Headline News

23, December 2016

Yaounde: CEMAC leaders discussing a second devaluation of the FCFA ⁰

Presidents Sassou Nguesso of Congo, Ali Bongo of Gabon, Faustin Touadera of the Central African Republic, Idriss Deby of Chad, and Theodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea are in Yaoundé. The leaders together with their Cameroonian counterpart, Paul Biya are holding an extraordinary summit of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) this Friday, December 23, 2016.

The topics on the agenda of this extraordinary summit have still not been revealed to the media. However, speculations are high that the leaders are discussing a second devaluation of the Franc CFA because of the financial crisis in the Central African Sub region.

Cameroon Concord News was reliably informed that this summit focusing on the ability of the CEMAC economy to cope with the current financial crisis. Finance ministers have revealed that CEMAC trade balance is in deficit and countries of the sub region are now facing a drastic decline in their reserves in terms of the French treasury operating account. So it is obvious that there is a risk of a second devaluation.

The leaders are also expected to examine the subject on the negotiations between CEMAC and the European Union for the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreements.

By Rita Akana

23, December 2016

Former Director of M16 says Germany overwhelmed by some 7000 “live” terrorists ⁰

A former director at the British MI6 has claimed that German intelligence authorities are overwhelmed by and are almost unable to track some 7,000 “live” terrorist cases in their country. Richard Barrett told the BBC Radio 4’s Today program that there were around 550 “really extreme potential terrorists on the books” in Germany.

“If you include all the Lander (local regions) in Germany, they have about 7,000 live cases,” he claimed. “As you can imagine, that is an almost impossible number to control.” Barrett is a former director of global counter-terrorism operations at the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as the MI6.

In addition, Barret said, a wider group of potential suspects were those who had “come to attention in this context of radical extremism,” and were therefore “worthy of investigation.” It was not clear whether Barret was citing official data from Germany and, if so, how he had obtained it; and there was no comment from German intelligence authorities as of Friday morning.

German security forces have been criticized for a recent terrorist attack in the country that killed 12 people and injured 50. The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which is mainly active in militancy in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the Monday attack. Germany security officials have identified the main suspect in the terrorist attack, in which a 40-ton truck was rammed into a busy Berlin Christmas market, as Anis Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker.

Amri, who had been under surveillance by German intelligence after he arrived in the country in 2015 and had been arrested three times already this year, should have been deported several months ago as his asylum application had been rejected.

However, Amri’s deportation papers were never served to him as he slipped under the radar despite being a known radical extremist who is alleged to have received weapons training, possibly by Daesh militants. Police have now spread a dragnet to find Amri, who remains at large and possibly dangerous.

Presstv

23, December 2016

Minister Laurent Esso says Common Law Lawyers strike “unnecessary” ³

The so-called Minister of State in charge of Justice and Keeper of the Seal has made a mockery of Cameroon Common Law Lawyers in a presentation at the National Assembly. Laurent Esso revealed that lawyers are only protected while in court and not on the streets.

Said Esso “With respect to the protection of lawyers on the street, I want to be clear on that. A lawyer is covered by immunity before the courts and this immunity relates to statements made at the hearing and documents filed at the hearing. When a lawyer is before a court, he is protected by the Prosecutor of the Republic of the jurisdiction. But when a lawyer is on the street, he does not enjoy immunity because that is not what the law says. He is protected only in the courts.”

The Francophone minister added that those who go out on the street face the police and it is not the Ministry of Justice or the court that ensures the maintenance of order. They have their own procedure and are implemented by the Sub-Prefect, the Prefect or the Governor. “So if lawyers want to be protected, let them come before the courts.” Laurent Esso also noted that the Department of Justice has received no complaints from what he painted as “the so-called Common Law lawyers”. To the Minister, the Common Law Lawyers strike is unnecessary.

By Sama Ernest

23, December 2016

War on terror: Cameroon shifts troops in Nigeria ⁰

Hundreds of Cameroonian servicemen and women from the Rapid Intervention Battalion have entered Nigerian territory. The troops were deployed at the request of President Buhari for a decisive and intense anti Boko Haram operation. Cameroon Concord News gathered that the soldiers operating under Operation Alpha are currently stationed at Goshe, a village in northeastern Nigeria about twenty kilometers from the Cameroonian town of Achigachia.

Ever since the beginning of this massive military campaign, the damage in the ranks of the Cameroonian army has been minimal. The only incident recorded occurred on the first day of the operation, when an army vehicle jumped on a mine and two soldiers’ sustained injuries.

Cameroon military sources say the operation was launched under the banner of the Joint Multinational Force and the offensive aims to reopen the Bama-Banki axis and resettle the Nigerian army in Goshe, which is said to be one of the strongholds of Boko Haram. The current operation is also taking place in a mountain sanctuary of Boko Haram located in Sambisa.

By Rita Akana

22, December 2016

Francophone dominance: HYSACAM takes over Bamenda City Council ⁰

The Government Delegate to the Bamenda Urban Council, Vincent NDUMU has announced that the company in charge of collection and recycling of refuse will be officially installed in the city in 2017. Ndumu who has come under fire recently in the way garbage is managed in town also said that the Council has signed over 5 billion Francs deal with HYSACAM for five years.

According to the government delegate, the coming of HYSACAM will reduce the heavy load and burden on Council’s resources. Before the arrival of HYSACAM next year, the Bamenda City Council has been using its own resources to collect and dispose waste in the city for a meager sum of about 350 000 000 frs for one year.

But Mr NDUMU said the coming of HYSACAM will mean dozens who were working in the Hygiene and Sanitation department will have to be sacked, hence it will cause massive unemployment. Even though he reassured that he could integrate them in other services, a majority of workers stand to lose their jobs. Garbage disposal in the North West regional capital Bamenda has been a thorn in the flesh of the Government Delegate who has been accused of not working to preserve the beauty of the town which is gradually fading into a jungle.

But he says that those who are accusing him are ignorant of the huge task the Council has. He cited case of markets where taxes are far below what they use to dispose garbage from the markets. Vincent NDUMU has challenged City Dwellers to tell him which Government Delegate out of the 14 has worked hard like him to embellish the town. He frowned at media reports which according to him always target his personality.

Cameroun Info.Net

22, December 2016

President Biya is Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year 2016 ³

Blood and intrigues have earned President Paul Biya Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year nomination. This may seem unprecedented but justifiable. Blood and intrigues are the defining attributes of Paul Biya’s presidency. Indeed, blood and intrigues are at its highest as we write. They, therefore merit special attention in our choice of our man of the year.

The choice of Mr Biya as Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year 2016 is not without difficulties. The first difficulty is that it is unprecedented and requires some explanation for reasonable people to contextualize and understand.

We are conscious that no matter what explanation we may give, there will be significant questions begging for answers. The choice is unconventional and fails to meet the conventional criteria for the choice of a classic man of the year. But we hasten to state that this choice is not intended to celebrate any remarkable achievement of Mr Paul Biya for the public good. Far from that, it is intended to create international awareness and focus on the acts and conduct of the man whom if the international community fails to act promptly, may set the entire sub-region on an internecine war of attrition and possible genocide.

President Paul Biya is an African strongman who over a period of thirty-four years has established an absolute brutal dictatorship. During these long years in power, he has succeeded to make Cameroon a deeply divided nation. He is a master of the politics of ethnicity.

His staying power is mired in dividing and playing one ethnic group against the others in order to compel subservience. His reign is characterized by a state of fear, a permanent state of emergency symbolized by daily motions of support broadcast by the national radio-television network and published by the national daily Cameroon Tribune. These motions of support convey a sublime sense of potential political instability, fear and the anxiety of a nation at war with its soul.

In thirty-four years President Biya has established a system of government which may be characterized as a pyramid scheme of institutional corruption. With it, he manipulates, controls and dominates Cameroon’s political life. From the summit of this corrupt enterprise, he politicizes and supervises a supposed war against corruption. He relies on this war against corruption to keep in check a frightened and docile nation.

Among the many victims of this war are, some ambitious members of his crime syndicate who initiated a premature contest for power; at a moment Biya needed their unalloyed support to eternalize power. For daring, he put them in jail. The next are the rats in Paul Biya’s Alibaba Empire of corruption. They are the gate-keepers of the corrupt empire. Their crime is that they helped themselves beyond their permitted limit from the sesame treasure of Paul Biya’s prurient corrupt government. While he has encouraged and promoted this category of stooges, he has on occasion sacrificed them as disposable fodder aimed at concealing or deflating international attention and spotlight on the dire consequences of his failed economic policies, systemic corruption, egregious violations and crass misgovernance.

The third category is made up of potential troubling witnesses whom he brought too close to his regime of personal power, but whose long term allegiance, he cannot vouchsafe. To instill fear and compel allegiance from the political power elite he created and nurtured to serve him and him alone, he created a Special Criminal Court which he uses against adversaries, real or apparent at his will and caprices.

A key consideration in our choice of Mr Paul Biya as Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year is his presidency of blood and intrigues. These are key attributes on which his presidency was firmly established from inception. From one stage-managed attempted coup d’état aimed at expunging the lingering political influence of his “illustrious predecessor” Ahmadou Ahidjo an attempted coup d’état which was savagely repressed was organized. The toll in human and material cost of the violent repression has never been made public. Timid attempts by Northern Cameroon’s power elite to seek an answer to this lingering and smoldering powder keg has so far been ignored.

That massacre set the stage for President Paul Biya to establish a platform for the fulfillment of a long term French- inspired ambition to completely wipe out the internationally recognized identity of the Southern Cameroons as a means of securing its gulf of Guinea oil economy. President Biya engineered and enacted a law re-emphasizing and clarifying the identity of La Republique du Cameroun and its inherited boundaries at independence on January 1, 1960. This action was the powder keg that ignited the identity crisis that has bedeviled Cameroon ever since, with the Southern Cameroons arguing with international law and history on its side that by redefining its identity within its international recognized borders consistent with its international identity at the UN and the AU,, La Republique du Cameroun must withdraw its forces and administrators on the territory of the Southern Cameroons to its said internationally recognized boundaries forthwith.

The ongoing mayhem, crimes against humanity and a drift towards potential genocide in the territory of the Southern Cameroons perpetrated by forces deployed by President Paul Biya to suppress a popular uprising clamoring for freedom and independence arose from resistance to annexation, cultural asphyxiation and colonial imposition. The ongoing uprising therefore arises from the arrogance of power, political and geostrategic choices that are endangering the peace and security in the gulf of Guinea requiring urgent United Nations Intervention.

The plethora of deliberate but uninvestigated human disasters in Lake Nyos, the Nsam fire disaster, the University of Yaounde Zero Mort student massacres, the University of Buea students massacred during various student protests, the February 28, 2008 massacre of peaceful protesters all over the national territory, the recent Eseka train disaster and persistent shameful attempts to conceal responsibility for these crimes against humanity bear the stamp of presidential responsibility. The legitimate question to ask is who stands to benefit from these crimes if not the President who holds the constitutional mandate to protect all citizens and uphold fundamental freedoms?

The use of the constitutional institutions of governance like the National Assembly and the Judiciary as tools for the entrenchment of tyranny and oppression makes President Paul Biya, an imperial president, endowed with the power of life and death over a citizenry resigned to their fate and the forces of nature for survival.

Rather than confront the ills afflicting the nation, like the institutional pauperization of the masses, the paucity of basic necessities like water, electricity, affordable medical care, road infrastructure, and rising insecurity, the President relies on these depravities as political tools to compel allegiance and political control.

The resolution of the Bakassi crisis was supposed to be celebrated as a defining achievement of a Biya presidency, but the Southern Cameroons problem of which Bakassi is a significant component if not satisfactorily resolved, will lead to reigniting with ferocious intensity, the Bakassi crisis with sub-regional and regional consequences.

The President declared war against Boko Haram from a foreign capital, Paris. That again was an unprecedented. However, while due credit must be given to the Cameroon Army for their war effort against Boko Haram, the economic neglect which was exploited to recruit Cameroonians into these terrorist organization must be addressed. Doing so needs adequate resources and a national Marshall Development plan which President Biya has in thirty-four years failed to establish. Cameroon is instead economically on the decline and has become a heavily indebted nation, mortgaging the future of the nation far into posterity.

Without any form of stylistic felicity, Cameroon Concord News holds the firm opinion that under the circumstances painted above, Cameroon is living on the heart pulse of one individual. There is no visible possibility of democratic change of government in Cameroon. The institutional framework does not exist. There is no constitutional court envisaged by the Constitution to adjudicate on constitutional issues including the political transition, should there be a constitutional imperative. This is a powerful indication that Mr Biya does not envisage retiring from politics and relinquishing power through constitutional means.

President Paul Biya is undoubtedly the undisputed heart pulse of a nation of twenty-three million people who are living at his pleasure. He is deified by his supporters who additionally credit him for being the master of time and destiny of the nation. One of them, Professor Fame Ndongo claimed the status of the President’s slave and invited the nation to follow. These attributes confer considerable power and authority on President Paul Biya next to, if not at par with God. This indeed, is the problem with Cameroon.

By nominating Mr Biya Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year, Cameroon Concord Group does not in any way subscribe to or validate these attributes or the policies of Mr Biya that have earned him this nomination. Cameroon is besieged from the East, the North and now the Southern Cameroons in international conflicts. These conflicts are a product of a deliberate policy of blood and intrigues.

Behind this facade of the power of blood and intrigues, there are visible cracks on the walls of absolute power and the tyranny of absolute personal power. Will the His Excellency the pulse of the nation, the master and controller of time, beat the timeless time of one and only true God to mend the visible cracks to sustain his eternal power? The answer lies in a clear understanding of the parable of the rich fool.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

22, December 2016

Douala CPDM mayor get caught, nude photo made public by wife ⁰

The nude photo of a CPDM Mayor of the Douala city council who got caught has created a buzz on the internet. The local representative had reportedly had a fast one in a hotel with one of his many concubines when his wife stormed the room and took photos of him in Adam and Eve uniform.

Internet users are wondering about the publisher’s interest in releasing on the internet a picture of a man she calls her husband. Many have questioned if is a blackmail that went wrong or an attempt to undermine the image of the deputy mayor?

This phenomenon is increasing in Cameroon despite a new penal code voted into law that prescribes severe punishment on attacks on privacy using the social networks.

Sonne Peter in Douala

22, December 2016

UN: Security Council urges Gambia’s President Jammeh to transfer power ⁰

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has called on Gambia’s longtime head of state, Yahya Jammeh, to hand over power to President-elect Adama Barrow, who won the December 1 polls in the West African country.

In a statement read at an open council meeting on Wednesday, the 15-member body said it was “encouraged” by decisions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union to recognize Barrow as Gambia’s future leader.

Barrow and Jammeh secured 43.3 and 39.6 percent of the vote respectively. Jammeh, who has governed the country for 22 years, initially accepted the results but later reversed his position, saying the polls were riddled with irregularities and vowed to challenge the outcome in the Supreme Court.

ECOWAS, in turn, urged Jammeh to honor his initial pledge to accept electoral defeat and threatened “to take all necessary action to enforce the results” of the polls. However, Jammeh said he would not step down and accused West African leaders of violating the ECOWAS principle of non-interference. “I am not a coward. My right cannot be intimidated and violated. This is my position. Nobody can deprive me of that victory,” he said during a televised speech.

Reports said ECOWAS might seek approval from the UNSC, of which Senegal is a non-permanent member, for the use of force against the Gambia. The UNSC said ECOWAS initiatives “aimed at ensuring a peaceful and orderly transition process.” It further urged Barrow’s security to be “fully ensured” and called on Gambian defense and security forces to “demonstrate maximum restraint to maintain an atmosphere of calm” in the capital, Banjul.

Barrow’s inauguration ceremony is expected to be held on January 19. Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 military coup, has come under fire by human rights groups for what is said to be his crackdown on opponents.

Presstv

22, December 2016

Finance Minister in hot waters over a 24 billion FCFA payments made to a CPDM tycoon ⁰

The Minister of Finance has been accused of paralyzing public finance as many service providers are unable to reclaim their funds due to a fictitious financial slump within his department. Information has also filtered that Cameroon is broke and the state is no longer able to meet some of its commitments.

However,Cameroon Concord News gathered recently that the Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey approved the payment of 24 billion FCFA to the billionaire Baba Danpullo who reportedly is a President Biya acolyte. The reasons for this payment have not yet been clarified and made public. But what we do know is that the payments to the CPDM tycoon, Baba Danpullo were made spontaneously while other invoices validated for payments to some economic operators and other service providers have been tripping for several months at the premises of the ministry.

The CPDM Francophone pattern of governance provides for payments to some people at the detriment of several others. The Minister had reportedly told some other businessmen and women that the war on Boko Haram had emptied state coffers but was quick to dish-out 24 billion CFA to Baba Danpullo. Minister Alamine Ousmane Mey comes from a family whose fortunes have been linked to the Biya administration for more than 40 years. His father was a close confidante of Biya under Ahidjo.

By Rita Akana

22, December 2016

Southern Cameroons 54 years after: Anglophones are perpetually subdued, victimized and traumatized as house slaves ⁰

It is now 54 years since the Republic of Cameroun and the UN trusteeship state of Southern Cameroons came together in 1961. The now bastardized, skewed and imbalanced Unification gave birth to a premature and deformed baby we Christened bilingualism. 54 years after, the hapless child is still limping with one leg while the Union is standing on a tripod of injustice, discrimination and inequality of opportunity.

In honest, genuine bilingualism has never existed in Cameroon. The Francophones have never respected bilingualism in practical terms. What we have on ground is a charade, a Francophone fad and a masquerade- a fake! It is a sleazy stratagem, a shameless swindle, a freaky farce and a spineless political slogan engineered by the Francophones to get what they want from the Anglophones. Now that they have our crude, timber, cocoa…; they shamelessly and with great avarice grab and reserve all the juicy appointments and positions for themselves. The Anglophones are perpetually subdued, victimized and traumatized as house slaves and nannies, carriers of water and cutters of wood in a land where Communal Liberalism is a national mantra.

No Anglophone has ever headed ministries like Finance, Territorial Administration, Defense, Foreign Affairs … No Anglophone has ever been the General Manager of S.N.H., SONARA, S.C.D.P., despite the existence of these state corporations more than 40 years ago. From the current political configuration, it is very likely that no Anglophone can become the President and Head of State in this country in the next 100 years. As a matter of urgency the Anglophones need to begin NOW to protest and insist that as stakeholders in our bigoted and discriminating Union, thy also must start getting and enjoying some of the goodies and special privileges illegally and unconstitutionally reserved only for the Francophones beginning from the next Cabinet reshuffle.

Francophones are using bilingualism as a carrot, a political ploy, a cultural vogue and a hype to hoodwink and placate the Anglophones. It is a well-planned smokescreen to distract the attention of the Anglophones from their predicaments and the negative realities of their marginalization; a strategic cover up to give them a false sense of belonging and to mollify their suppression so as to keep them loyal, subdued, subservient and gullible to their mischievous whims and sneaky machinations.

In Cameroon, our democracy is on trial. Our country is engulfed in the flames a diabolical precipice and senseless cultural cold war masterminded by French language zealots, lingual saboteurs and cultural terrorists. Our bilingualism is under attack and the English language, the inheritance, the pride, identity and legacy of the Anglophones in the Union has been under siege and the target of elimination since 1961. The culture and language of every group of people is sacrosanct to them- so is English language to the Anglophones in Cameroon. This campaign of exclusion and war of attrition against the English language is a colossal and collective gang up spear headed by over ambitious Francophone elites: the ruling class, the academia, politicians, professionals, and the mainstream press including the religious leaders. A repressive miasma of resentment, a paroxysm of discontent and dark clouds of subjugation and uncertainty still hang over the controversial, one-sided and unfair Union.