News

21, June 2017

“For goodness sake!” Pro Consortium SDF MP returns to La Repubique’s National Assembly ⁰

Hon. Joseph Wirba, the SDF MP reportedly missing for over five months has appeared unexpectedly at the National Assembly today Wednesday the 21st of June 2017. He once again marked his presence among other MPs against all odds. Wirba had been on the run since his historic speech last year during the third and last parliamentary session of the year 2016.

On the rostrum of the National Assembly, in a long speech of about thirty minutes, he denounced the government of the 84 year old dictator, Paul Biya. Joseph Wirba told the world that the Biya Francophone regime was marginalizing Southern Cameroonians and after his speech, the MP declared his unflinching support for secession. He was received as a hero in his native Jakiri constituency but later on disappeared from circulation. Southern Cameroon sources hinted that he had escaped to the US.

The opposition MP reappeared and made another long speech attacking the Speaker of the National Assembly, Cavaye Djibril accusing him of doing nothing to ensure his safety. Joseph Wirba told local media houses in Yaounde that he was still not out of danger. The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has so far not reacted to the second coming of Wirba.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

21, June 2017

ELECAM: Chairman talks support with visiting Commonwealth delegation ⁰

The Chairperson of Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), former governor Enow Abrams Egbe has met with a delegation from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth team headed by the Director of the Rule of Law, Katalaini Sapoulu was at the ELECAM office in Yaoundé on the 20th of June 2017.

State radio and television reported that during the audience, Enow Abrams Egbe expressed gratitude to the Commonwealth for its constant support to ELECAM. Katalaini Sapoulu reportedly told pressmen that their visit is in line with the Commonwealth’s partnership deal to strengthen Cameroon’s electoral procedures.

The present visit comes shortly after one from a delegation from La Francophonie that declared similar objectives.

Source: CRTV

19, June 2017

Boko Haram militants kill 16 people in northeast Nigeria ⁰

At least 16 people have been killed when suspected members of the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group detonated their explosive vests near a camp of displaced people in the volatile northeastern state of Borno, the birthplace of the terror outfit.

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said in a statement that the bomb attacks occurred close to the Dalori camp at Kofa village, located nearly 10 kilometers southeast of the provincial capital Maiduguri, at about 08:45 p.m. local time (1945 GMT) on Sunday.

According to Abdulkadir Ibrahim, the spokesman of the NEMA, two female terrorists first attempted to enter the camp but were thwarted by security personnel of the camp.

However, “two other female bombers detonated their explosives at the adjoining Dalori Kofa village, where they killed 16 people,” he added in the statement.

Borno state police spokesman Victor Isuku gave a more detailed account of the attacks in his initial report of the incident, saying the first assailant detonated her explosives “near a mosque”, claiming the lives of seven people, and the second one blew herself up “in a house”, killing six people. He added that at least 11 people also sustained injuries in the blasts and were taken to hospital.

However, Ibrahim updated Isuku’s report, saying three of the wounded succumbed to their injuries later on. “The 16 does not include the bombers,” he added.

Isuku revised the number of attackers up to five from four, and maintained that other three assailants, not directly involved in the blasts, were also killed.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks but they bear the hallmark of the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group, as it in the past employed radicalized females on multiple occasions to conduct bombing attacks against people or army troops.

Dalori is one of the largest camps allocated to internally displaced people (IDP) in the remote region and Boko Haram terrorists had previously tried to hit the camp. Back in January last year, Takfiri militants killed at least 85 people as they rampaged through the communities near Dalori. They burned down houses and killed people either by gunfire or by detonating explosives.

The Sunday attack is the deadliest one in Nigeria since June 8, when Boko Haram militants killed 14 people in yet another mixture of gunfire and blasts in the Jiddari Polo area of Maiduguri.

In recent months, army troops and civilian fighters in Nigeria have managed to foil many bomb attacks involving terrorists wearing explosive vests before the assailants were able to reach heavily-populated targets and detonate their bombs of their own accord.

Last December, however, two women, with the Boko Haram, killed 57 people and injured 177, including 120 children, after they detonated their explosive vests at a bustling market at Madagali, a town in the neighboring province of Adamawa.

On December 24, 2016, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 with a pledge to eradicate Boko Haram, announced that the army had “crushed” the terror group a day earlier by retaking its last key bastion, deep inside the thick Sambisa Forest in Borno.

The group, however, has resorted to sporadic shooting and bombing attacks in the northeast of the African country, spreading panic among the local residents.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly terror attacks in Nigeria since the beginning of their militancy in 2009, which has so far claimed the lives of at least 20,000 people and made more than 2.7 million displaced.

The United Nations has warned that areas affected by Boko Haram face a humanitarian crisis.

Back in February 2016, four nations of the Lake Chad Basin – Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria – launched a campaign, together with a contingent from Benin, to confront the threat from Boko Haram terrorists in the region.
Source: Presstv

19, June 2017

Revealed: Biya regime paid Boko Haram 3.5 million US dollars ⁰

The Action Group Against Money Laundering in Central Africa (GABAC) has revealed in its April 2017 report that the Biya regime paid a ransom for the release in 2013 of the seven members of the French family Moulin- Fournier. Cameroon paid the sum of 3.5 million dollars (about 2 billion FCFA) to the terrorist group Boko Haram.

It was in April 2013 when the Nigerian Islamic sect abducted seven members of a French family Tanguy Moulin-Fournier. Gabac in its report cited a confidential file from the Nigerian government that says “Boko Haram received about $ 3.5 million from the French and Cameroonian negotiators in exchange for the hostages.”

Cameroon Concord News understands a certain Alhaji Abdallah, a Cameroonian financial agent and an exporter of vehicles based in Amchide was the intermediary who played a major role in the Boko Haram deal. In February 2013 and in exchange for the release of the French citizens, the government paid $ 3.5 million and did release some Boko Haram prisoners of war in April 2013.

Alhaji Abdallah was subsequently arrested by Cameroon security agents including all members of his team that took part in the Boko Haram negotiations. Seven French tourists, including four children, were kidnapped on a Tuesday (February 19th 2013) in the Far North region of Cameroon on the border with Nigeria.

By Chi Prudence Asong
Cameroon Concord News

18, June 2017

Half of Nigeria food never reached Boko Haram victims ⁰

Nigeria says half of government food aid meant to reach the victims of a militancy northeast of the country has not reached its destination. A spokesman for acting president Yemi Osinbajo said late on Saturday that half of the trucks carrying food aid for people driven from their homes by Boko Haram Takfiri group have been diverted away from their destination.
“Over 1,000 trucks of assorted grains are now on course, delivering the grains intact to beneficiaries since the commencement of the present program as against the reported diversion of over 50 trucks in every 100 trucks sent to the northeast,” said Laolu Akande in an emailed statement.
Osinbajo, acting in lieu of President Muhammadu Buhari who is in Britain on medical leave, launched a program on June 8 to reach out to around 2.7 million people identified as IDPs, or internally displaced, as a result of more than eight years of insurgency by Boko Haram. Akande said the new system for distribution of food would significantly prevent the diversion of the humanitarian aid.
“The issue of diversion of relief materials, including food and related matters, which has dogged food delivery to the IDPs would be significantly curbed under the new distribution matrix,” said the official, elaborating that 1,376 military personnel and 656 armed police would be tasked with guarding the food from where it its loaded to the trucks to the three main location where displaced people live, namely Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
More than 20,000 people have been killed since Boko Haram started its devastating campaign in northeast Nigeria in 2009. The violence has claimed many lives in neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameron. A large-scale government offensive has pushed the militants from key areas they used to control, although sporadic attacks have continued over the past months.

Source: Presstv

18, June 2017

Top Iranian general says Tehran has the means to punish US ⁰

A top military official says Iran has the means to punish Washington after the US Senate approved a new sanctions bill which targets the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on terrorism charges. “The ruling establishment in the US is a hegemonic, expansionist, bullying and blackmailing regime and the root of hostilities with us is based in these things,” Deputy Chief of Staff of Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said.

“Since the early years of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian nation has been familiar with US enmity towards the revolution, the establishment and its effective organs such as the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps,” he added. On Thursday, US senators approved sweeping sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program. The measure would also enforce sanctions and an arms embargo against IRGC.

The Senate legislation, hailed by Israel and its influential lobby groups in the US, still must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump to become law. Iranian officials have said the bill violates, “both in letter and spirit”, a nuclear accord, to which the US is a party. They have called for a strong response, with Iran’s parliament working on retaliatory measures, according to an MP. “If the Americans and the Zionists do not change their manners, we will take more drastic steps – hereby announcing that we have the means of punishment at our disposal,” Gen. Jazayeri said without elaboration.

“Of course, America has to change its manners, or we will force the Americans to do that,” he told the Central News Service which is affiliated to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). Jazayeri said the world public opinion views “the US and international Zionism as the godfathers of terrorism.”

“Evidence suggests that Daesh and other terrorist groups have been raised in the lap of America and the reactionary regimes of the region,” he said. The commander said US measures in intensifying sanctions on Iran and accusing IRGC of supporting terrorism “will make us fight the Great Satan with a more determined spirit.”

The “Great Satan” is the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini’s description of the United States, who led a revolution against Iran’s Pahlavi regime which was a close American ally. “This is a historical irony that the terrorist Americans are calling the revolutionary and popular IRGC, whose mission has been fighting terrorism from its inception and supporting the Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian people as well as confronting homegrown terrorists, as a sponsor of terrorism,” Jazayeri said.

“The other strange thing is that the peoples of the world have not forgotten the current American president’s admission about the creation of Daesh and assistance to it,” he added. Addressing supporters at a campaign rally in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in August, Donald Trump said then-President Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “founded” Daesh in the Middle East.

Source: Presstv

17, June 2017

Cameroon customs intercept Boko Haram drugs hidden in cans, bags and cartons ⁰

Cameroon custom officers in the Far North region serving at the Fotokol checkpoint have seized 200 kg of drug destined for the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram. A leading security source operating on-site on behalf of the Joint Multinational Force (FMM) who spoke to us but sued for anonymity, revealed that some 3,000 packages, consisting mainly of Tramadol was intercepted by the Customs officers stationed at Fotokol on the border with Nigeria.

In addition to the Tramadol, the officers also seized Indian hemp that was channeled to Boko Haram fighters in the Lake Chad basin. Boko Haram has allegedly pledged allegiance to the Organization of the Islamic State and has been staging armed incursions deep inside Cameroon territory. These narcotics, transported by the local networks of the sect, were concealed in cans, bags and cartons.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Cameroon Concord News

17, June 2017

Kofi Annan says future of DR Congo in grave danger ⁰

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and nine former African presidents have warned that the future of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is in “grave danger” due to the failure to organize an election to replace President Joseph Kabila.

Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate last December, adding to uncertainty in the vast, mineral-rich Central African nation, where regional wars from 1996-2003 killed millions of people.

An agreement between Kabila’s ruling coalition and opposition leaders calls for the presidential election to take place by the end of this year, but delays in registering voters and mobilizing financing make that increasingly unlikely.

This file photo, taken on February 03, 2015, shows President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Joseph Kabila attending a training session of his country’s football team in Bata Kabila. (Photo by AFP)

“The failure to organize elections in late 2016, in conformity with the constitution of the DRC, has created an acute political crisis,” Annan and the former presidents, including South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, said in a statement issued late on Thursday.

“We feel obliged to sound the alarm before it is too late,” it added.

Dozens died last year in violent anti-government protests in major cities, and an insurrection in the center of the country has killed hundreds and displaced 1.3 million since last August.

(Source: Reuters)

15, June 2017

Special Criminal Court closing down on the former GM of the Telecom Regulatory Agency ⁰

The Attorney General at the Special Criminal Court in Yaoundé has signed an order preventing Jean Louis Beh Mengue, former general manager of the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ART) who was sacked from his position on the 8th of June from traveling out of the country.

Cameroon Concord News understands Jean Louis Beh Mengue is under a major judicial investigation. The former head of the telecommunication regulatory agency in Cameroon has been accused by the State Supreme Audit, the body responsible for the control, verification and audit of public finances of embezzlement and misappropriation during his time at the head of the company which he led since its creation in 1999.

By Rita Akana

Camcordnews

15, June 2017

Burundi: UN details horrible torture, More of President Nkurunziza Opponents are ending up dead ⁰

The United Nations says the government of the African country of Burundi is condoning the torture and killing of its opponents security forces and government-allied militia. Investigators said state security agencies and the ruling party’s youth wing the Imbonerakure are continuously engaged in torture, rape, disappearances and murder of opponents.

Those crimes are fueled by hate speech” from government officials, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi said in a briefing to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday. The investigators said they recorded a “feeling of deep and widespread fear” in the hundreds of testimonies gathered from people who had fled to neighboring countries. “Today we can say that our initial fears concerning the scope and gravity of human rights violations and abuses in Burundi since April 2015 have been confirmed,” they said.

The investigators said they were struck by the cruelty and brutality of the perpetrators. “We most specifically gathered a number of testimonies alleging the use, during torture sessions, of clubs, riffle butts, bayonets, iron bars, metal chains or electric cables, resulting in some cases in the breaking of bones of the victim or making them lose consciousness.

“Long needles stuck into victims’ bodies or unidentified products injected into them; nails ripped out with pliers; burns; and many abuses inflicted on male detainees’ genital organs,” they added. Fatsah Ouguergouz, chairman of the UN commission, said a woman in her fifties was raped by four members allegedly belonging to the Imbonerakure and wearing police uniforms, as a punishment for her children belonging to an opposition party.

The government, which has denied entry to Burundi to the UN officials investigating the allegations, rejected the charges. “We do not accept the content of this report,” said the country’s human rights minister Martin Nivyabandi, claiming the aim of the UN investigators was to discredit the country’s officials.

Burundi was thrown into a political crisis in April 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term that his opponents said was unconstitutional. Since then at least 500 people have been killed while over 400,000 have fled the country. The UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Burundi was established in September 2016 with the aim of investigating the alleged violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity. The commission’s final report is due to be presented to the Human Rights Council in September.

Source: Presstv