Cameroon’s Presidential Poll: Cache of weapons caught in Foumban ⁰

A cache of weapons has been caught in Foumban on a bus coming from Yaoundé. The bus company is known as Super Confort in French but, yesterday, the bus’ contents were something that could not provide any comfort to the country’s military.

It is interesting to know that arms are instead coming from the nation’s capital to the west. All the passengers on the bus are currently being held in the Foumban police station, pending an investigation, as all passengers have denied ownership or knowledge of the origin of the arms.

Cameroon is currently awash with weapons ever since the government declared war on the English-speaking minority.  Presently there is a lot of killing going on in Southern Cameroons, especially by a Beti Mafia unleashed by the defense minister, Joseph Beti Assomo, who is the architect of the military violence.

The violence was stepped up two weeks prior to the presidential election that is causing more tension in the country. The country’s presidential election is splitting the Francophone majority, with the Betis holding that power belongs to them and that it will be an aberration for Bamilekes to take over from the incumbent, Paul Biya, a native Beti himself.

From results obtained by Cameroon Concord News Group, it is clear that Prof. Kamto has won the election and since declaring himself president, the government has been arresting his party members and stationing troops around his house.

Prof. Kamto has promised that he would defend the mandate the people have conferred on him and that he would stop at nothing to ensure that the people’s wish is respected.

A view reiterated yesterday by his campaign director, Paul Eric Kingue, during a live broadcast on Facebook. He challenged the territorial administration minister, Paul Atanga Nji, advising him that no intimidation would stop the people from realizing their objective.

It should be recalled that the country’s presidential poll has been marred by many irregularities and some opposition parties have already taken up the matter with the appropriate authorities while other parties have simply called for a cancellation of the poll.

The results of the poll will be made public on October 22, and opposition parties are calling on their supporters to pour onto the streets if the Constitutional Council hands the victory to Mr. Biya who did not even campaign due to age and illness.

Mr. Biya has been in power for 36 years and has nothing to show for his time in power. The country is bereft of roads and its hospitals have been reduced to consultation clinics. The country has no reliable infrastructure and roads accidents in the country are amongst the highest in the world.

Unemployment has reached alarming rates and many Cameroonians are looking outwards for opportunities.  If Mr. Biya wins, he will be ruling the country for another seven years and this implies the conflict in the two English-speaking regions will continue as he is in no mood to dialogue with the separatists.

Over the last years, the world has been calling for an inclusive dialogue but all the calls have fallen on deaf ears. Some 4,000 Cameroonians have lost their lives as a result of the conflict, while more than a million have been displaced both internally and externally. Some half a million English-speaking Cameroonians are currently seeking refuge in Nigeria.

For those internally displaced, they are mostly in East Cameroon, but with the tension  rising in East Cameroon following the presidential poll, most of those who sought refuge are already heading back home to avoid any confrontation that might occur after October 22.

By Kingskey Betek