Just over four months ago, security forces and armed ethnic Fulani men massacred 21 civilians, including 13 children, in Ngarbuh, a remote village in the North-West region of Cameroon. Most of the bodies were found completely burned.  The killings were the most blatant example of abuse by security forces in the country’s Anglophone regions, but they may serve as a catalyst for accountability and, eventually, change.

Initially the government denied the army was involved in the killings and instead embarked on a smear campaign against human rights organisations and media, which had exposed and denounced the massacre. But, on March 1, following international pressure, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya agreed to establish a commission of inquiry into the killings. There were worries that this may have been an empty promise, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic looked to take over the world’s attention. But on April 21, the Cameroon government admitted their security forces bear some responsibility for the killings.

To be sure, there are concerns over some of the key points of the government’s investigation, especially with respect to the timeline around the attack and the number of people killed. More importantly, the commission’s findings cut the line of responsibility too far down, going after low ranking soldiers and there is a deafening silence from the government as to the role of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), an elite unit of the army, in the killings. But the investigation led to the arrest of two soldiers and a gendarme last week, one of the few times the government has shown its willingness to hold its own forces accountable for serious crimes.

Impunity is a key driver of the crisis in the Anglophone regions and very few people responsible for serious crimes have been held accountable since it began in late 2016.

While a more in-depth investigation is needed to establish a clear timeline of events and to identify all those responsible, including anyone further up the chain of command we should not underestimate that since the killings, only four months ago, we have gone from blanket denials to an investigation, a statement from the Presidency and now arrests. These mark steps in the right direction – an indication of government willingness to consider accountability for serious crimes committed by its own troops.

For the people of Ngarbuh, accountability cannot come too soon. Last month, the army and gendarmes established a base in the village, striking fear amongst residents. “The images of the killings are still vivid,” one resident told me recently. “I don’t understand how the military can protect us when they came to kill us.”

The attack in Ngarbuh was not an isolated case, but part of a longer history of military abuses in the Anglophone regions. Those crimes also deserve the same level of attention and inquiry that the Ngarbuh massacre received. On this, Cameroon’s international partners can help by assisting the government to establish an independent commission of inquiry, or similar mechanism, to advance accountability for serious human rights abuses committed by both government forces and armed separatists in the Anglophone regions since 2016. They should also encourage Cameroonian authorities to allow human rights organizations and journalists to work without hindrance and fear of reprisal.

The steps towards justice in Ngarbuh, which should lead to prosecutions in fair and public trials, should be viewed as the beginning of a long process in responding to impunity, not as an end in of themselves. It should become the test case to gauge how seriously the government will hold its own men accountable.

Culled from Human Rights Watch

Humans are transient but institutions built on the foundation of truth, honesty and sound cultural connotation, linger long after our transition to the world beyond. Long after our time on this planet, great institutions will articulate our existence to our descendants and future generations. Such is the case with the institution of Chiefdom and Fondom in the Southern Cameroons. Their importance to the soul of our nation cannot be overemphasized.

Cameroon Concord News Group has been allowed reliable information that following the recent ritual recital in Mamfe by some CPDM collaborators of Manyu decent, a few within the Ambazonia Self-Defense circle have registered fury and discontent with the Paramount Chief of Mamfe, His Royal Highness Chief Dr. Godson Oben. This discontent has manifested into threats to his person.

Cameroon Concord News Group strongly condemns any threat to Chief Dr Godson Oben’s life and we of the Concord Group are urging the faction of the Ambazonia Restoration Forces that is considering such line of action to think and rethink and desist without delay.

We have incontrovertible evidence that the plot for the comical and hopeless ritual performance was hatched in Yaoundé without the express knowledge of The Paramount Chief of Mamfe. Consequntly, Ambazonia Self-Defense forces should direct their legitimate resentment and barrels away from the Mamfe Royal Palace.

The CPDM collaborators from Manyu working in accord with the Yaoundé criminal enterprise tried bullying the people into ending the Ambazonia revolution. Their utilization of the western machinery of mass killings for four years has failed.  They have met tougher resistance than they anticipated from man and the gods. Resorting to traditional rituals to bully and intimidate was an act of utter desperation.

It’s not uncommon for CPDM collaborators to overstep their jurisdiction. But in the Ambazonia struggle, they must recognize that they are termites attempting at demolishing rocks. For more than four decades, Manyu has chewed with caution and we have done so under the silent and direct supervision of Chief Dr Godson Oben.

While the disappointment and anger in Manyu is legitimate and merit serious consideration and action, the jurisdiction of Amba Self-Defense forces must be established and clearly defined. A tree can dwell in the river but would never be a crocodile.

Any assault on the Paramount Chief of Mamfe, His Royal Highness Chief Godson Oben, is an attack on a valuable and indispensable institution of the Southern Cameroons we intend to build. Ambazonia intends to be a country built on solid foundation with strong institutions. And the Chiefdoms and Fondoms are timeless and the most vital tools needed by the people of Southern Cameroons.

Ambazonia Self-Defense forces have the powers to impose sanctions and bring criminal proceedings against those who commit atrocities and collaborate in criminal ventures in Manyu. But the Paramount Chief of Mamfe is not one of such persons.

The bad faith and poor judgment of the public performance that shocked the world three weeks ago must not lead us into a journey of many dangers.  The Mamfe Royal Palace is a no go area for both Ambazonia Restoration Forces and the French Cameroun army.

Paul Biya’s hostility towards objective and apolitical traditional institutions is well documented. But the Southern Cameroons we intend to build must accord these institutions their rightful place. Their roles have been clearly defined by His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and all citizens must be educated on the veneration to accord them. Traditional rulers represent constituted divine authority that towers above Biya and his crime syndicate.

The fuzziness of the traditional ritual and the maliciousness of its intended outcome suggest an enterprise to delight political masters in Yaoundé. It achieved nothing than simply putting the Roman Catholic Church in Mamfe to shame (We shall come back to this in a later editorial). The perpetrators of the traditional crime shall face the long arm of the Southern Cameroons justice system no matter how long it takes.

Traditional institutions in Southern Cameroons draw their legitimacy from the broad support of the people and history. Since 1982, the politicizing of these institutions for CPDM gains by some delinquents remains an open secret. It is also shameful that CPDM villains have attempted to use the institution of chiefdom to perpetrate their criminality in the Southern Cameroons. But the real offenders and perpetrators on this Manyu ritual scandal are known by the people and the Paramount Chief of Mamfe is not one of them.

As only evil knows where evil sleeps, the CPDM gangsters of Manyu origin directly involved in the public performance of rituals to stop the Ambazonia revolution, are owls that have now made some of their unattractive secrets public. They are evil-plotters beating their drums for the downfall of Manyu and Ambazonia but they must know that the gods will not let the drums sound.

The Chiefdoms and Fondoms are facing possibly the greatest challenge of their almost 950 years of recorded existence. Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report are confident that the voices of our 20,000 daily readers are the voices of the gods. The fury of the gods should not be invited upon our land by crossing a red line that shouldn’t be crossed. The Paramount Chief of Mamfe, Chief Dr Godson Oben must be allowed to discharge his duties without interference.

Isong Asu

London Bureau Chief

If Black lives matter, why is it that we hear so little about the modern-day massacre of English-speaking Cameroonians?

In spite of photographic evidence that shows the burning of villages, and in spite of the fact that back in June 2019, UNICEF claimed that 1.3 million people in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon needed humanitarian aid, it seems that the world has turned a deaf ear. The Norwegian Refugee Council announced recently that “Cameroon’s conflict with English-speaking separatists has been rated as the most-neglected crises in the world, for the second year running.”

Black lives *everywhere* matter. I would encourage every facet of the media to educate us on the issue of Cameroon, and for every one of us to ‘ask not what your country can do for you,’ ask what your country might be able to do for the voiceless in Cameroon.

Source: Vicnews.com

Paul Biya never aspired to be involved in politics as a young Roman Catholic seminarian. And even after he was lured into the so-called dirty game by the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo, it was actually his kinsman, Ayissi Mvodo who was being groomed to become Ahidjo’s successor.

Biya was a common politician in Yaoundé and his name summoned images of a good man hunted by a Christian upbringing in the Seminary. Biya was also very popular and idolized by taxi drivers in the nation’s capital who often watched him riding his bicycle all over the city. It was only after the CNU Conference of Maturity that everyone became certain Biya would be the next president of Cameroon, after Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Compared to the then Minister of Territorial Administration, Ayissi Mvodo, Biya was not as charismatic or appealing figure.  But after a physical confrontation between Biya and the late Ayissi Mvodo during a cabinet meeting and in the presence of Ahmadou Ahidjo, there was not a trace of Mvodo’s presence anywhere in Yaoundé.

Biya did not seek out recognition or popularity in the presence of his political boss, Ahmadou Ahidjo and the ruling CNU barons from the Northern provinces and he also had no interest in creating a political space for himself even after his appointment as Prime Minister in 1975. Ayissi Mvodo attempted all of the above!

In his early days as Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, Biya applied very skilful diplomacy in his dealings with all of the Ahidjo men and women from the North pushing them to perceive him as shy, reserved, weak French Cameroun political elite who was not interested in leadership. This was also the assumptions Biya fed the entire nation with but in one occasion he hinted Chief Emmanuel Tabi Egbe that power is in the presidency and not in the Prime Minister’s office.

On the 6^th of November 1982, the invisible hand of history started to sweep away these perceptions and proved everyone wrong when Biya took office as Head of State. Unlike his dynamic kinsman, Ayissi Mvodo, French and English speaking Cameroonians started viewing Biya as someone without the instincts or the drive to lead a country.

Biya was certainly not a leader for the two Cameroons and as I write, after more than 40 years in authority, he cannot stand for anything. To me and many other Cameroon political commentators, Biya’s crossing the carpet from the Union Des Population du Cameroun, UPC to Ahidjo’s Cameroon National Union, CNU while in France was simply to look for a normal, peaceful, luxurious life somewhere in Europe with his late wife Jeanne Irene Biya. The billions of FCFA wasted by him and his family in the International Continental Hotel in Geneva over the last 36 years justify this assertion.

There was one small thing, small but great! While all the Ahidjo acolytes and the entire nation focused on the actions of Ayissi Mvodo and the relationship he was attempting to develop with General Pierre Semengue, Paul Biya was educating himself on the Cameroon political story learning “polite arrogance” from Dr Mrs Dorothy Njeuma and how to place Garoua against Maroua from Amadou Ali and fanning the North West/South West Divide via E.T.Egbe and Simon Achidi Achu and containing the Bamileke money power by establishing a new generation of Beti Ewondo businessmen after T-Bella.

Biya knew he had to always be in Ahidjo’s good books, so he pretended to be dedicated to the United Republic of Cameroon idea which he political calls today, the one and indivisible nation. But underneath his pro United Republic action was an ocean of activities that signaled he was more attracted to the Western style and of course he has been governing from France and Switzerland ever since he became President of the Republic.

When the late President Ahidjo made up his mind and started grooming Biya to become the next president, the former seminarian tactfully avoided the comfortable life in any luxurious home in Yaoundé and continued on as a deeply devoted Ahidjo student while adoring the anonymity that the powerful Ahidjo men such as Moussa Yaya and Maicano Abdoulaye including E.T.Egbe and Ayissi Mvodo offered him. Biya was not in the public eye but privately he was being trained in military affairs by General Pierre Semengue who was a classmate and a personal friend.

The Beti Ewondo hardliners staged a coup on 1984 and used it to transform Biya completely. They succeeded and even Biya’s low, soft, Christian-like voice became tougher, and his political stance and appointments became more confident and powerful. But though Biya changed on the surface, he never changed on the inside. 

From the day he became president, Cameroon was reduced to a holiday resort for him. To be sure, he lives in Europe and only comes home to empty the state coffers and appoint new agents into his ruling CPDM crime syndicate. Western lifestyle is the only thing that occupies Biya’s mind.

In the beginning of his rule, he introduced rigour and moralization, which included some political reforms that would suit the Western-style changes he planned. But when he saw that the reaction to his political shake-up was endangering his own throne, he concocted new policies of encouraging corruption, mass repression and relying on CENER, the secret service and the army to enforce his commands.

Internal clashes and tensions between Biya and Ahidjo’s old guards were ruthlessly crushed and severely dealt with. Biya became aware of the discontent and used his power to retire many of the old guard, sweeping them from power to reduce the conflict he faced with the Grand Nord.

Biya’s acceptance of the IMF policies such as increase neo-liberal policies and privatization exaggerated the inequality between the poor and the rich in Cameroon while a small portion of his Francophone Beti Ewondo political elites and their business associates benefited from these policies.

Unable to control the wind of change that sparked an uprising against his CPDM government in 1990 the old guard members, who had been forced to retire, were brought back to power to address the situation. Name them; Gilbert Andze Tchougui, Jean Forchive, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, Joseph Charles Doumba and Robert Mbella Mbappe etc.

Did Biya’s idealistic vision of dividing Cameroon again by taking the nation back into the Francophonie and the Commonwealth — but still consolidating power at the top in Yaounde — play a role in the numerous crises that have rocked the country? Did Biya’s vast and failed economic and neo-liberal reforms, which in the end only benefited his gilded circle, have an impact on the current Southern Cameroons crisis? Perhaps the combination of all of these factors led to the rampant rebellion and mistrust of the people that Biya had been chosen to lead.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Fellow Ambazonians,

The neo-colonial regime in Yaoundé will stop at nothing in its pursuit of genocide and deceit in Ambazonia. Despite the horrendous and cruel sufferings it is inflicting on our people, they intend to mislead the world that all is well in the Southern Cameroons.

In a communication signed 17 June 2020, LeleLafriqueAdolphe, is inviting people to attend an awareness and sensitization meeting on the Yaoundé Presidential Plan for the reconstruction of the North West region of Cameroun which happens to be the Northern Zone of Ambazonia. This public stunt is designed to conceal war crimes and lay a flawed and unlawful claim to our land.

After consultation with other frontline movements in the Ambazonia struggle and our self-defence commanders in Ground Zero, the Interim Government of Ambazonia is today calling for a TOTAL LOCKDOWN OF THE NORTHERN ZONE OF AMBAZONIA from Monday 22 to Wednesday 24 June 2020.

All businesses, social events, transport networks, community activities and non-vital services must remain sealed as the Interim Government of Ambazonia cannot guarantee the security of anyone found outside their place of residence, clinics and hospitals.Anyone, including French Cameroun colonial administrative officials, who attempt to violent this Interim Government of Ambazonia order shall be ruthlessly crushed and severely dealt with.  

French Cameroun has blundered in its actions in Southern Cameroons over the last fifty-nine years and continues to blunder in calculating that a whitewash reconstruction plan is an answer to our just goals of justice, freedom and independence. We must not fall for this misguided propaganda. There can be no reconstruction from an enemy during an active campaign of genocide.

Truth and justice have always triumphed over hate, deceit and mass slaughter but the regime in Yaoundé is oblivious to the lessons of history. Our goals are freedom, justice and independence and no matter how long it takes, we shall attain these.

Thanks and God Bless the people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Interim Government Statement on World Refugee Day

Fellow Ambazonians,

Today, we join the rest of mankind to celebrate World Refugee Day. A day like this reminds us of the conditions that triggered many of our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and children to flee our homeland to find peace and safety in Ghana, Nigeria and elsewhere. It reminds us of their painful journey to safety. It reminds us that many who embarked on such a journey didn’t make it.

You fled because of Paul Biya’s genocide war on the people of Southern Cameroon. His war has resulted in the rape of our women, the killing of our children, parents and grandparents. His war has led to the destruction of your livelihood. His war has resulted to the complete burning down of over 400 of our villages. All of you fled to seek safety and security.

You might have lost businesses, homes, property and everything that gives meaning to your existence but I want to assure you, it’s not all over. I want to assure you today that the Interim Government of Ambazonia under Sisiku Ayuk Tabe stands with you. We will stand by you until justice, freedom and independence is served in Ambazonia.

Many of the great leaders and most successful people in history were refugees. We have heard stories of many who left refugee camps and became doctors, lawyers, engineers, entrepreneurs. So, your present status doesn’t make you a lesser human being. It gives you another opportunity to make the best of you through reflection.

Consider your current suffering as a challenge to contribute in making our world a better place. That should be your goal as we seek peace, justice and equality for all. In order to make our world a better place, let’s seek to be agents of change and build societies that will judge humans by the contents of their character. As you celebrate this day, remember that Ambazonia stands with you. Be of good character everywhere you are and make good use of the opportunities you have.

Our collective Vision, Dream and Goal are Buea and we will get there.

God bless you. God bless the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Thank You

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The Trump presidency is in a state of meltdown. He has been exposed once again as “an emperor without clothes.” He is losing on all fronts and as a result, is lashing out in all directions. But all of his huffing and puffing is having no effect and his poll numbers keep on sinking as the November elections draw near.

During the last week alone, the Supreme Court which Trump thought he had in his hip pocket, has ruled in favor of his opponents, extending legal protections to LGBT workers and keeping intact the Obama era orders protecting the children of undocumented immigrants.

Trump’s opposition to both initiatives has been the hallmark of his administration. In like manner, his other policies directed against immigrants, the building of a wall along the Mexican border, and his attempt to penalize “sanctuary cities” have been struck down by court rulings. Other Trump policies, such as the dismantling of Obamacare have also been met with defeat.

Trump has also used racist “dog whistles” to pander to his base of mostly white males, alienating Blacks, Hispanics, educated whites, and women in the process. His support for a police force that serves as an occupying force in Black and Hispanic communities has also backfired with mass multiracial protests against police brutality and their murders of Black men sweeping the country.

Besides all that, Trump’s criminal response to the COVID-19 pandemic led to the US having the largest numbers of cases and a skyrocketing death toll that led to the shut-down of the US economy and an economic crisis of unimaginable proportions. He is thus faced with a lose-lose situation, either keep the economy on hold until the pandemic abates, or open up the economy with the prospect of hundreds of thousands more unnecessary deaths.

Both the severity of the pandemic and the economic crisis that has ensued is the result of Trump’s blunders. Trump was more concerned with signing a trade deal with China and keeping the Stock Market at record highs than anything else, as he saw them as tickets to a second term.

But his plans went astray and he now finds his re-election prospects diminishing on a daily basis. Come November the pandemic will not have miraculously disappeared and the economy will not have recovered to any large extent. Thousands will still be dying and millions will still be unemployed.

Given the unprecedented crises that Trump now faces he has only one retort, blame China. The pandemic was not a result of his intransigence, but China’s failure to contain and control it. This is demonstrably false. New research unequivocally shows that the coronavirus was circulating in Italy weeks before it was identified in China and most of the strains of the virus in the US originated in Europe not China. Pinning the blame on China no longer holds water. But that will not deter Trump from continuing to point the finger at his favorite bête noire. Trump can only grouse about China’s supposed perfidy.

The Chinese, on the other hand, can sit back and be amused by Trump’s predicament. They will continue to do what they find necessary, protect their national sovereignty in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang. Tibet and the South China Sea and support their friends in North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Africa. All the invective and vitriol that the US can muster to try and denigrate China will have no effect.

Given the dismal prospects that Trump is faced with he has reverted to conniption fits and temper tantrums, like the spoiled toddler he is. No one should take what he says seriously. His threat to sever ties with China are just the ravings of a lunatic howling at the moon.

Culled from Presstv

Interim Government Statement Appeal Hearing of our Leaders in Detention

Fellow Ambazonians,

Today, our legal representatives had a meeting with the regime in Yaoundé at the Registry of the Appeal Court Administrative Centre, Yaoundé.

We were informed that an appeal will be heard in the matter of the life sentences handed upon our leaders abducted and detained at the Principal Prison in Yaoundé.

The NERA 10 Substantive Appeal has been scheduled for this Thursday, 18 June 2020 in the court hall of the Appeal Court of the Centre Region at the administrative centre Yaoundé.

It’s enormously significant to remind ourselves of the miscarriage of justice endured by our leaders in their bogus trials last year and the nonexistence of an independent legal system in French Cameroun. Despite the aforementioned, our legal representatives advise that we follow through with this appeal process.

All Ambazonians at home and abroad are called upon to observe Thursday, 18 June 2020, as a day of prayer and meditation.

As a nation, we know not how long the ordeal of our leaders abducted and detained illegally will take. We know not how long our suffering will go on for. We know not when our independence shall come. But one thing is certain; we shall get to Buea.

Thank You

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

When in power, many people, especially dictators, always hold that they are above their people and divine justice.

This belief could be seen in the behavior of the country’s president, Paul Biya, who had recklessly ruled his country for almost 38 years.

Despite the people’s tears, Mr. Biya has been conducting himself as a monarch who unfortunately holds that divine justice is nothing more than fiction.

He has ruined the country’s economy through massive mismanagement and destructive corruption, transforming the country into a living hell for young Cameroonians who have seen their dreams crushed in a country ruled by diaper-wearing octogenarians.

Under Mr. Biya’s watch and instructions, thousands of Southern Cameroonians have been sent to an early grave in a war that was unnecessary and avoidable.

Today, the country is falling apart, but the man who thinks that it must always be his way has no pity or kind words for Cameroonians who are dealing with multiple crises.

Even the arrival of the Coronavirus on the country’s shores could not cause Mr. Biya to reconsider some of his decisions.

While other leaders around the world were scrambling to reassure their citizens, the “chemist of Etoudi” simply recoiled into his palace and left his fellow citizens to battle an enemy they were unable to see.

Many families are still shedding tears for the death of their loved ones while the economy is still reeling from the impact of an insidious enemy who is simply no respecter of persons.

Tempers have been flaring because of Mr. Biya’s mismanagement of the country which has resulted in millions of premature deaths.

Millions are out of work, but still have huge challenges to deal with. Their health is failing and, for many, medication has become their food. That is, if they are lucky to have it.

The country’s hospitals have collapsed and street pharmacies are mushrooming and doing a great job at poisoning the country’s citizens who do not know where to turn to for solutions to their numerous headaches.

The captain has simply left the ship to sink slowly while he spends time thinking about his declining health and eventual death.

In all this anger, the people of Cameroon have been left with only thing. The curses their ancestors bequeathed to them and they have made the most of them.

Many had predicted that Mr. Biya would die miserably and this is gradually coming to pass.

Besides his failing health, the “greedy and incompetent monarch” is spending his last days crying and calling on God to grant him some mercy, the mercy he has never granted to other Cameroonians.

His children have crashed like a pack of cards and this has left Mr. Biya in a world of brutal thoughts.

His world is really unravelling. While his sons are good for nothing, his only be loving daughter, Brenda Biya, is heading to the bottom of the abyss as portrayed by two videos that are currently trending on the Internet.

The curses have come home to roost. Vox popoli, vox dei (the words of men are the words of God). Brenda Biya is gradually letting Cameroonians into that dangerous world of false importance and flamboyant celebrations.

She is gradually losing her mind and it appears that there is nobody to help her out. Mr. Biya has not only failed as a president, he has failed as a father and his heart is broken.

Mr. Biya’s world, like the country’s economy, is crashing. He has hurt Cameroonians for far too long and his time has come.

He is having a dose of the medication he had manufactured for Cameroonians. What goes around has finally come around. Mr. Biya thought he would go Scot-free after having inflicted unbearable and excruciating pain on Caneroonians.

It is hoped that he would repent before dying. He is already living his hell here on earth. The world he created for Cameroonians has become the world of his children.

A mentally ill Brenda will have to be quarantined at the Unity Palace. She will never go out of the world of falsehood created by her parents because Cameroon was designed for the poor and not for children of the rich. And this will only complicate her mental health issue.

While we all have to choose our poisons here on earth, Mr. Biya decided to choose the most lethal poisons for himself – arrogance and dishonesty – which have come back to bite him.

He will leave the world knowing that he hurt Cameroonians and his own children. May he continue to live with his arrogance and dishonesty! Long live the monarch!

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman/Editor-In-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

Without free speech, there is no liberty. It is the duty of the mentally autonomous to demand and defend freedom of speech and expression. With this duty comes the realisation that it is also about speech they disagree with.

Last week’s confirmation from the government of the Cameroons that Samuel Wazizi, a journalist, with a local station, CMTV, Buea has died whilst in detention is inexcusable. Wazizi was neither charged nor tried. He died for being a journalist.

On the 8 June 2020, after unrelenting pressure from human rights organisations and international media, the regime in Yaoundé released information that Kingsley Njoka, another journalist who was abducted on the 15 May 2020, has been detained incommunicado at the Secretariat of Defense (SED) Yaoundé. Lawyers who were allowed to meet him observed that he was frail, pale and traumatized psychologically.

Cameroon is an obscured nation of 25 million inhabitants in the Gulf of Guinea. It’s been governed with an iron-fist by Paul Biya, the world’s oldest dictator. The country’s political and economic challenges are countless and growing. Although, blessed with natural resources, it is plagued by the Boko Haram insurgency in the north and a political unrest in the south.

It has a terrible human rights record and a scandalous record on press freedom. It is ranked 134th out of 180 countries and territories in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.  It is obvious that freedom of speech is an offence in the country and this is incompatible with a free society. The criminalization of free speech results in fear and bondage existence. In Cameroon, there are reports of countless acts of brutality to proponents of freedom of speech and expression. This is unacceptable!

The death of Samuel Wazizi and the detention of Kingsley Njoka have employed little empathy from the regime in Yaoundé and their collaborators. The authorities and the country’s military fear no consequences from its citizens and the international community for their actions.

The ignorance or wickedness of those who enjoy freedom of speech and expression in western democracies but support the evil perpetrated by dictators such as Paul Biya is worrisome and must be condemned. Successive French Presidents have given Paul Biya carte blanche and he has not let them down.

Since taking power almost four decades ago, Paul Biya has been increasingly hostile in his attacks on free speech. He seeks to quiet his critics, whom he considers sinners in publicly exposing his voluminous shortcomings. His imprisonment and execution of many political critics, especially journalists and scholars has remained unreported and unpunished due to his meticulously designed web of state-sponsored intimidators and murderers.

It is impossible to envisage anywhere on this planet a group of organized lawbreakers working effortlessly in harmony and impunity than the police and gendarmes in Cameroon. It should marvel any discerning mind that such savagery as incommunicado detention is a regular occurrence in the twenty-first century. The Idea that small minded criminal elements could eliminate freedom of speech in a country exhibits an utter lack of appreciation of history.

The appreciation of the value of freedom of speech and expression by tyrants is one challenge that man has had to face over the centuries. Tyrants and bigots fear freedom of expression because it exposes their smallness and lack of humanity. Arbitrary and unlawful arrest, intimidation, murder and political imprisonment are tools used to stifle debates and they also give the oppressor a false sense of authority.

Despots must understand that people perceive things differently. The failure of any government to uphold freedom of speech and expression betrays its principal duty to the people.  Man is a learning and growing animal. When man stops learning, he stops growing. The ruling class in Cameroon has made a conscious decision to not learn anything from history and thus their collective lack of growth is stunting the nation they govern.

Terror and oppression have never propelled man to growth and success. The great contributors to man’s progress since his appearance on this planet have been men and women who have been allowed to flourish in free societies. Man makes his greatest contribution to humanity when he is free to exercise his freedom of thought and expression. This explains the decline in political, economic and scholarly progress under the rules of tyrants.

The criminalization of free of speech and expression in the Cameroons exposes one of the reasons for its economic and academic backwardness despite being blessed with enormous natural and human resources.

The primary function of any organisation is to help men and women enjoy a more meaningful existence. If the leaders of any organisation, a business or country included, are not helping humans attain the aforementioned, they shouldn’t be in the organisation. The political leaders in Yaoundé need to take a look at themselves and make speedy decisions.

Wazizi has been murdered for being a journalist by a regime that exhibits an utter obliviousness of history and spotting the trend in a changing world. But the free speech he stood for will live longer than his murderers and their brutal and ignorant institutions.

By Asu Vera Eyere with additional reporting from Ewang Miriam Metchane

Cameroon Concord News Group