News

25, December 2016

Nigeria police building collapsed, kills 2 ⁰

A two-story building belonging to Nigeria’s police has collapsed, leaving two people dead. National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Sunday that the incident took place at about 04:00 a.m. (10.00 p.m. ET) in the densely populated Ikeja district in the commercial capital of Lagos.

A spokesman for Lagos state police said that the search for potential victims under the rubble was over. “Two people lost their lives. Nobody is inside the rubble,” said Dolapo Badmus. A NEMA official also confirmed that search for other people in the building, which was located in a police training center, was over.

There was no report on whether the cadets of the Nigerian police were also affected in the incident. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has seen frequent building collapses over the past years with officials keep blaming contractors for using cheap material in construction.

More than 150 people were killed in the collapse of a church southeast of Nigeria in December. In that case, prosecutors charged the engineers and church trustees with negligence, saying structural failures and detailing errors were to blame.

Presstv

25, December 2016

Search for French aid worker begins in Mali ⁰

French and Mali authorities have started search operations for a French aid worker abducted by militants in the West African country. France’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday that Sophie Petronin, a Frenchwoman who runs an organization for malnourished children in Mali, had been kidnapped in Mali’s restive north a day earlier, adding that a joint search operation had been launched to find the aid worker.

The ministry said that French and Malian authorities were working together “to find and free our compatriot as quickly as possible.” It added that the family of Petronin has been contacted by the ministry. Other sources said French military forces were also contributing to the search operation. “French soldiers of the Barkhane force (in Mali) are actively taking part in the search alongside the Malians,” a military source said in France without elaborating.

As the director of a non-governmental organization in the Malian city of Gao, Petronin has been helping children suffering from malnutrition in Mali for a long time. The women, who is believed to be in her sixties, has a specialty in nutrition and tropical diseases. Petronin had escaped a kidnapping by militants in Gao in 2012.

Reports from Mali on Saturday had suggested that a woman with dual French and Swiss nationality had been abducted Gao. The Swiss Foreign Ministry, however, later said that it found no evidence showing that Petronin had Swiss citizenship.

Violence erupted in Mali’s volatile north after groups linked to al-Qaeda seized areas in the territory beginning from March 2012. The government, groups backing it and ethnic Tuareg rebels managed to reach a peace pact last year following some lengthy negotiations but clashes continue unabated.

Presstv

25, December 2016

Fako Chiefs reject 5,000,000 FCFA offer to buy support for La Republique ²

Fako Chiefs have reportedly rejected the sum of five million francs (5000’000 frs) offered to each traditional ruler to denounce the struggle for freedom from Francophone slavery.

Cameroon Concord News was reliably informed that of the fifty four (54) members who were present in the town hall meeting, thirty four (34) of them walked out rejecting the offer while twenty signaled their intention to receive the money. The chiefs have declared their unflinching support for change and the new Anglophone nationalism.

Our informant is keeping a close watch over this issue and we will publish the names and full addresses of the chiefs who will eventually accept the payments.

By Rita Akana

25, December 2016

As pressure mounts on Biya: Over two dozens of Anglophones arrested in Bamenda released ⁰

Over two dozens of youths arrested in Bamenda, North West region during two separate strike actions staged on November 21, 2016 and December 8 have gained freedom. A former detainee who wanted to be called only by his surname, Elvis reveals that over 25 of them incarcerated at the Bamenda Central prison were released on bail Friday December 23, 2016 .

He said they were presented before state council and that their case was defended by some lawyers and Human rights activists. According to information independently gathered those who are still in prison are unable to bail themselves or pay for charges levied against them. The 25 were among others arrested during the uprising in Bamenda when a strike action initiated by Common law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers turned violent and the Bamenda population joined in to denounce among others poor road networks and limited water supply.

The youths also staged a strike action and prevented the CPDM party from holding a unity meeting on December 8, 2016 but they met with police brutality as live bullets, tear gas and water cannons were used on them. Over half a dozen died but government sources counted just two deaths. However the fate of other youths over 50 transported to Yaoundé on helicopter is still to be determined. Common Law Lawyers and Allophone Teachers have set their release as a pre condition for dialogue with the government, without which dialogue will end on deadlock.

What has left untold about the Bamenda twin strike action on November 21 and December 8 this year leaves much to be desired. Most of those arrested were never part of the strike; in fact they were just unfortunate passer bys. Elvis who was released Friday sells plantains in Bamenda. That fateful December 8, he was returning from his site of sale and was intercepted by police forces who asked to see his palms, immediately they saw that they were dirty, they arrested him with pretext that he too was involved in burning tires and throwing stones. Like Elvis, several other youths were randomly arrested and detained, some brutalized.

Some of the youths who died were taken to their early grave by stray bullets. At City Chemist roundabout a youth went to fetch water but died on the spot after a stray bullet got him. Another youth went outside their home to eat his Pawpaw but a bullet came from nowhere and struck her mouth denying him the Pawpaw and squeezing life out of him.

Contrary to a situational report from North West Governor Adolphe LELE L’Afrique to Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary, which indicated that only two persons died, there have been more than six corpse removals from the Bamenda hospital mortuary, an indication that over half a dozen persons died. There are still some youths who were critically injured in hospitals as fear heightens they might give up the ghost.

Culled from Cameroun Info. Net

24, December 2016

Perpetrator of Berlin attack shot dead in Italy ⁰

A man believed to be the perpetrator of a Monday terrorist attack in the German city of Berlin has been killed in Italy. Italy’s interior minister confirmed that Anis Amri, wanted in the Berlin attack, was killed in a shootout with police in the northern Italian city of Milan on Friday. Minister Marco Minniti said that all the necessary checks were conducted after the shootout and that “the person killed, without a shadow of a doubt, is Anis Amri, the suspect of the [Berlin] terrorist attack.”Minniti said, however, that investigations were still in progress and that there could be “future developments.” A short video posted on the website of Italian magazine Panorama suggested that the shooting happened before dawn, with police gathered around a cordoned-off area in the dark.

Amri was the main suspect in an attack on a busy Berlin Christmas market on Monday. He allegedly ran a 40-ton truck into a crowd, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others. Shortly before the shootout in Italy, police in Denmark had said that a man matching his description had been seen in Aalborg in northern Denmark. Danish police said people had to keep away from the area as a security operation had been launched there.

German investigators had said they believed Amri was still laying low in Berlin because he was probably wounded, Der Tagesspiegel reported citing security sources. In the early hours of Friday, German special forces also arrested two men suspected of planning an attack on a shopping mall in the city of OberhausenIn in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, police said in a statement. A police spokesman said there was no connection between the Duisburg arrests and the Amri case.

Presstv

24, December 2016

Cameroon’s Human Rights Commission approves a draft budget of 1.7 billion FCFA ⁰

Officials of the National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms have agreed on a program for 2017. This was during the commission’s 21st Ordinary Session chaired by the institution’s Chairman, Dr Divine Chemuta Banda.

During the meeting, members approved a draft budget of 1.7 billion CFAF for 2017. Apart from the budget, members scrutinized the 2016 report on the state of human rights in Cameroon that is expected to be published.

In this regard, there was a zoom on cases of the violation of human rights during the strike actions in the South West and North West Regions. Dr Divine Chemuta Banda said the commission shall continue to encourage dialogue as the best way to maintain peace. Also during the session, commission members had the opportunity to take stock of the successes in 2016.

CRTV

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