The African Bar Association (AFBA) has accused Nigeria of detaining some Cameroonian refugees without trial. The association stated this in its resolution in Calabar.

It said: “The abduction and continued illegal detention of Mr. Julius Ayuk Tabe and other Cameroonian refugees by the Nigerian security agents and their counterparts in Cameroon was wrong.”

“More worrisome is that some of the abductees are practicing lawyers and members of the AFBA.

The statement added: “Despite our demands for explanation and the immediate release of these individuals, the circumstances surrounding their arrest and their whereabouts remains unknown. This has led to several speculations.

“We have received reports that these persons have either been transferred or extradited to Cameroon or secretly executed.

“The reports added that some are still languishing in the custody of the government of Cameroon awaiting trial in a military court.

“There are also speculations that the abductees are still being held by the Nigerian government at the behest of the Cameroon dictatorship.”

The association stressed that the abduction of these individuals and their detention in an undisclosed location is a “grave and violent violations of international laws, for which there are consequences for those responsible.”

The statement noted that the detention without charges or due process of law is a breach of the African Charter on Human Peoples Rights, the Charter of the United Nations and the constitutions of Nigeria and Cameroon.

Source: The Guardian

The United States (U.S.) has condemned the attitude of Nigerian and Cameroonian authorities towards the 47 Anglophone detainees who were repatriated to Cameroon from Nigeria. A statement by the U.S. Department of State, signed by Ms Heather Nauert, the Department Spokesperson noted that Nigeria and Cameroon have violated the rights of the detainees by forcibly repatriating them back to their countries of origin. It however, urged both countries to respect the human rights of the detainees and follow due process in handling their matter, while urging them to refrain from embarking on forceful repatriation of asylum-seekers.

“We also call on the Government of Cameroon to respect the human rights, including due process, of the 47 Cameroonians forcibly returned from Nigerian custody to the Cameroonian authorities on Jan. 26. “This is in addition to many of whom had reportedly submitted asylum claims in Nigeria. “We urge the Governments of Cameroon and Nigeria to adhere to their obligations under international law to refrain from forcible returns to asylum-seekers back to their countries of origin.

“The 47 Cameroonians are now held in detention in Cameroon allegedly in connection with tension and violence in North West and South West Regions. “We expect the government of Cameroon to afford these and other individuals previously detained all the rights and protections enshrined in Cameroon’s constitution, consistent with the nation’s international obligations and commitments.”

The U.S. condemned the ongoing violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, including the murder of two Cameroonian gendarmes in the North West Region village of Mbingo. It also condemned the murder of a Cameroonian soldier outside of Bamenda on Feb. 1, and an electoral official of Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) in Bangem. The U.S. further condemned the reported deaths of four civilians in Bemenda and Belo on Feb. 2 and 3. “We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the victims, and to the people of Cameroon,” it said.

www.vanguardngr.com

Tensions continue to climb in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon as separatist groups demand the release of their leader and 46 other prisoners extradited last month from Nigeria. The government has sought to reassure the population.

A woman and her husband cry at the Baptist Hospital mortuary in the English-speaking town of Mbingo, in northwestern Cameroon. The woman has just discovered the lifeless bodies of her younger brother and three others. She said they were arrested last Wednesday and accused of killing two gendarmes. She refused to grant an interview, but workers of the hospital told VOA the bodies were brought there by unidentified men.

The so-called Anglophone crisis began in Cameroon over a year ago, sparking bouts of deadly unrest and more recently, clashes between alleged separatist militants and security forces. The Anglophone community in Cameroon is protesting political and economic discrimination in the majority French-speaking country.

Joseph Banadzem, lawmaker from the northwest region, said the military is responding by violently cracking down on the population.

Colonel Didier Badjeck is a spokesperson for Cameroon’s military. He said the military is committed to preserving Cameroon’s territorial integrity.

He said the armed separatists are using mercenaries and carrying out abuses on the population, whom he said will very soon understand that they have to trust only the country’s military.

Violence has escalated since January when Nigeria detained and then extradited separatist leader Ayuk Tabe Julius and the 46 other alleged separatists to Cameroon.

The separatist groups are demanding their leaders be released. At least four schools have been burned as of last Friday and at least 12 people have been killed, according to local media, which report unconfirmed casualties among both armed separatists and soldiers.

Many businesses remain closed in the two English-speaking regions amid fears of more violence.

The 47 detainees extradited from Nigeria have not been seen in public. International human rights groups warned against the extradition, saying the detainees could face torture or worse.

Nigeria is now also facing criticism from the U.N refugee agency, which said that most of those handed over to Cameroon had applied for asylum in Nigeria and their “forcible return” violated Nigeria’s international obligations.

On Friday, Cameroon government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma issued a press release saying the detainees are safe and would be appearing in front of the law courts soon. He did not comment on the charges they would answer.

Source: VOA

The Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has elected Dr. Sacko Ikome to replace Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. A spokesperson for the Southern Cameroons government said that Dr. Sacko “considers the journey to Buea as urgent.”

The Ambazonia’s newly-elected leader is also expected to get possible replacements for the top aides abducted alongside President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe in Abuja Nigeria.  “Dr. Sacko is a political leader and that’s why he is going to continue with the march to Buea” noted the Ambazonia Secretary of the Economy, Hon. Tabenyang

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, who was handed over to La Republique du Cameroun by the President Buhari administration had been due to be reelected as the president in a leadership vote in the conclave. However, after very intensive and productive discussions, the Ambazonia Interim Government voted in favour of a mechanism for continued presidency.

We understand the former leader and senior figures of the Southern Cameroons independence movement are currently being held at the Secretariat for Defense in Yaoundé on charges of rebellion and sedition.  Some Southern Cameroons political barons had suggested Sisiku Ayuk Tabe could rule Ambazonia from his detention cell, something that many in the Diaspora fiercely opposed.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya, has finally succumbed to the inevitable, a source at the country’s presidency has revealed. The source at the Unity Palace, which elected unanimity, has informed Cameroon Concord News Group that everything points to the demise of the 85-year-old dictator who has ruled the Central African country for 35 years with an iron fist.

The source adds that given the way in which government officials have been visiting the Unity Palace over the last twelve hours, it is clear that Mr.Biya is no more. The atmosphere at the presidential palace is tense and government officials have been holding meetings to come up with a common response so as to keep the population in check.

Our source adds that members of the Cameroon strong man’s entourage are working hard to keep the information from the public square in the pious belief that they can change things to suit their intention. He stressed that the Secretary General at the presidency has been holding a series of meetings with some of his collaborators who have been advising him to issue decrees that will usher in constitutional changes on Mr. Biya’s behalf.

But the Secretary General and some of his collaborators are reluctant to undertake such an action as it may create a backlash and attract strong criticism from the international community that is intent on seeing meaningful political change in Cameroon.

Under the country’s current constitution, the constitutional successor is the president of the senate, Marcel Nyat Njifenji, himself 83years old and a collapsing figure who has been involved in the corruption and mismanagement that have become the country’s hallmark. Many Cameroonians hold that if the country has to change significantly, figures like the senate president and national assembly speaker have to disappear from the political scene.

It should be pointed out that Mr.Biya has been out of the spotlight for more than two weeks now and this has fueled rumor that his health situation has deteriorated. Our source, a member of the presidential guard, says he has seen some of the dictator’s closest collaborators leave Unity Palace in tears, while others have been pensive ever since they visited the 85-year-old dictator.

He has been suffering from prostrate cancer and a failing heart over the last decades and this has been exacerbated over the last year by the escalating Anglophone crisis that is threatening to tear the country apart.

It should be recalled that over the last two weeks, there have been rumors that Mr. Biya’s health had deteriorated and that he had been secretly taken out of the country for emergency treatment. However, our source at the presidency had intimated that Mr. Biya could not sit on an airplane for long hours and instead of flying him abroad, a team of cancer experts had been rushed from Switzerland to come and attend to the ailing dictator.

According to our source, ever since the experts arrived in Cameroon, Mr. Biya’s health has been a huge concern. The 85-year old has not been responding to cancer treatment and his failing heart has made it impossible for the experts to properly do their job. This has been compounded by the political situation in the country which has clearly wiped out the dictator’s shaky legacy and demonstrated how ineffective he has been in 35 years.

It is worth recalling that Cameroon Concord News had announced in October 21, 2017, that the ailing dictator who had been hospitalized in Switzerland for many weeks was simply coming home to bid farewell to friends and family based on intelligence obtained from sources in Switzerland.

The government of Mr. Biya, it should be noted, is full of octogenarians who have been in the corridors of power for more than sixty years and are prepared to ruin the country before leaving the world. The country’s economy is on its knees and the unemployment rate is concerning.

But the most challenging issue is the Anglophone problem that has put the country in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Following the declaration of independence on October 1, 2017, by the two Anglophone regions, many Anglophones have been killed at the behest of the country’s president whose methods of governance of choice have been intimidation and corruption. This has caused almost all Anglophones to see secession as the only option that can bring them the peace they need.

Even on October 21, 2017, when Mr. Biya had landed in Yaounde, there were serious concerns about his health. Behind the scenes and numerous cameras that were on hand to welcome the president at the Nsimalen International airport, was the fear that anything might happen anytime as Mr. Biya’s collaborators were aware of his deteriorating health and were scared that he might be back home just to bid farewell to them and his family.

Many analysts knew that the Anglophone problem was a nightmare that would not go away anytime soon and they knew that it would take a toll on the old president’s health. Even before heading to New York in October 2017 where he delivered a speech to an empty hall at the United Nations, Mr. Biya had to stop over in Geneva for him to get a medical boost from his doctors, but the long trip to New York was so demanding on him that he had to return to Switzerland for more medical support that has been costing the country an arm and a leg.

Our source in Geneva had advised at the time that Mr. Biya had been receiving treatment for a malignant cancer that was robbing the dictator of his strength and happiness. The source had added that besides cancer, Mr. Biya was also dealing with high blood pressure and a failing heart that might give up anytime.

In October 2017, Cameroon Concord News had reported that Mr. Biya had hard time alighting from the chartered aircraft that brought him back to the country. Mr. Biya whose real age is not known, has,over the last months, had a hard time sleeping, our source at the presidency said, adding that the “Monarch” has, over the last month, been chewing sedatives like candy, a situation that is concerning to his entourage, especially his wife. It was rumored at that time that the “Monarch” had headed home with an entire pharmacy, with sedatives accounting for about 60% of all the medicines that had been put on the chartered flight.

Other sources close to the government stress that Mr. Biya’shealth had been a problem for many years, but it took a turn for the worse when Anglophones decided to challenge his authority. He had declared in January 2017 that the form of the state was non-negotiable and since January 2017, Anglophones at home and abroad have been working hard to make the Anglophone crisis a millstone around his neck. The government has since tried to take a few cosmetic measures to appease Anglophones, but the English-speaking minority has been resolute and determined to walk away from a union whose foundation is, at best, shaky.

Over the last months, the situation has deteriorated, with armed groups engaging the country’s military in running battles which have resulted in more than 300 army soldiers and more than 400 civilians dying.

Mr. Biya’s death is very likely to lead to some political chaos. For years, he has been working hard to ensure that other leaders do not emerge. While his collaborators continue to seek ways to keep Cameroonians in the dark with the intention of changing the constitution, Cameroonians and the international community are closely watching as things play out.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde with files from Sama Ernest

A tanker with 22 Indian crew members on board has gone missing off West Africa, in waters plagued by piracy, officials said Sunday.

The Panama-registered MT Marine Express, loaded with 13,500 tonnes of petrol, had been anchored off the Benin City of Cotonou before authorities lost contact with the vessel on Thursday.

“Our mission in Abuja (Nigeria) is in touch with the authorities in Benin and Nigeria for their help in locating the ship and is constantly monitoring the situation,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said.

The Hong Kong-based Anglo-Eastern shipping company, which manages the tanker, said the last contact with the crew was made on Thursday.

“Authorities have been alerted and are responding. Our top priority is the safety of the crew, whose families have been contacted,” it said on Twitter.

Local media reports said it was the second ship to go missing from the area in the last month.

In January, MT Barret went missing, but the crew, most of them Indians, were released six days later after reportedly paying a ransom.

Several ships have been targeted by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea, seriously disrupting the international shipping route and costing the global economy billions of dollars.

(Source: AFP)

Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency has said that North Korea has been purchasing parts for its missile program via its embassy in Berlin.

BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen made the announcement in a program to be aired on NDR on Monday. Pyongyang is yet to comment on the matter.

“We determined that procurement activities have been carried out from there that are, in our view, done with a view to the missile program and sometimes also for the nuclear program,” said Maassen in comments released ahead of the broadcast.

He noted that the purchases were usually so-called dual use goods, which can be utilized for military and civilian activates.

Maassen noted that German authorities usually block such activities, but “We can’t guarantee that we can detect and prevent this in all cases.”

Pyongyang has defied years of multilateral and bilateral sanctions in relation to its nuclear and missile programs.

The United States and its allies in the West and in Asia engineered tough UN sanctions on North Korea last year when Pyongyang test-fired two missiles in July and then carried out its most powerful nuclear test in August.

However, many said the sanctions would not deter North Korea from pursuing its nuclear and missile program, which Pyongyang insists is part of its defense policy against the United States. Critics have repeatedly warned that sanctions would more affect North Korean people rather than its military and the government.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has defended a recent recent release of once-classified congressional memo on FBI, saying it “totally vindicates” him in an investigation into his presidential campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia.

The president took to Twitter on Saturday morning to once again deny any such collusion or obstruction.

“This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe,” he wrote. “But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their (sic) was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!”

On Friday, he approved the public release of a memo written by House Intelligence Committee member Devin Nunes that alleges the FBI abused its surveillance authority.

The release of the four-page document prompted senior Democrats to denounce the controversial memo as an inaccurate and misleading portrait intended to undermine the probe. They warned Trump, in a written statement, not to use it as a “pretext” to fire special counsel Robert Mueller or the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein.

Trump reportedly ordered f Mueller the firing of Mueller in June. Democrats, said in a statement that, the memo release is an attempt to undermine the integrity of Mueller’s investigation, warning that such action could trigger a constitutional crisis not seen since the 1970s, when then President Richard Nixon gave orders to fire justice officials involved in the Watergate scandal.

“We write to inform you that we would consider such an unwarranted action as an attempt to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation,” the statement said.

The memo’s central allegation is that the FBI and US Justice Department had been spying on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

GOP memo release sends ‘terrible message’ to US allies

Former CIA director Leon Panetta also warned that Trump’s approval of the congressional memo sends a “terrible message” to US allies to be worry about sharing classified information with Washington.

Panetta, who was discussing the memo release with the CBS News on Friday, described it as an “unprecedented” move, which could have far-reaching effects on Washington’s foreign policy.

“All of this sends a terrible message to our allies who are going to worry about sharing classified information that is so easily released as part of this political effort,” said the former CIA director.

He also called Trump’s move as “a breakdown in the fundamental trust that is important to the institutions of our democracy.”

There are currently several investigations into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Trump has consistently denied any ties with Moscow. Analysts, however, say Trump’s attempts to hinder the probe, including his attempts to sack Mueller, suggests that he has something big to hide.

Source: Presstv

The Pentagon has released a new nuclear arms policy that aims to revamp US nuclear arsenal and develop new low-yield atomic weapons.

The latest policy was revealed on Friday in a Pentagon policy statement known as the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

The new thinking, which came largely to counter Russia, effectively ends Obama-era efforts to reduce the size and scope of the US arsenal and minimize the role of nuclear weapons in defense planning.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in an introductory note that the changes reflect a need to “look reality in the eye” and “see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”

“This is a response to Russian expansion of their capability and the nature of their strategy and doctrine,” Mattis added.

The Pentagon believes Moscow considers US nuclear weapons as too big to be used, meaning they are no longer an effective deterrent; therefore, developing smaller nukes would challenge that presumption.

Although low-yield weapons are smaller, less powerful bombs with a strength below 20 kilotons, they are still devastating.

Low-yield nuclear weapons known as “tactical” nukes can be as destructive as the bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

The US already has a massive nuclear arsenal which includes 150 B-61 nukes stored across multiple European countries.

Those weapons, which can be configured for low-yield options, would be launchable from submarines or ships, so would not need to be stockpiled in Europe.

“The US and NATO require a wider range of credible low-yield nuclear options to do a very specific thing: to convince the Russian leadership that if they initiate limited nuclear use, in a war with the alliance, our response will deny them the objective they seek and impose costs that far outweigh those benefits they can achieve,” said Greg Weaver, the deputy director of strategic capabilities for the military’s Joint Staff.

The NPR, the first update to the military’s nuclear strategy since 2010, outlines the Pentagon’s nuclear ambitions under President Donald Trump, but marks a sobering break from the vision for America’s atomic future under his predecessor Barack Obama.

“The strategy develops capabilities aimed at making use of nuclear weapons less likely,” Trump said in a statement. “It enhances deterrence of strategic attacks against our Nation, and our allies and partners, that may not come in the form of nuclear weapons.”

During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to expand and strengthen US nuclear capabilities, unlike Obama who, during a famous speech in Prague in 2009, called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan anti-nuclear proliferation think tank in Washington, has warned that the US is “on the cusp of a new era of nuclear proliferation.”

“This is the great nuclear danger raised by the new” nuclear policy, Blechman added.

The US is also considering upgrading its fleet of long-range strategic bombers such as B-2 and B-52 to deploy its arsenal of more than 7,000 nuclear warheads to any target around the world.

Source: Presstv