Paul Biya is now 38 years as president of Cameroon, maintaining his position as Africa’s second longest-ruling leader.

He is only beaten by Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, who has been in power for nearly 41 years.

87-year-old Biya first rose to Cameroon’s top seat on November 6, 1982 when a large number of the country’s 26.5 million citizens were not yet born. He inherited a country of 9.2 million people from Ahmadou Ahidjo, the first president.

The anniversary of Biya’s ascension to power is usually marked with colourful celebrations. Crowds of the octogenarian leader’s supporters, including members of government and militants of his ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), clothed in fabrics with the veteran leader’s smiling face printed on them, gather at anniversary rallies across the country.

They will chant ego-massaging melodies to the one they consider their champion, then take a “support walk” across a distance that the mostly elderly supporters can cover on foot. They will then end with the reading of a motion of support in which they pledge their “unflinching” support to the president or “ask him to accept the call to be their candidate at the upcoming election”.

Biya himself is usually only present at such rallies through an imposing effigy taken when the ailing leader was still strong. This image is usually placed in front of the high table and carried by relatively young militants during support parades, but top government and party officials at such events usually promise to channel their messages of support to the leader in Yaounde.

The 38th anniversary of Biya’s ascension to the helm coincides with the second anniversary of his seventh mandate following his re-election in a disputed poll in October 2018, and swearing-in for a seventh seven-year term on November 6 the same year.

Many challenges

The current mandate ends in 2025, at which point Biya will be 92-years-old, a year younger than former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe when he was ousted from power.

This year would have been a double anniversary with double “eating and drinking” for supporters of Mr Biya, but for the fact that the celebration is coming at a very challenging time for the leader and the country.

Biya, who adopted the name Lion Man after the 1990 World Cup during which his country’s soccer team, the Indomitable Lions, became the first African country to reach the quarter finals, has been able to weather many storms.

This time, however, Central Africa’s economic giant is beset with several challenges threatening peace and the president’s grip on power.

Biya apathetically accepted the introduction of multiparty politics in the country in the 90s and in 1992, the country organised its first multi-candidate presidential election which he won and has since remained a serial election winner despite rarely making campaign outings.

However, a tough challenge to his rule has no doubt been post-2018 presidential elections.

Prof Maurice Kamto, his former ally and now opposition leader and harshest critic, has openly called for “gigantic protests” to oust Biya.

Kamto, who now heads the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), says he won the 2018 vote but that his victory was stolen by Biya.

The latest of Kamto’s popular protests on September 22, however, met with heavy force as government troops clamped down on his supporters. The government said they would be tried for attempting to destabilise the country.

45 of the arrestees were recently transferred to the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaounde while Mr Kamto has been under house arrest since September 21.

Separatists

Another challenge for Mr Biya is a separatist movement in the country’s two English-speaking regions that is threatening to tear the country apart. Separatist violence erupted when fighters declared the independence of the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions from the majority French-speaking country.

They also declared the creation of an independent English speaking state called Ambazonia.

This declaration of independence in October 2017 was met with a heavy military crackdown that has now escalated into armed conflict with over 3,000 people killed according to early 2020 statistics from the UN.

Schools and other government institutions have been targeted by armed men in the four-year-long conflict. At the time of this report, an official burial for seven school children killed by gunmen in their school was going on in Kumba in the Southwest region in the presence of the country’s Prime Minister, Dr Joseph Dion Ngute who was representing Mr Biya.

The leader had described the killing of the students of Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy as “horrific murder” and later decreed a day of national mourning in their honour.

Culled from The Street Journal

Activists continue to demand the release of hundreds of Cameroonian asylum seekers in ICE custody. Sylvie Bello, founder of the Cameroonian American Council, spoke to Democracy Now ahead of her “Freedom Friday” campaign, a weekly day of action in solidarity with Cameroonians held in ICE prisons.

Sylvie Bello: “Freedom Friday was inspired by 40 Cameroonian hunger strikers who protested anti-Blackness, anti-Africanness and racism in Louisiana. Today, some of those Pine Prairie hunger strikers are set for deportation on Tuesday. Please join us in calling the Congressional Black Caucus to push for the release of these Cameroonians, for Cameroon TPS, and to lift Black immigrants, within the detention and outside of detention.”

CONGRATULATIONS TO JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS

On behalf of the people of the Southern Cameroons, I write to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden on his election as the 46thPresident of the United States of America and to Kamala Harris on her remarkable accomplishment as the first female Vice President-elect.

President-elect Joe Biden brings a wealth of experience in foreign policy to the White House. At this challenging moment for the Southern Cameroons, we look forward to working closely together.

Congratulations again to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Regards,

Dabney Yerima

Vice Prsident

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The Roman Catholic Church in Kumbo says hundreds of supporters assembled at the cathedral Friday calling for the immediate release of Cardinal Christian Tumi and the chief of the Nso people, Sehm Mbinglo.

The church says the 90-year-old cardinal and the chief, known as the Fon, were abducted Thursday night with their delegation just south of the town.

“These are authorities that have been ordained by God and placed there to look over his people and so it is high time all the population, not only the Nso man but everybody should go out today and let the Fon and the Cardinal be released. This is something outrageous,”  Genesis Lukong, the secretary general of the Catholic Men’s Association, told VOA via telephone from Kumbo, in Cameroon’s Northwest.

Administrative officials in Kumbo’s Bui administrative unit confirmed the attack and blamed anglophone rebels. 

The cardinal was released Friday morning, but Mbinglo remains captive.

Sub-Chief of the Nso people Fidelis Chin says Mbinglo’s health has been waning and he needs regular medical care.  

“Any struggle that touches the Fon of Nso, that touches our tradition, that touches religion, is against the Nso people,” Chin said. “I call on all Nso elite, wherever they are, to come out.  Let’s tell these Amba boys that enough is enough.”

It’s not the first time that separatists have abducted Mbinglo.  

Mbinglo fled the area three years ago after rebels abducted him three times and killed two of his sons. The rebels accused him of collaborating with the central government.  

Tumi led talks with the rebels each time to secure the chief’s safe return.

Catholic Lawrence Nsahbinla was part of the negotiations.  

“It is not normal to abduct a man of God at his age,” Nsahbinla said. “And then they abducted him with his royal highness the Fon of Nso who was coming back to be reinstated in his dynasty. Two important personalities for the Christians and for the Nso man. This is something that the Christians and the Nso man have to take seriously and put an end to all these devilish actions.”

Teachers abducted

The abduction of the chief and the cardinal is the second such incident in Kumbo this week.  

On Tuesday, gunmen attacked a Presbyterian school and abducted 11 teachers.  

The teachers were released Thursday unharmed.  

The rebels have been fighting in western Cameroon since 2017 to carve out an English-speaking state from the majority French-speaking nation.  

The United Nations says the ongoing violence has claimed more than 3,000 lives and displaced more than 530,000 people.

Source: VOA 

Authorities in Cameroon say schools in rebel areas that reopened for the first time in four years are again being abandoned due to lack of security. Separatist forces are blamed for recent attacks that killed at least six teachers and seven schoolchildren.

In a video shared on Cameroon social media, seven armed rebels order teachers at the Kulu Memorial College in the southwestern town of Limbe to strip naked.

Teachers and students are shown crying for help as the teachers are humiliated then ordered to close the school and to leave.

Cameroon authorities confirmed the school on Wednesday was attacked.

Limbe teacher Lesslie Tabot refuses to instruct class until the government fulfils its promise to protect schools.

“The government assured parents and stakeholders of education that this time around maximum security has been put in place to ensure the smooth functioning of schools in the Northwest and Southwest regions. But what do we get every day? Students being attacked left and right, teachers also being victims.”

Cameroon’s Anglophone rebels have been fighting since 2017 to create an independent state for English-speakers, separate from French-speaking-majority Cameroon.

Last month, 140 schools in the troubled Northwest and Southwest regions reopened for the first time in four years after Cameroon’s government said those areas were secure.

But the military acknowledges that in the past three weeks, rebels have killed at least six teachers and seven children, abducted 23 teachers, and set three schools on fire.

The governor of Cameroon’s Northwest region, Deben Tchoffo, says about 20 of the schools that reopened in October have closed once again. And he admits several thousand students and teachers at other schools in the region are too scared to attend, despite added troops, which the governor called a “special security device.”

“It is not possible for security men to be behind every student.  We are asking them to continue going for classes because after the sad incidents, a special security device has been set up by the generals in charge of security at the level of the headquarters of the region and in the other divisions to accompany the students.”

Separatist groups have demanded that schools in the Northwest and Southwest remain closed until the government withdraws troops from what the rebels call their territory.

Despite the threats, president of the Cameroon Union of Parents and Teachers Peter Ndikum urged students and teachers to brave the attacks.

“We want to encourage our kids, despite their ages, they have a responsibility to write their own history. They are living within a period of consternation within the Anglophone sub system. The only way for them to make history is not to abandon the classroom. The first element is that of courage. To the parents, they should be able to realize that this call for independence is a sterile struggle.”

But the risk for teachers, parents, and students was underscored Thursday as a funeral was held for the seven schoolchildren killed October 24 by suspected rebels.

The attack on a private school in the Southwest town of Kumba was condemned internationally as a massacre and a grim reminder of the conflict’s toll on children.

Source: VOA

Prime Minister Dion Ngute Joseph represented his French Cameroun paymaster President Paul Biya at the funeral of the school children killed in Kumba Thursday, November 5, 2020.

The so-called head of government took part in the inter-faith prayers in honour of the kids at the Amusement Park in Kumba which was also attended by members of government, the French Cameroun SDO for Meme and Bafaw traditional rulers.

Mr Ngute laid a wreath reportedly from Mr. Biya who four years ago declared a war against the people of Southern Cameroons.

A Biya kinsman who also moonlights as the French Cameroun governor of the South West, Okalia Bilai Bernard read a Cameroon government condolence message.

For his administrative part, PM Dion Ngute conveyed Biya’s condolence message to the bereaved families and handed over a brown envelop from the butcher in Yaounde to the families of the children brutally murdered on that fateful day.

It is vital to include in this report that on Saturday, October 24, 2020, gunmen attacked Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy Fiango, Kumba and killed at least seven (six girls and a boy). The Southern Cameroons Interim Government blamed the attack on French Cameroun army soldiers stationed in the Meme County.

The students killed included Nzakame Rhema (10 years), Nguemene Princess (11 years), Anangim Jenifer (11 years), Ngwane Renny Munge (12 years), Victory Ngamenyi Camibon (12 years), Scheygnia Cindi (14 years), and Che Thellma Nchangwi (15 years).

By Kingsley Betek