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29, May 2023

FECAFOOT: FIFA against changing Eto’o’s term of office ⁰

Football’s world governing body is not in favour of extending the current term of office of Cameroon Football Federation president Samuel Eto’o from 4 to 7 years.

Less than a year after the election of Samuel Eto’o, the Cameroon Football Federation (Fécafoot) has amended the term of office of the association’s president. This has now been extended from 4 to 7 years, with the term renewable only once. But it will take much longer for this provision, adopted at the General Assembly on 27 August 2022, to come into force.

Sport News Africa has learned that FIFA has not approved the new version of Fécafoot’s statutes. “FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura wrote to the president of Fécafoot several months ago,” reports an informed source. “In her letter, she invited the Cameroonian leader to convene a new General Assembly before the end of May 2023. The aim was to cancel the point concerning the modification of the term of office of the president of Fécafoot and return it to 4 years”. As requested by FIFA, the Fécafoot General Assembly took place in Yaounde on Saturday 27 May 2023. The big news is that there is no mandate extension for Eto’o.

Tailor-made texts

Article 37 of Fécafoot’s new statutes, relating to the modification of the president’s term of office, is not the only “innovation” of the Eto’o era. Several provisions have been tailored to the needs of the governing body. Article 36, relating to the general conditions of eligibility, stipulates in paragraph 1.b that any candidate for an elective post must not have “been sentenced to a final custodial sentence accompanied by a detention order”. In other words, any individual who has been convicted by the courts may stand as a candidate in an election, as long as he or she has not been sent to prison.

According to Cameroonian analysts contacted by Sport News Africa, the aim of this new provision is to allow Samuel Eto’o to remain in office until the end of his term, and then stand again, even though he was found guilty of tax fraud and sentenced to 22 months in prison by the Spanish courts in June 2022. “Paragraph 1.d of article 36 of the old statutes disqualified him and stripped him of his status as president of Fécafoot. This stipulated that any citizen who had been sentenced to a final custodial sentence with a simple suspended sentence or with probation of more than six months could not be a candidate”, a journalist explains.

Source: Sports News Africa

27, May 2023

French prosecutors charge ex-FIFA vice president with corruption in Qatar World Cup probe ⁰

FIFA’s disgraced former vice-president Reynald Temarii of Tahiti has been charged with corruption by French prosecutors probing Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid process.

The French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in 2016 launched preliminary anti-corruption investigations regarding the conditions under which the 2022 Football World Cup was awarded to Qatar.

The charge, the first to emerge from the years-long investigation, is for passive corruption and was confirmed by France’s financial crimes prosecutors (PNF).

Temarii is a former president of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

But he was forced out in 2010 after being implicated in a vote-selling scandal during an undercover newspaper sting before the controversial awarding to Qatar of last year’s football showpiece.

Temarii was banned for a year by FIFA on November 17, 2010, ruling him out of the infamous December 2 vote at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich.

The OFC were entitled to organise someone to vote in his place, with the first of their votes designated for Australia then if necessary to the United States, the favourites for the 2022 staging rights over Qatar.

But Temarii appealed his ban on the night of November 30, having initially accepted his suspension.

His appeal, as per FIFA rules, deprived the OFC of a vote on December 2, with Qatar eventually winning the ballot over the USA 14-8.

The French investigation, set up in 2019, was particularly interested in a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on November 23, 2010, just over a week before the vote, between then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Qatari prince Tamim ben Hamad al-Thani — who became Emir in 2013 — and UEFA president at the time Michel Platini who subsequently voted for Qatar.

Temarii was hit with a separate eight year ban in 2015 for receiving 300,000 euros to cover his legal expenses for his 2010 appeal from former FIFA executive member Mohamed bin Hammam, a key player in securing the World Cup for his home country, Qatar.

Bin Hammam was banned for life from football in 2012.

Source: AFP

27, May 2023

How abductions finance separatists in Southern Cameroons ⁰

Abductions are a new fundraising method used by separatists, analysts say. More than 30 women were taken last week for “allowing themselves to be manipulated by Cameroon’s government,” according to the insurgents.

The latest abduction of over 30 women by separatists has caused uproar across Cameroon.

According to reports, they were forcibly taken from the village of Big Babanki, located about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Bamenda in the northwest of the country. Some were said to have been “severely tortured.”

The separatist gangs responsible for these kinds of abductions are all part of a moblike structure running the region, where insurgents are waging attacks against the government: They impose illegal taxes on locals, which they collect monthly from women, men and even children.

They also demand taxes from unmarried couples, and even force families to pay the equivalent of about €1,000 ($1,070) to bury their deceased relatives.

But dissent against the dissidents is growing: Ordinary citizens and civil society groups in Cameroon have expressed anger over the arbitrary way that separatists choose to run the region.

When residents refuse to be silenced, their leaders opt for violence, as was the case with the latest abductions: The women had reportedly refused to pay the illegal taxes imposed by the separatists and rejected a curfew imposed on them.

During the attack on the villagers, several of the women were reportedly injured; there were reports of violence and torture against them. Relatives of those who were abducted said they were anxious about their return.

Silencing women activists – for a reason

Ngongba Assumpta Lum, the founder of the Centre for Advocacy in Gender Equality and Action for Development, told DW that the kidnappings were deliberately aimed at trying to silence women in particular, as they are the ones who usually play a crucial role in crisis resolution in traditional and tribal societies in Cameroon.

“The kidnapping of these women in Babanki is a serious blow to us as civil society actors, especially as women-led organizations, peace advocates and organizations fighting for peace to return to the regions,” she said, adding that she feared that this surge in abductions over the past five years would yet get worse.

“I think as mothers, we are greatly touched because this situation is going overboard,” Lum added.

No trust in the government

Cameroon’s government said on Wednesday that a special military operation to rescue the women was underway. However, locals aren’t confident of a success, as it is the same government that these separatists are fighting.

Some of them had said the women were abducted for “allowing themselves to be manipulated by Cameroon’s government.”

But Sally Mbumien, a community leader in Bamenda, believes the actions of the fighters are an attempt to erode the power of women in Cameroon: “Not only is this politicizing our traditional institutions of women’s power, it is also an insult to womanhood, to motherhood and also it sets the wrong precedence,” he told DW, adding that this was “the worst thing that can happen.”

Yvonne Muma, a resident of Bamenda, said she felt angered by the kidnappings, telling DW that the abduction was tantamount to a sacrilege: “These boys have just raised the wrath of God by touching our mothers. They will have no peace until they confess,” Muma said.

Kidnappings: a new way of financing separatism

Cameroon has been plagued by fighting since English-speaking separatists launched a rebellion against the government in 2017. The dissidents say they want the region to secede from the area dominated by the French-speaking majority, and creating an independent, English-speaking state.

But the conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives to date and has forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes.

With insurgents running out of funds to continue with their campaign — even despite collecting illegal taxes — analysts believe that resorting to abductions appears to be an attractive way to finance their operations.

“Now we have cases of mass kidnappings. Initially, there would be one or two individuals being kidnapped and ransom being asked,” human rights lawyer Agbor Balla told DW, adding that the number of abductions is skyrocketing.

According to Balla, tighter government controls on money laundering and the flow of illicitly obtained money have crippled the activities of the separatists.

“As government tightens financial flows, separatist leaders and sympathizers abroad … it becomes difficult to get the necessary financial support to fund” their activities, he said, adding that endeavors in certain Western countries in the fight against terrorism and its funding had also helped bleed the pockets of separatists dry.

Few rogue elements ‘abducting’ anglophone cause

Meanwhile, the concerns expressed by such separatist groups are regarded as valid: They allege that Anglophone speakers suffer political marginalization in Cameroon and lack the recognition of their cultural identity.

However, the more violent their methods become, the less sympathy they are likely to garner from outside observers — and perhaps also from their own people, even if these kidnappings and other violent acts are only carried out by a few rogue figures in their midst.

Balla said their campaign against the government is also plagued by infighting and fragmentation, making it difficult for separatists to show an organized, united front, which he argues is exactly what allows fringe elements to resort to kidnapping and abusing civilians.

“Because there is no central command and control, most of the leaders of the fighters on the ground are just made of a few persons or groups, and they need to fund their own struggles in their own communities,” he said.

With citizens in the separatist-held regions losing faith in the leadership of the fighters and refusing to pay their bogus taxes that help fund their operations, analysts like Balla fear the number of abductions could surge drastically in the coming months.

Culled from DW

27, May 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 6 officials, teachers kidnapped in Momo Division ⁰

Separatist fighters have abducted six officials and teachers in Cameroon’s English-speaking region of Northwest which has been ravaged by a protracted armed separatist conflict, according to local officials.

Benoit Nicaise Fouda Etaba, the prefect of the Momo division of the region, said that three officials including two high-ranking members of the ruling party and three teachers were ambushed and kidnapped along the Andek-Mbengwi road stretch of the region.

The abducted persons took part in the National Day celebrations on May 20 and were returning to the Northwest chief town of Bamenda before the separatists kidnapped them, officials said.

“The defense and security forces are currently on diligent hunt to track down this gang of terrorists, present them to the competent judicial authorities to answer to their barbaric acts,” the prefect said in a statement made public and stressed that it was necessary for the population to collaborate with security forces to “fish out this band of criminals.”

There has been no comment from separatist leaders.

Cameroon’s Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest have been facing a separatist conflict since 2017.

Source: Xinhuanet

27, May 2023

Douala-Edea: 15 mourners taking body for burial die in road smash ⁰

Fifteen people in Cameroon taking the body of a loved one for burial died Friday when their minibus was involved in a crash with a lorry, the transport minister said.

The lorry’s driver also died in the accident and three people in the minibus were injured, Transport Minister Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe said on state radio, CRTV.

The crash happened in the industrial city of Edea, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) east of the country’s economic capital, Douala.

“The minibus was transporting a body,” the minister added but was unable to elaborate on the cause of the collision.

Cameroon has among the highest proportion of road deaths in Africa, according to the latest available figures from the World Health Organization.

Earlier this month, 15 people died when a bus plunged off the road in eastern Cameroon.

Source: AFP

26, May 2023

Cannes spotlights Mambar Pierrette: ‘It’s high time Cameroonian stories influence world cinema’ ⁰

In the Directors’ Fortnight, which runs parallel to the main festival, Rosine Mbakam’s “Mambar Pierrette” painted an intimate portrait of a Cameroonian seamstress and single mother struggling to make ends meet against a backdrop of social hardship and the threat of floods.

Pierrette Aboheu Njeuthat stars as the titular character, a mother of three who works tirelessly at her sewing machine to provide for her children while customers and neighbours linger in her small shop, sharing their joys and disappointments in a deftly woven tapestry of communal life in the city of Douala.

A remarkable debut feature based on the life of Mbakam’s seamstress cousin, “Mambar Pierrette” draws on the director’s experience of documentary filmmaking, which has previously explored the themes of kinship and migration to Europe. FRANCE 24 spoke to the filmmaker about her focus on character studies and her commitment to promoting African stories in the moviemaking industry.

“Mambar Pierrette” is your first feature-length fiction film, although it is based on your cousin’s life. Where do you draw the line between documentary and fiction?

I drew inspiration from Pierrette’s life to write the script, placing it at the very heart of the film. Once we started shooting, the other characters also added their input, bringing the screenplay closer to their own lives.

Fiction never takes over. Its role is to add substance to the narrative and provide more context. In particular, the fictional element helps underscore the fact that Pierrette’s social predicament is not only a result of her small income, her husband’s irresponsibility or Cameroon’s politics. It is also derived from an enduring neo-colonialism that leaves swaths of the population in poverty.

The fabric shop is at the heart of your film. What does it symbolise?

My film tells the story of Pierrette, who is a seamstress in real life. Sewing embellishes, it brings people together, and her workshop is a place where people open up and share their secrets. I wanted to highlight the value of this work of dressmaking and transformation, which has all but vanished in the West. We shop, but we have lost this relationship with what we wear.

The sewing room also represents gender relationships in Cameroon. The men remain in the entrance, at the door, while the women establish themselves in the workshop, inhabiting the space. These opposing stances signal the contrast between a new generation of women who are increasingly assertive and men who don’t accept this reality – and are therefore in a vulnerable situation. Pierrette doesn’t sew for women only, she works for everyone, her workspace excludes nobody. By keeping at a distance, the men seek to protect themselves and avoid questioning their position in society.

Culled from France 24

26, May 2023

Pope Francis has fever, clears his schedule ⁰

Pope Francis has a fever that caused him to clear his schedule on Friday morning, the Vatican said, nearly two months after the 86-year-old pontiff was hospitalised with bronchitis.

“Due to a feverish state, Pope Francis did not receive an audience this morning,” said Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, without giving more details.

It was unclear who the pope had been expected to meet with, as his agenda was not made public on Friday, as is customary.

The pope’s morning audiences are usually reserved for heads of states, associations and clerics, while his afternoons are devoted to work and private meetings.

On Thursday, he had eight meetings on his published schedule.

Francis, who has been the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics for a decade, has suffered increasing health issues over the past year, from persistent knee pain to his recent hospital stay for bronchitis.

The episodes have sparked widespread concern and fuelled speculation that he might choose to retire rather than stay in the job for life, a choice made by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

In late March, Francis was admitted to hospital in Rome after having breathing difficulties, and stayed for three nights.

He was treated with antibiotics for bronchitis.

As he left the Gemelli Hospital on April 1, the pope smiled and joked with well-wishers, quipping: “I am still alive!”

He went on to participate in Holy Week and Easter services, the most important week in the Christian calendar.

Good days, bad days

For about a year, the pope has had to rely on a wheelchair due to recurring pain in his knee that he has said cannot be treated through surgery.

Asked about his health in an interview with US Spanish-language network Telemundo broadcast on Thursday, Francis said it was “much better”.

“I can walk now. My knee has been mending. I could hardly walk beforehand, now I can. Some days are more painful than others, like today,” the pope said.

Francis added that doctors had caught his bronchitis infection just in time.

“If we’d waited a few more hours, it would’ve been much more serious. But I was out (of the hospital) in four days,” he said.

Despite his health issues, Francis continues to travel widely, and concluded a three-day visit to Hungary earlier this month.

His next planned trip is to Lisbon from August 2-6 to attend World Youth Day, the Vatican announced on Monday.

The pope acknowledged last July, however, that he needed to slow down.

“At my age and with this limitation, I have to save myself a little bit to be able to serve the Church,” he said then.

“Or, alternatively, to think about the possibility of stepping aside.”

In March, however, he insisted that he had no current plans to quit.

Benedict XVI, who died on December 31 aged 95, surprised the world in 2013 when he announced he was stepping down, a radical move not seen since the Middle Ages.

Source: AFP

26, May 2023

Celine Dion cancels 2023-2024 shows over health ⁰

Pop icon Celine Dion on Friday cancelled all her remaining shows scheduled for 2023-2024, saying she was not strong enough to tour as she battles a rare neurological disorder.

Last year the 55-year-old Canadian singer revealed that she was suffering from the rare medical condition that was affecting her singing.

“I’m so sorry to disappoint all of you once again… and even though it breaks my heart, it’s best that we cancel everything until I’m really ready to be back on stage,” the My Heart Will Go On songstress tweeted.

“I’m not giving up… and I can’t wait to see you again!” she added.

A statement released by her tour said: “With a sense of tremendous disappointment, Celine Dion’s Courage World Tour today announced the cancellation of all remaining dates currently on sale for 2023 and 2024.”

“I’m working really hard to build back my strength, but touring can be very difficult even when you’re 100%,” the statement quoted Dion as saying.

In December 2022, she posted a tearful video on Instagram to say she had recently been diagnosed with Stiff-Person Syndrome and would not be ready to start a European tour in February as planned.

She said the disorder was causing muscle spasms and was “not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I’m used to.”

The “Courage World Tour” began in 2019, and Dion completed 52 shows before the Covid-19 pandemic put the remainder on hold.

She later cancelled the North American section of the tour due to health problems.

The tour was to have been the Grammy-winning winner’s first global concert tour in a decade and the first without her husband-manager Rene Angelil, who died from cancer in 2016.

Source: AFP

26, May 2023

Cameroon’s Higher Education Ministry: Prof. Fame Ndongo on a ‘sex diet’ ⁰

The Higher Education Ministry has been hit by many scandals over the last decades but none has been as big as the one that might take down the country’s higher education minister, Jacques Fame Ndongo, who is being described by his collaborators as a ‘man on a diet of sex.’

The minister’s office has become the theatre of multiple sex sessions designed to satisfy Mr. Ndongo’s out-of-control libido.

Mr. Ndongo seems to be shooting pornographic movies in his office as he has transformed his office into his own Hollywood.

Young girls, some as young as 21, are permanently streaming to Prof. Fame Ndongo‘s office and the soundtracks emanating from that office shortly after those girls walk into that “Hollywood studio” are always unsettling to the minister’s collaborators who simply want to do their job and head home to their wives and children.

Prof. Fame Ndongo’s sexual misconduct has reduced the higher education ministry into a playground for people to whom sex is medicine.

Some of the minister’s closest collaborators, most of whom are women, have been bedded by the satyr who passes off as a minister.

Some of these women are today senior officials of the ministry and since they are out of favor with the minister due to their ages, they no longer feel valued and are doing their best to sabotage the minister’s work.

According to an official of the Higher Education Ministry who spoke to the Cameroon Concord News correspondent in Yaoundé, Rita Akana, on condition of anonymity, said that some of the disgruntled women who have lost their shine and charm of yesteryears even challenge the minister to the face, causing him to lose authority among his staff.

The source, a man who will soon be retiring and is terribly bitter about the way his career has gone, is now singing like a canary and he is very willing to lay bare everything happening in a ministry which, in his opinion, has been terribly mismanaged by Prof. Ndongo who has run the ministry for close to 20 years.

“How did the Cameroon Concord News Group expect Prof. Jacques Fame Ndongo to punish sex criminals like Profs. Molua and Agborbechem who had transformed the University of Buea into their own harem?”

“Prof. Jacques Fame Ndongo and his protégés – Molua and Agborbechem – are birds of a feather and that was why they were moved out of Buea to escape the media’s scrutiny because of their sexual misconduct,” the source said angrily.

“Today Prof. Molua has reconstituted his harem in the University of Douala and he is plying his trade with ease. However, the Bassas are already tired of his abuse of women and they are hatching a plan to take him down once and for all. For his part, Agborbechem has continued with his bad sex habits in Bamenda and the noise coming out of there is not pleasant. Agborbechem‘s life is at risk and if he does not control his libido, Amba fighters will chop off his penis one of these days. I pray he takes this warning seriously,” our source said.

Prof. Fame Ndongo has made a mess of the Ministry of Higher Education. It is alleged that he has impregnated several married women and the women fear that their husbands might notice the resemblance of their children with the infamous minister of higher education who consumes sex for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

To finance his irresponsible behavior, Prof. Fame Ndongo has set up an elaborate scheme within his ministry which puts huge amounts of money in his pocket on a daily basis.

He is now using the creation of tertiary institutions in the country which issue HND certificates as a medium of enriching himself.

He has sidelined the government established commission designed to verify if the proprietors of such schools have the proper infrastructure to run an effective school and is now using emergency methods for those schools to be established without proper facilities.

These schools are now cropping up across the country and his emergency procedure nets him CFAF 3,000,000 per school and the person fronting him is a former driver of his who is supposed to be on retirement but he is always and religiously in the ministry for reasons only known by the minister.

The Cameroon Concord News has already sent a letter to the Presidency for Professor Ndongo to be investigated and another letter will be sent to the Prime Minister to ensure that the monster running the higher education ministry does not ruin the place before he leaves, as it is rumored that he will not be part of the next government.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-chief, Cameroon Concord News Group

26, May 2023

Biya regime massacre to be met with matching response ⁰

The Ambazonia Interim Government vowed that Yaoundé’s recent massacre of Southern Cameroons Self Defense commanders and their family members in both the Northern and Southern Zones will be met with a matching response.

Dr Patrick Ayuk, a special adviser to Vice President Dabney Yerima, made the comments in an interview with Cameroon Concord News on Thursday in London.

The Southern Cameroons academic stated that “what is currently going on in the rural areas of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is a massive crime against innocent people, against humanity, against all the people of Southern Cameroons, and, therefore, this requires that there be retaliation, which is to the level of this massacre.”

Dr Patrick Ayuk’s remark came as the Ambazonia Interim Government is preparing to hold an international conference to evaluate the state of the Southern Cameroons revolution.

The Cameroon government military has assassinated several high-ranking Amba commanders loyal to the Ambazonia Interim Government in a series of targeted strikes throughout Southern Cameroons.

Dr Patrick Ayuk warned that all Southern Cameroons restoration groups were to join each other in delivering the response to French Cameroun and it is expected to be a very strong, comprehensive and united retaliation.

He noted that the Biya French Cameroun regime was already bracing itself for the reprisal that will intensify on October 1.

Asked if there were any room for negotiation with the occupying French Cameroun regime towards a resolution of the situation in Ground Zero, Dr Patrick Ayuk said, “Absolutely not…since the Francophone military and its backers have continued this war and have closed all the phone lines in the face of mediators such as Archbishop Mbarga and Archbishop Andrew Nkea.”

By Toto Roland Motuba