As Ambazonians continue to deviate from the focal point of the Southern Cameroons revolution, its worth reminding Amba citizens that revolutions are never straightforward or predictable. Ever since the controversial Chairman Elvis Kometa confirmed that IG funds were used to pay the rents of disgraced former Acting President Dr Samuel Sako, our readers have expressed their frustration and anger at the fact that the IG could afford to squander huge financial resources when thousands of Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Ground Zero were desperately seeking for support. Thousands of Ambazonia refugees in Nigeria and IDPs are in need of basic human amenities. To be sure, nothing came under Sako’s leadership.

Three weeks ago, Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report opened a joint investigation to uncover the truth about the Sako-IG Affair. The process was challenging but rewarding.  We found out that immediately after his appointment as the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sako’s maiden call to the cabinet was that he needed $450 to repair his car. This amount was made available to him at lightning speed as a goodwill gesture by the treasury department. Our whistle-blower later opined that Dr Ikome Sako owned no car at the time of the said request. Later that day, he met with a cross section of the exiled cabinet and made another demand for more money citing his rents. During that meeting, Dr Ikome Sako also pleaded that he needed to be relocated for security reasons. The cabinet ministers were unanimous in their decision in support of the relocation. The house he lived in was dilapidated and looked like an abandoned Shakespearean building.

The agreement was for Pastor Ikome Sako to pay a portion of the new lease. However, as the IG was looking for a new accommodation that befits an Acting President, Sako moved his entire family into a hotel all paid from donations intended for Ground Zero. Sako made matters more intractable when he made another request insisting on relocating to a posh area where the cost of accommodation was $2500 a month excluding utility bills. Our chief intelligence officer in the USA has facsimiles of IG documents revealing that all Sako’s utility bills were paid for by the Ambazonia Interim Government including gas, electricity and local rates.

Immediately after settling in his new comfortable presidential home, Dr Sako surprised members of the Ambazonia Cabinet again!! This time around, the man of God informed the Interim Government that he needed $1000 to pay for his immigration paperwork to be regularised so he could travel outside the USA. Alarm bells started ringing but the IG was already in a marriage and the need to keep the Southern Cameroons revolution going was prominent on the agenda. IG classified papers show that the said amount was handed to him. One of most pathetic and appalling revelation made to our cream of reporters covering the IG was that Pastor Samuel Ikome’s children started going to school on UBER rides all paid for by the Ambazonia Interim Government. This was facilitated due to the fact that Sako had a government debit card. We can now reveal that Sako’s monthly expenses came up to approximately $8000.

This document shows Sako paying 3 different insurance on the same day

Sako’s Meteoric Rise

The disgraced former Acting President had lost his job as a security officer two weeks prior to his appointment as Acting President. His wife, a hairdresser, was the breadwinner as Sako’s venture at selling Christianity had failed woefully.

We gathered that the lease signed by the Ambazonia Interim Government for the property that Sako tenanted was for 12 months. With the financial scandal that rocked his reign and subsequent fiscal drought faced by the IG, the payments of Sako’s rents became irregular.

Ikome Sako’s landlord issued two eviction notices late last year. As the ‘free’ money dried-up, the lease couldn’t be renewed and we can confirm that on March 2019 he had no choice but to move to a modest and cheaper area of town. One of Sako’s acolytes who elected anonymity said ‘In Buea terms, Sako lived around Muea market before his rise to prominence. The IG moved and sponsored his twelve months stay in Governor Street. He has now moved to Small Soppo.’

For all the chanting by pro Sako comedians on social media that he is still the President, the people yelling unconditional support for him aren’t opening their wallets.  A senior Southern Cameroonian who helped us during this investigation noted that ‘sadly the former acting First Lady has to go back to braiding hair to support this lazy and dishonest pastor’

Sako has set out over the last few weeks to prove his critics right. Never again will Ambazonians waste so much goodwill and financial resources on an individual.

Sessekou Asu Isong, London Bureau Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

The newly minted Prime Minister of Cameroon, Dion Ngute, is losing sleep following the explosion at the country’s lone oil refinery located in his native southwest.

Mr. Ngute who spent a huge chunk of his time during his recent visit to the region dancing, is now suffering from insomnia, as the burden of getting the international community to come and rebuild the jinxed refinery rests on his fragile shoulders. Mr. Biya whose health has spiralled out of control lacks the credibility to mobilize resources from bilateral and multilateral sources.

After having spoken about the country’s sovereignty for a long time, the country’s authorities are now faced with the huge challenge of demonstrating that sovereignty by rebuilding the refinery without turning to those they have abused on several occasions.

Mr. Ngute will surely need to adopt a different rhetoric if he really wants to mobilize resources in record time. Times are hard and the adverse effects of SONARA’s meltdown are already emerging. The race against time is on, but has Dion Ngute got the right running shoes?

Kingsley Betek, the Cameroon Concord News Group‘s lead investigative reporter, will be providing updates on the state of confusion at the Star Building. He has been talking with senior officials of the Prime Minister’s Office and his thoughts will be yours in Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report, your best online platforms for the latest on Cameroon. Stay tuned!

Four units are down at Cameroon’s only refinery, but the shortage will be covered by imports starting on Tuesday, the energy minister said late on Sunday.

The 42,000 barrel-per-day Sonara refinery in Limbe declared a force majeure on Saturday after a tank exploded, causing a fire that halted output.

“Flames consumed four of the 13 production units, stopping all the Sonara refining process,” Minister of Water Resources and Energy Gaston Eloundou Essomba said. “The market will remain supplied by imports.”

Sonara, which is almost entirely state owned apart from a 4% stake held by Total, has a capacity of 2.1 million tonnes of crude a year.

It serves the whole country, so any delay in getting it back up and running has the potential to cause severe fuel shortages.

Source: Sunday Times

Members of the United Nations Security Council should focus on the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation in Cameroon at the June 4, 2019 briefing by the UN Regional Office for Central Africa, nine human rights organizations said today in an open letter to Security Council members.

While UN Regional Office for Central Africa briefings are an opportunity to formally raise the situation in Cameroon at the Security Council, the groups also urged the Security Council to formally add Cameroon to its agenda as a regular stand-alone item. “The UN Security Council has largely kept silent on the crisis,” the organizations said.

“Without expeditious action, the situation is likely to worsen.” Cameroon’s Anglophone regions have been engulfed in crisis since late 2016, when English-speaking lawyers, students, and teachers began protesting against what they saw as their under-representation in, and cultural marginalization by, the central government. In response, government security forces have killed civilians, torched villages, and used torture and incommunicado detention, while armed separatists have also killed, tortured, and kidnapped dozens of people. This violence, especially abuse by state security forces, occurs in an atmosphere of near total impunity.

This week’s Central Africa briefing should serve as opportunity to urge the Cameroon authorities to investigate and prosecute members of the security forces alleged to have carried out human rights abuses. It should also publicly assert to armed separatist groups that their leaders will be held responsible for serious crimes committed by their fighters, the groups said.

The lack of access to Cameroon and its affected regions is hindering efforts by international human rights and humanitarian organizations to report on abuses and to deliver life-saving assistance to those in need. The Cameroon government should allow unhindered access to international and national human rights organizations, the groups said.

The groups that signed the letter are Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Nouveaux Droits de l’Homme Cameroun (NDH – Cameroon), World Organisation Against Torture, Presbyterian Church (USA), and Réseau des Défenseurs des Droits Humains en Afrique Centrale (Central Africa Human Rights Defenders Network).

Source: Human Rights Watch

The Committee to Protect Journalists and eight other civil society organizations sent a letter to members of the United Nations Security Council about the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation in Cameroon. The letter was sent ahead of the U.N. Regional Office for Central Africa briefing to the Security Council, due to take place on June 4.

The letter highlighted the increasing violence across the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions, where schools and hospitals, teachers and medical staff are under attack. The letter noted that journalists have been detained and at least four are behind bars in relation to their reporting of the crisis, while member of the media face regular threats of arrest and attacks.

To all UN Security Council Members

Your Excellency, Ahead of the upcoming briefing of the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) in the UN Security Council in June, we, the undersigned organizations, would urge you to please pay particular attention to the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation in Cameroon. Political conflict over cultural rights and identity, as well as long-standing socio-economic grievances have escalated in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions since 2016 when English-speaking lawyers, students and teachers began protesting against what they saw as their under representation in, and cultural marginalization by, the central government. Since then, a crisis in the Anglophone North-West and South-West regions has pit government security forces and armed separatists against each other and has driven more than 560,000 Cameroonians from their homes, including 32,000 refugees into Nigeria.

Civil society organizations and national and international human rights and humanitarian groups report that government forces have killed civilians, torched villages, and used torture and incommunicado detention with near total impunity. Meanwhile, armed separatists have killed, tortured, assaulted and kidnapped dozens of people, including students, teachers, administrative and traditional authorities amid increasing violence across the North-West and South-West regions. Schools and hospitals, teachers and medical staff, are increasingly under attack. Journalists have also been detained and at least four are behind bars in relation to their reporting of the crisis, while members of the media face regular threats of arrest and attacks.

These abuses are fomenting severe instability across the regions and show that the government of Cameroon is failing to uphold its Responsibility to Protect the Anglophone population. Without expeditious action, the situation is likely to worsen. The UN Security Council has largely kept silent on the crisis. Even getting the Council to discuss

Cameroon has proven difficult. A recent informal Security Council meeting almost did not take place due to a lack of support from African member States. As you prepare your remarks for the UNOCA briefing, we respectfully urge you to consider the following recommendations:

 The UN Security Council should hold regular formal briefings and discussions on the situation in Cameroon and formally add it to its agenda. It should request the UN Secretary-General and key senior UN officials – especially the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – to report regularly on developments in Cameroon.

 While we should not wait for the region to mobilize before taking action in New York, the African Union and Economic Community of Central African States should engage with Cameroon’s government and armed separatists in order to prevent any further deterioration of the crisis in the Anglophone regions. In this context, the African countries on the Council have a crucial role to play in facilitating mediation efforts.

 The lack of access for international human rights and humanitarian organizations to Cameroon and its affected regions remains disturbing. The government of Cameroon should allow unhindered access to international and national human rights organizations.

 Cameroon’s partners should ensure that any support to Cameroonian security forces does not contribute to or facilitate human rights violations. The UN Security Council, with the support of the OHCHR, should urge the Cameroon authorities to investigate members of the security forces alleged to have carried out human rights abuses and prosecute those responsible. It should also publicly announce to armed separatist groups that their leaders will be held responsible for serious crimes committed by their fighters.

 The international community should encourage mediation between Anglophone communities and the government, as well as an inclusive national dialogue in order to find a lasting and sustainable solution to the crisis, which addresses root causes and underlying grievances.

Signed,

1. Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT-France)
2. Amnesty International
3. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
4. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
5. Human Rights Watch
6. Nouveaux Droits de l’Homme Cameroun
7. Presbyterian Church (USA)
8. Réseau des Défenseurs des Droits Humains en Afrique Centrale (REDHAC)
9. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)

The government of Cameroon has been going through a rough patch over the last three years. Southern Cameroonians in their majority had had enough of the government’s injustice and in 2016, they felt it was time to let the world know about their sorry plight.

Since then the country has been caught in a military conflict which, if not well managed, could result in the splitting of the country. Peaceful protests by the country’s English-speaking minority were met with the government’s violent reaction and the situation has declined to the point where it has become a cause for concern for the international community.

Thousands have lost their lives in a conflict many consider as unnecessary and the orgy of killing has continued unchecked. Government forces have been accused by rights groups of committing the worst forms of atrocities and the international community is talking of dragging some of those responsible for the organized killings to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

The country’s allies are all jumping ship and allying with the U.S.A which urges that a robust action on the part of the international community is necessary to restrain the government’s killing machine. Hundreds of villages have been burnt down by government forces, with many old and helpless losing their lives in the fires.

The images are at best gruesome and the world holds that while silence could be golden, in Cameroon’s case, silence will certainly not produce the results and peace the world needs in that part of the continent. That is why the U.S.A is mounting enormous pressure on the crumbling government to put an end to the killings and embrace the inclusive dialogue that the international community is calling for.    

The conflict has spiraled out of control and the country’s government has taken a blow to the liver. State-owned corporations in the regions have been shut down due to the fighting and thousands have been rendered jobless. The Yaounde government, noted for its reckless spending, has seen its revenue streams drying up due to the disruption caused by the brave Southern Cameroonian fighters.

The Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) and PAMOL, once the  government’s “great geese”, have stopped laying the golden eggs that the Yaounde government has been feasting on.

The loss of these revenue streams has put the government on a diet. Its spending ability has declined in three years. Corporate and income taxes have diminished and there is fear that civil servants might soon go without salaries. This fear has been hanging over the country like the Sword of Damocles for some time now.  

If that fear was a few days ago imaginary, it is today real. Just when the government thought it was successfully putting a handle on the chaos that is playing out in the two English-speaking regions, a massive explosion decided to turn off one of its major revenue streams.

The country’s lone oil refinery (SONARA) located in the Southwest port city of Limbe went up in flames on Friday, May 31, 2019, leaving the beleaguered government totally helpless and desperate.  It is heartbreaking to see such a massive investment go up in smoke.

But for many Southern Cameroonians who want total independence from the Yaounde government that has treated them like second-class citizens, the massive explosion that brought the refinery down like a pack of cards is great music to their ears.

 They claim they have never benefited from the oil that is located in their own part of the country, adding that the devastation is a severe blow that will weaken the government both psychologically and financially.

The explosion has hit the government like a ton of bricks. The scale of the destruction is staggering and experts hold that it will require more than USD 300 million to get things together in SONARA.

The atmospheric distillation unit has simply been blown away and that is where the business of refining oil starts. Overwhelmed by the devastation, the government has simply ordered that the refinery be closed and production suspended indefinitely.

They hope that with the government still reeling from the disappointment, it is now time to step up attacks on soldiers and make the regions ungovernable. The beleaguered and desperate government has lost most of its international allies due to its penchant for violence and this has pushed it further down the bottom of the abyss of desperation.

What could have caused the SONARA Explosion?

Ever since SONARA came apart like a pack of cards, there have been many explanations for the disaster that will haunt the government for a long time. On the same day the explosion occurred, Southern Cameroonian separatists immediately claimed responsibility.

For over two years, they have been targeting the oil refinery, holding that it has been providing the government with the revenue it needs to run its affairs or even purchase weapons to kill innocent Southern Cameroonians. But the separatists are yet to explain how they pulled off such a feat.  

Due to lack of evidence, many people have dismissed their claim as a bluff, arguing that they lack the means to deliver such a blow to a government that has the military and financial resources to protect such a massive investment.

But some experts argue that while separatists might not have the military capacity to send the country’s refinery into a tailspin, it could as well use inside sources to increase the government’s economic and financial woes. 

They point to the scale of the destruction, arguing that if it was just an electrical failure as government agents have been swift to explain, SONARA systems could have simply switched off to protect the refinery.

They add that modern technology provides for such possibilities and if that explanation can be given credence, then SONARA has not upgraded its systems to world-class standards.

SONARA has been calling this incident a case of “force majeure” and like the Yaounde government, it has carefully avoided making mention of sabotage. But its explanation is still questionable and many are asking more questions, especially as another fire broke out at the refinery on Monday, June 3, 2019.

To gain a better understanding of the situation, the Cameroon Concord News Group’s investigative journalist, Kingsley Betek, travelled to Limbe to have first-hand information on what actually happened on Friday, May 31 in Limbe.

He has used the opportunity to speak with a skilled and experienced SONARA engineer who explained that the refinery had been going through a lot of power outages in recent times.

The engineer who elected anonymity said that each time there was power failure in the facility, they had to reboot the entire system and each outage implied that there could be some gas leakage.

With many of such outages in recent times, it is obvious that there might have been a gas built-up which had resulted in Friday’s explosion.

The engineer stressed that SONARA was on its knees, adding that if foreign companies did not intervene, it would take more than three years for the refinery to be up and running again. He advised that if Americans were to be brought in, the refinery could be rebuilt in a year, as they are noted for their hard work and effectiveness.

He explained that though the government had built two other facilities in recent times, the atmospheric distillation unit remained a key component of the refinery and now that it had gone up in smoke, there could not be any real production at the facility.

He regretted that the cost of rebuilding the refinery might discourage the Yaounde government, adding that government officials had floated the idea of building a refinery in Kribi, but they project was blocked by the World Bank which insisted that the Limbe refinery had more than enough capacity to serve Cameroon and neighboring countries.

What Next?

The beleaguered government is in total confusion. It is at its wit’s end. It is completely overwhelmed. It is cash-strapped and its poor standing at the international level makes it hard for it to raise the resources necessary for the reconstruction of the burnt facility.

Our inside source said that government officials had been talking about Cameroon’s sovereignty for too long and that the current sticky situation was indeed a true test of the country’s sovereignty.

Money is tight. The country has lost its allies abroad. The country’s president has made many enemies around the world. Corruption, which has become the country’s hallmark, makes it hard for the government to be credible abroad.

It has spent the last few days scratching its head. The country’s Prime Minister, Dion Ngute, has been holding emergency meetings to figure out ways of mobilizing resources in order to rebuild SONARA that has always stood the government in good stead. It has always primed the pump each time the economy gets caught in a downward spiral.

The Yaounde “crime syndicate” is simply overwhelmed. As the government continues to find a solution, many families are already lost in thoughts. SONARA has gone down, taking with it thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

 The mourning period has begun for many families. The Yaounde government has no employment insurance for people who lose their jobs. For many workers of this oil refinery, their fate is worse than death. Limbe, the bustling Southern Cameroons port city, is gradually losing its shine. Life will never be the same again.

If Southern Cameroonian separatists blew up the refinery, then they have sent the government into a long tailspin that might see it crash sooner rather than later, especially as fuel and fuel products will soon witness a spike in prices. Prices at the pump will be sliding up as reserves get pushed into the country’s distribution channels.

The days ahead are only going to get bleaker. Cameroonians might just start thinking of smuggling fuel from Nigeria to make up for the shortages that will soon become a reality in the country. But Nigerian fuel, popularly known in Cameroon as “federal”, spells danger for many people.

Its importation is usually done using crude means. In the 1980s when it was popular, it left a trail of death and destruction, as the illegal importers were not equipped to handle such business. Cameroon is in for tough times and if care is not taken, many citizens of the country will be sent to an early grave because of the massive explosion that has put SONARA out of business, at least for the next two years.

The investigations are ongoing and Cameroon Concord News Group has been trying to get in touch with the SONARA General Manager. Our calls to him have not yet been returned, but our journalists on the ground will continue to dig further in order to get to the bottom of things so as to bring out the truth about this disaster that has created a nightmare for Cameroon and its citizens.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai at the Global Headquarters in the UK, with contributions from Kingsley Betek in Limbe