Media in Cameroon have accused the country’s National Communication Council (NCC) of censorship ahead of October’s presidential election after it issued a stern warning accusing the media of propagating hate language that can deepen fighting in the central African state.

One supposed offenders – Amplitude FM, a radio station in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde, which told potential voters to be ready for carnage that will spread all over the central African state should its president, Paul Biya, be reelected October 7. The broadcaster says that after 36 years as head of state, Biya should peacefully hand over power – and if he doesn’t – be forced to do so.

The radio station’s program in question is called Polimetre. Less than a month ago, its host, Dieudonne Mbah, anchored another political program called Polifocus that was suspended by Cameroon’s NCC, the country’s media regulator, for spreading hate language. He simply changed the name of the program.

Mbah says his program, like 12 others, was targeted because it takes a strong stance against Biya’s long stay in power. He says if he should be punished for asking people to vote for change, so, too, should other journalists for asking potential voters to take a tougher stand against those who oppose Biya.

“Some media houses like the state-run CRTV, television stations which are owned or backed by government ministers, seem untouched even when their journalists are known to have broken the same rules which other journalists and other media organs have been punished for, but they go unpunished. So I think that the NCC still needs to rise to that occasion where they can discipline any media houses irrespective of the name or irrespective of who owns it,” Mbah said.

Jude Kiven, president of the Yaounde chapter of the Association of English-Speaking Journalists, says politicians have manipulated many journalists who now no longer practice their profession, but take sides with some candidates. Jude says many producers of programs suspended by the NCC simply change their names or the names of the media organ.

“It is important for the National Communication Council to sanction anyone or any media house that is guilty of hate speech, yet the National Communication Council can take decisions and sanctions that can be ignored by the journalist or the media house. Government did not give the National Communication Council enough powers to be able to enforce their decisions,” Kiven said.

Last month, a court in Yaounde asked the president of the NCC, Peter Essoka, to pay a fine of $30,000 as damages to Vision 4, a TV station in Cameroon. Essoka had suspended some of the station’s programs, saying they could be compared with those of Radio Mille-Collines, the media outlet that was at the heart of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Essoka acted after journalists from from Vision 4 said all English speakers in the bilingual country where French also is an official language should be held responsible and punished for the crisis rocking the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions.

Private media outlets in Cameroon also defied a ban on political programs imposed by the National Communication Council, which insisted political debates may cause conflict ahead of senatorial elections on March 25.

In 2017, the NCC suspended 35 journalists and media outlets, accusing them of failing to respect professional norms and ethics. Some of those punished had criticized the government’s handling of the crisis in the English-speaking regions. Others criticized senior state functionaries about the use of public funds.

“It has been so insulting, abusive; it is becoming rampant, developing into a hate society,” Essoka said. “We cannot permit that some people destroy the state of the nation under the pretext that they are free. Freedom or liberty has its limits, and we shall insist on that limit. Part of the crisis in our country is based on the things that people say.”

Essoka said the NCC is committed to cleaning up the media landscape in Cameroon, but it doesn’t not have a way to enforce decisions and must rely on administrative and security officials who very often refuse to collaborate.

Essoka said he regrets that media rights group Reporters Without Borders thinks the NCC is taking a tougher line toward journalists and media.

Cameroon was ranked 126 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2016 World Press Freedom Index.

Cameroon has more than 500 newspapers and 100 radio and TV stations which express divergent views about the presidential election.

VOA

The Francophone governor of the so-called South West region, Okala Bilai whose military has killed, maimed, tortured, and detained thousands of Southern Cameroonians, has sought to downplay the atrocities, which the Ambazonian Acting President Dr. Samuel Ikome Sako and the International Crisis Group have conclusively said constitute genocide.

In a surprise visit today at Mile 17 Buea, Governor Okala Bilai said, “There are of course ways in which, the Cameroon government could’ve handled better the Anglophone problem.”  The governor who addressed Southern Cameroonians recently as “dogs” was quick to sound even softer about the nasty activities of the Francophone dominated army.

The Francophone governor pleaded with Ambazonians not to flee Buea the capital city of the Southern Zone to Douala and Yaounde in French Cameroun. More than three thousands Southern Cameroonians have been killed by troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé and scores injured, arbitrarily arrested, or raped by the French Cameroun army and Minister Paul Atanga Nji militia.

Governor Bilai has both failed to stop the genocide in the Southern Zone and has always spoken in defense of the Cameroon government military. The Ambazonian Communications Secretary, Chris Anu stated late last month that Governor Bilai himself was complicit in the genocide in Southern Cameroons.

The plight of Southern Cameroons long suffering in Francophone-majority La Republique du Cameroun, has attracted international attention only recently. Southern Cameroonians — who have lived in a vicious political setting with French Cameroun for generations are branded “enemies dans la maisons” “biafrais” “anglobami” “Opposants” and now are blackmailed and targeted on account of their ethnicity or valid claims for self determination.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in Buea

The so-called Minister- Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic has instructed Paul Atanga Nji, the Minister of Territorial Administration to carry out a re-installation ceremony of all Divisional Officers to their functions in Southern Cameroons plagued by insecurity.

The President Biya acolyte, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh stated in a recent ministerial order that  6 Divisional Officers left Menchum County due to the war in Southern Cameroons while 2 sub prefects have been conspicuously absent in the Momo constituency.

Secretary General Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh revealed that, 7 districts in 4 Counties in the Southern Zone were without administrative heads. Since the outbreak of the Southern Cameroons crisis in late 2016, 2 Divisional Officers have already been killed by armed Ambazonian Restoration Forces.

The re-installation of these Divisional Officers in their various localities as prescribed by the Secretary General of the presidency has been linked to preparations for the counterfeit presidential election slated for the 7^th of October 2018 that armed Southern Cameroons separatists have promised to disrupt. None of the nine Divisional Officers has so far held a political meeting in this part of the country ever since the 85 year President Biya declared war on the English speaking community in Cameroon.

By Sama Ernest

If an offer is too good to be true, most probably it’s a scam. A Quezon City businessman almost fell victim to a “black dollar” scam offering to triple his money.

But operatives of the National Capital Region Police Office-Regional Special Operations Unit (NCRPO-RSOU) arrested the perpetrators—two Cameroon nationals and a Filipino woman in Makati City on Thursday night.

The suspects—Samuel Djumba, 47; Patian Libukan, 36, both from Cameroon but temporarily staying at a condominium in Mandaluyong; and Sarah Miranda, 47, of Caloocan—were caught in an entrapment operation inside Room 2615 of City Garden Grand Hotel, at the corner of Makati  and Kalayaan Avenues in Makati City at 8:55 p.m.

The 53-year-old businessman filed a complaint against the suspects after he smelled fraud when the suspects promised to triple his money if he could produce $50,000. Like other black dollar schemes, the suspects told him they had piles of dollar bills stored in a safe but were dyed with black ink to avoid detection by authorities. They then asked him to pay for fees to clear it from customs and to buy chemicals that could wash the dye off, and promised to get a 50-percent share from the total proceeds.

Source: Inquirer

Cameroon government forces have reportedly killed a man and his three sons in Ekona some few miles from Buea the capital of the Southern Zone in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. Troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime carried out the massacre on Friday evening as the family were returning from the farm. Our correspondent in the Fako County gathered from local sources that the late Bezeng Jonas who moonlighted as the Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Ekona and his three sons were shot by Francophone soldiers.

Their remains were abandoned beside their family vehicle by the soldiers fighting Southern Cameroons separatists in the area. It is more than a year since the start of the French Cameroun military campaign in Southern Cameroons, but that is unlikely to be an occasion for celebration in Yaoundé. Cameroon Intelligence Report sources have all opined that the war has created several military and CPDM billionaires and is estimated to have cost the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime billions of FCFA.

Correspondingly, the Southern Cameroons war has eroded the international image of the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon and failed to achieve its objectives of containing the Ambazonian revolution and quest for an independent state.  At the same time, the people of Southern Cameroons have suffered immensely from the French-backed French Cameroun military campaign, which has claimed the lives of some 2000 Southern Cameroonians, destroyed Ambazonian towns and villages and has led to widespread disease and hunger.

By Sama Ernest in Buea

Twenty-seven bodies were found in the Menchum County after the French Cameroun army carried out an onslaught in the Ambazonian constituency precisely in the Yemngeh locality some few kilometers from Zhoa sources have confirmed to Cameroon Intelligence Report, adding to concern about abuse by the Francophone security forces in their fight against Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces.

Our correspondent in Wum, the chief town in the Menchum County reported that the 27 bodies were found in two mass graves.  The grim discovery was made after the French Cameroun army said in a statement that it had killed several Southern Cameroon separatist fighters in the area during an operation it carried out on Tuesday night.

Correspondingly, a senior Christian figure in Weh hinted that the first grave had 17 bodies and the second held 10. The regime in Yaounde has always announced an inquiry but regularly denies these accusations of summary executions.

Many innocent Southern Cameroons civilians were reportedly injured during the French Cameroun government attack in the Menchum County and many including women and children have all escaped into the bushes.  The army destroyed the bridge linking Weh to Wum during the attacks and several houses were burnt down.

By Rita Akana in Wum

The Francophone dominated army on Wednesday said it had killed three Southern Cameroonian citizens in Bamenda. The French Cameroun army spokesman revealed that the killings took place on the same day that the education minister visited the capital of the Northern Zone, with tensions spiking as children return to school.

Didier Badjeck opined that those killed were separatist fighters operating in the Mezam County. He further pointed out that the three Ambazonians were in a car planning to assassinate the Minister of Education.  The exiled Southern Cameroons government says the education system marginalises Anglophone pupils and has decreed a boycott of schools in the areas they lay claim to.

Numerous shots were heard Tuesday around the hotel where Education Minister Youssouf Adidja Alim was staying during a visit to the city to coincide with the reopening of schools. AFP reported that a source close to Minister Alim said the occupants of the vehicle had been “spotted and repelled” before they could reach the minister.

The war in Southern Cameroons has left more than 2000 Ambazonians dead and displaced about 200,000 people since late 2016. Years of resentment at perceived discrimination at the hands of Cameroon’s majority French speakers have led to almost daily acts of violence and retribution, triggering an army crackdown.

On Monday seven pupils and a headmaster were kidnapped by armed men at a school in Bafut, near Bamenda. Two students and the school head were freed on Tuesday, according to information obtained by AFP.

The Ambazonian Interim Government has said on social media that they could not guarantee the security of children who returned to school in defiance of the boycott.

Reported with files and extracts from AFP

A prominent Cameroonian rights activist has been missing for nearly a month after heading to the restive anglophone region on a fact-finding mission, his partner said on Monday.

Franklin Mowha, the head of the Frontline Fighters for Citizen’s Interest, disappeared after leaving the commercial capital Douala on August 6 for Kumba, a town in the English-speaking South-West Region, Stephanie Flore Ngiedie Nkamgue told AFP.

“I have tried in vain to contact him on telephone,” she said.  “Nobody has been able to talk to him from August 6 and all his numbers have been unreachable from the 13th,” she said.

Separatist unrest in Cameroon’s two minority English-speaking regions – northwest and southwest – has left scores dead and displaced around 200 000 people since late 2016.

Years of resentment at perceived discrimination at the hands of Cameroon’s francophone majority have led to almost daily acts of violence and retribution and triggered a government crackdown.

Theophile Nono, another activist, said Mowha was going to Kumba to gather numbers on how many people had been displaced by the unrest. His family has informed the police but Cameroonian authorities have so far not commented on the disappearance.

The conflict in the anglophone region, where separatists have declared an independent state, poses problems for the organisation of the presidential election scheduled for October 7 in which the 85-year-old incumbent Paul Biya is bidding for a seventh consecutive term.

Anglophones today account for about a fifth of the West African country’s population of 22 million.