Cameroon has been ranked first in the consumption of alcoholic beverage in Central and West Africa.  The listing was made public following research carried out by LVnextCentury, a firm based in Paris.  The ranking was obtained on the basis of the figures provided by the main brewing companies in the various countries of the continent.  The biggest consumer for the entire continent is South Africa.

According to figures released by SABC, the country’s largest beer company, overall beer sales in Cameroon in 2015 was estimated at about 6,600,000 hl (660 million liters), including imports. On average, a Cameroonian consumes 36 liters of alcoholic beverage per year.

The middle and the poor, who largely constitute the Cameroonian society, are most affected by the phenomenon of alcoholism. Young people in school are not spared by the drinking phenomenon. Three quarters of the Cameroonian population devote nearly half of their income to alcohol consumption in a country where the GDP per capita is US $ 1,328.64 (2013) and in which more than 48% of the population, lives below the UN poverty line.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Minister Martin Belinga Eboutou, the Director of the Civil Cabinet at the Presidency of the Republic has reportedly resumed service after a few weeks of unavailability due to poor health. The Biya acolyte re-emerged in public at the Yaounde-Nsimalen International Airport to welcome the Head of State home after the visit to Italy and a vacation in Swiss on Wednesday 12 April 2017.

Recently, official communiqués issued by the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic did not carry his name and signature. Martin Belinga Eboutou has been present for almost ten years on all the foreign trips made by the Cameroonian dictator. However, he was conspicuously absent from the last official presidential trip to Italy and the Vatican from 20 to 23 March 2017.

A well-placed source hinted Cameroon Concord News that Belinga Eboutou was very ill when President Biya and wife left country and that all is indeed not well for the demagogue. The 77-year-old was evacuated to Europe in the middle of last year. He returned safely in July 2016 and ended a rumor that had said he had traveled to the land of his ancestors.

By Rita Akana

The Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations has revealed that the world body wants a rapid resolution of the socio-political crisis that has shaken the Anglophone regions of Cameroon for nearly six months. This is the message François Louncény Fall gave to officials of La Republique du Cameroun.

During his visit to Yaoundé on the 12^th of April 2017, François Louncény Fall, also Head of the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa, met with the Secretary General at the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh,  Justice Minister Laurent Esso, Minister of External Relations, Lejeune Mbella Mbella and Martin Mbarga Nguelé, Delegate General for National Security.

The UN Secretary General’s Special Representative said  the UN has welcomed the measures announced by the Minister for Justice but added that the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres is hoping for a rapid implementation of these promises.

The UN Special envoy further pointed out that an appeasement policy should be initiated with Southern Cameroonians and should involve the release of the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium arrested in connection with the crisis. Louncény Fall was at the Kondengui Prison where he met Barrister Agbor Balla and the radio host, Mancho Bibixy, who are among the 27 people who face the death penalty.

François Louncény Fall condemned the decision to shut down the internet and the arrest of the leaders of the Consortium. The cutting off of the internet is a measure taken by the Francophone government on the 17^th of January and which has already cost the Cameroonian economy more than 2 billion FCFA.

By Rita Akana

South West CPDM elites have suffered another major setback as the only bridge linking the Kingdom of Ossing in Eyumojock Sub constituency in Manyu headed by General Tataw James  via Akak village to Nguti Sub Division has collapsed.  The Intersubdivisional highway bridge in Akak village loaded with regular timber trucks dropped more than 60 feet into the Akak river, sending at least an overloaded timber vehicle and its two Francophone passengers into the water.

“This is a catastrophe of historic proportions for both the Manyu and the South West CPDM elites,” Enoh Njock, an operations manager for the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium said about three hours after the collapse. The old and outdated German bridge has not been repaired for ages. The bridge, which was built after the 1884 Berlin Conference, collapsed in three sections. One section of the bridge lay flat in the river, with the part of overloaded timber truck parked on the rolling pavement.

The truck driver and his companion were seen floundering in the river, calling for help. Cameroon Concord News reporter had just crossed the bridge and was heading to Ossing when it collapsed behind him.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Eyong Johnson in Nguti

The renowned Barrister Alice Nkom has appealed to the Biya regime to release the detained leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium including all Southern Cameroonians being held at the Kondengui High security prison in Yaoundé and elsewhere in Francophone Cameroun.  The human rights lawyer told STV news channel that the accusations of terrorism against the arrested Anglophone leaders were cynical.

Nkom said the Anglophone crisis is causing the nation great pain and erecting a stone wall between families and relations in the French and English speaking regions of the country. She argued that nobody in the world will believe Barrister Agbor Felix Nkongho and Dr Fontem Neba are terrorists. For her, the arrests of Southern Cameroonians are not helping to foster the business climate that President Paul Biya spoke during his recent visit to Italy. She pointed out that no right thinking investor can take Cameroon seriously and swore that Cameroon as a nation will pay dearly for the mess going on in Southern Cameroons.

Alice Nkom also said the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Laurent Esso acted unwisely and has failed woefully in his handling of the Southern Cameroons situation. For this experienced lawyer, the measures taken by the government to resolve the crisis in the Anglophone regions have been revolutionary and controversial.

“When you cut off communications to someone first you are violating a fundamental right. This is forbidden by the conventions you have signed. And secondly, it is an act of pure secession. And it is you Francophone who come to say that the others are secessionists?

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Three Southern Cameroon journalists have been arrested and detained at the Kondengui Central prison in Yaounde. They are Atia Tialrious, senior political commentator of The Sun Newspaper, Amos Fufong, reporter for The Guardian Post and Mofor Ndong, editor of Voice of  the Voiceless. Cameroon Concord News gathered they were all picked up by plain cloth police officers from La Republique du Cameroun last Friday.

A journalist with a sister publication, Cameroon Intelligence Report hinted at the time of fling this report that the three Southern Cameroon journalists were in Amos’s house at the time of their arrest.  Atia Tilarious and Amos Fufong had previously been in La Republique’s drag net on 9 February in Buea. They were arrested after being suspected of distributing pro-SCNC leaflets before being released after corporatist pressures.

By Rita Akana

AKERE MUNA: STOP EQUIVOCATING.

Lawyer Akere Muna, Please stop using ambiguous language to conceal or avoid committing yourself regarding the legal grounds for the independence of the Southern Cameroons.

You have a right, as a loyal son of Solomon Tandeng Muna, to defend your father’s enduring and endearing political legacy,even though, to his credit, he renounced the legacy of unification before his demise, by joining the 1995, 9 Man delegation to petition the United Nations on the independence of the Southern Cameroons.

We are aware of the retainer agreements you have signed with the Biya regime and the exceptional pecuniary benefits you have derived from your professional relationship with this potentate.

But you have the option of dissociating your professional relationship as a lawyer, with the responsibility to defend any client, from your political conviction to defend a bloodthirsty dictatorship from which your family has benefited.

There is testimonial evidence that apart from defending the Biya dictatorship in law suits, you have proposed your sister for a ministerial position, when you declined the offer to join the Biya government.

Akere, this is my question, why would the Biya dictatorship arrest Justice Paul Ayah Abine and not you?

What is your legal explanation for this apparent aberration, or is this politics as usual in French Cameroon where the Munas are stakeholders for this unconscionable annexation, that has been legally disguised as a federation?

Please, Southern Cameroonians need answers, because the battle lines are being drawn and we want to make sure no one is caught in the crossfire.

Thanks.

Larry Eyong-Echaw

The so-called Bar Association President and a gang of lawyers have reportedly announced that the strike action called by the Common Law Lawyers and endorsed by the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has been called off by the Batonier. The Bar Association President made public a press release from Douala informing the nation that the Common Law Lawyers are now willing to work with the Biya Francophone regime after the Yaounde authorities outlined a series of fake measures to stifle the Southern Cameroons revolution.

Below is the communiqué endorsed by Barrister Jackson NGNIE KAMGA

 PRESS RELEASE OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT

Following the extraordinary Bar Council meetings held respectively in Buea and Bamenda on the Saturdays 18th and 25th March 2017, which meetings were immediately followed by working sessions between lawyers of the two Anglophone regions and the Bar Council,

It was recommended that a unique framework comprising of very senior advocates from the North West and South West regions be set up to reflect on the way forward.

By The Bar President Decision No N° 038/BOABC/ADM/03/17 of 31st of March 2017, a conclave of senior advocates of the North West and South West regions to which some junior colleagues were integrated to elaborate the modalities of the way forward, was set up with the missions of making proposals on the way forward.

The conclave met in Bamenda on the 1st of April 2017 and in Buea on the 8th of April 2017.

Mindful of Government’s response to the demands of the Anglophone lawyers as announced by the Minister of State in charge of Justice ,during his press conference of the 30th of March 2017 , and the creation by the Minister of Public Services of an adhoc committee in charge of organizing the special recruitment of Common Law magistrates and judicial officers,

The conclave unanimously came up with the following recommendations:

1- That the President of the Bar Association is hereby authorized to enter into dialogue with the Government on matters bearing on the Common Law Lawyers.

2- That Advocates of the South West and North West regions shall resume work on the 2nd may 2017, for the resolutions of the ad hoc committee submitted to the Prime Minister and approved by the Head of States to be fully implemented

3- That this conclave shall be convened on the 30th July 2017 to evaluate progress made on the implementation of these resolutions.

On behalf of the Bar Council, the Batonnier sincerely thanks his colleagues of these two regions for this renewed confidence bestowed on the ruling organs of the Bar Association.

He especially thanks the members of the conclave who made enormous sacrifices and walked the extra mile to ensure the normalization of our activities.

He is mindful of all their recommendations, and announces that the lawyers in the North West and South West regions will resume work on the 2nd of May 2017.

He pledges to continue negotiations with the Government in order to satisfy the demands of the common law lawyers as well as the release of our two colleagues currently under detention in Yaoundé.

In the days ahead, the Batonnier, with a delegation of Bar Council members will travel to Buea and Bamenda to meet the heads of these jurisdictions in order to discuss and define concrete modalities for the resumption of work.

The Batonnier stresses that the return to normal is the fruit of dialogue between the Government and the Bar Association, dialogue which should be perpetuated and reinforced in a determined and responsible manner

Done in Douala this 9th April 2017

The Bar President

Jackson NGNIE KAMGA esq.

Tomorrow Monday the 10^th of April 2017, ghost town will be staged throughout Southern Cameroons as earlier decreed by the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.  Southern Cameroonians will chained themselves at home and will denounce the Francophone administrative machinery used to marginalize West Cameroonians. It is part of the recent series of civil disobedience campaign designed by the detained leaders of the Consortium.

Attention will be focus on the Buea and Limbe districts of Southern Cameroons which runs from the foot of Mount Fako via Limbe to Tiko under additional review by the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium. The Consortium will likely direct its operations to stifle the Francophone regime’s diabolic ploy in the Fako constituency.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium is the body behind the ghost town operations whose goal is to sabotage, interrupt, and stop the complete dominance of Southern Cameroonians by the French Cameroun political elites. Tomorrow’s ghost town protest is a continuation of the civil disobedience by Cameroon Anglophone Common Lawyers, Anglophone teachers and young people in Southern Cameroons.

The Biya Francophone regime has not commented on the ghost town operation, although its Francophone cabinet ministers have been announcing a series of fake measures aimed at deceiving English speaking Cameroonians to remain in the failed union.

Since 2016, hundreds of Southern Cameroonian citizens have been arrested in Buea, Kumba, Kumbo, Jakiri, Mamfe and Bamenda. And the Secretary General of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, Wilfred Tassang has warned that exploitation of Southern Cameroon’s people and its resources is game over for the Francophone political elites.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai