in power for 36 years and there has been no change. So everyone’s angry. I’m angry, we go to school and graduate without a job, nothing, nothing. Everyone is angry.”, said taxi driver John.

Last month the country’s employers’ group GICAM estimated that exports for both crops were down 20 percent, blaming the insecurity and the displacement of people escaping the unrest.

Fighting has become a daily occurrence in both Anglophone regions since late 2017 when separatists issued a symbolic declaration of “independence” from mainly francophone Cameroon.

AFP

6, October 2018

Interpol chief reported missing in China, say French police ⁰

Interpol’s president Meng Hongwei has been reported missing after travelling to his native China last week, French police said on Friday.

Meng’s wife contacted police in Lyon, the French city where the international police cooperation agency has its headquarters, after not hearing from him since his departure on September 29, police sources said.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post quoted an unnamed source as saying Meng, 64, was under investigation in China and had been taken away for questioning as soon as he landed there. Interpol said it was aware of reports in connection with Meng’s “alleged disappearance”.

“This is a matter for the relevant authorities in both France and China,” the agency said in a statement. French police sources told Reuters their investigation was into what is termed in France a “worrying disappearance”.

Interpol’s main function is to provide a mechanism for police forces in different countries to notify each other of wanted suspects.

Meng has almost 40 years’ experience in criminal justice and policing, and has overseen matters related to legal institutions, narcotics control and counter-terrorism, according to Interpol’s website.

Meng is listed on the website of China’s Ministry of Public Security as a vice-minister, but lost his seat on its key Communist Party Committee in April, the South China Morning Post said.

He was named president of Interpol in 2016. Rights groups expressed concern at the time that Beijing might try to use Meng’s position at the body to go after dissidents abroad.

Beijing has in the past pressed other countries to arrest and deport back to China citizens it accuses of crimes including corruption and terrorism. Reuters was not immediately able to reach China’s Ministry of Public Security for comment.

Diplomats say the role of Interpol president is largely ceremonial, with day-to-day work carried out by its secretary general Juergen Stock and his staff.

In July last year, Meng gave a speech on the importance of cracking down on cyber crime which observers said might reflect China’s views on the issue. Police sources said Meng’s wife and children remained in Lyon.

(REUTERS)

6, October 2018

Opposition forms coalition ahead of Cameroon vote ⁰

Two Cameroonian opposition parties agreed a coalition on Friday to jointly contest this weekend’s presidential polls, a spokesman said, in an effort to dislodge six-term President Paul Biya.

The announcement confirms rumours of an opposition manoeuver to try to defeat 85-year-old Biya at Sunday’s polls, but the new union will not include the main opposition Social Democratic Front’s hopeful Joshua Osih.

Akere Muna, leader of the People’s Development Front (FDP) agreed to “withdraw his candidacy… and to support Maurice Kamto,” leader of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC), Muna’s spokesman said in a statement.

Kamto’s party alleged earlier on Friday that a “massive fraud” was underway to ensure the sitting president wins a seventh term.

Maurice Kamto’s campaign chief Paul-Eric Kingue said efforts to rig Sunday’s ballot “had the blessing” of the electoral commission.

“We won’t accept any result if this kind of fraud continues,” he said at a media briefing by Kamto’s MRC in the capital Yaounde.

Cameroon’s authorities have long faced accusations of unfairly favouring Biya, one of Africa’s longest serving rulers who won 78 percent of votes in 2011’s polls which were described as “flawed” by observers and the opposition.

‘Attempting to spread chaos’

Cameroon will vote amid tight security including a ban on internal travel by road, rail and air from 1700 GMT Saturday until the conclusion of voting.

The borders of the central African nation of 25 million people will also be sealed 48 hours ahead of voting day, according to a decree seen by AFP.

Kamto’s MRC has alleged that polling cards have been forged and that voter registration has continued despite the process being officially closed.

“In 62 percent of areas, the (ruling) Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party is still adding names to the voter roll,” said Kingue.

“We’re not preparing for war, but wherever there is fraud, there will be a firm response.”

Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said in a statement that “measures have been taken… to prevent any actions that might create violence or disorder around the elections”.

He added that “political figures linked to foreign interests were preparing groups of agitators to stir-up violence in the event that the results don’t go their way”.

The minister did not specify who he was referring to.

“By attempting to spread chaos, they risk being unpleasantly surprised,” he said. The authorities would “not tolerate any disorder before, during or after the presidential vote,” he added.

Biya has been in power for 35 years and now faces seven opposition contenders following Muna’s withdrawal.

The opposition front-runners are Osih and Kamto.

(AFP)

6, October 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Manyu Advisory Council Chairman vows to work with the IG ⁰

Accept my revolutionary greetings this morning, in the spirit of love, cooperation, unity and understanding, in the name of our long abandoned Manyu and her suffering and subjugated citizens.

I sincerely thank all who have conveyed congratulatory messages to me, publicly and privately, on my being called to be head servant of Manyu and driver of the bus of our collective destiny in this most trying times in the history of our fatherland. I also thank those who receive news of my election by the MAC differently, for they also have the interest of Manyu at heart.

Manyu has many bright, talented and capable minds. Many out there are far smarter and more capable than me to serve in this capacity. Unfortunately there can be only one leader at a time. Incidentally that onerous responsibility has fallen on my shoulders at this time. The task of taking our darling Manyu to her rightful place at the committee of counties and/or zones/regions in the current and future dispensations is too much to be carried by one head. That’s why I’m calling upon every Manyu son and daughter to bring in their respective skill sets, experience and other resources to the table. Our tent is wide enough to accommodate everybody, every idea and suggestion.

I specially thank the able men and women of MAC, other Manyu groups, and freelance citizens, for working hard to protect and defend the interests of Manyu at all times. I also thank our wonderful Amazons serving our hugely successful Manyu Health Project, Manyu Capital Ventures, as well as others. I thank all those who have contributed and are still contributing to the purse of the Manyu project. May the Good Lord reward you abundantly.

It is my intention to work closely with the Interim Government (I/G) its ancillary organs, and all who stand for the progress and emancipation of our long subjugated and suffering people and land. You shall expect a more comprehensive policy position of my administration in the coming days. As I said before, your ideas and input are welcome. Together we shall get there.

Long Live Manyu

Long Live Southern Cameroons

Sisiku Dr Ako Peter