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22, November 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Kenyan Roman Catholic priest killed in Manyu ⁰

A Kenyan Roman Catholic priest, Rev Father Cosmos Omboto Ondari serving with the Mamfe Diocese in Cameroon was shot and killed by Cameroon government forces on Wednesday in the village of Kembong some few kilometers from Mamfe, the chief town in the Manyu County, a local official said.

Cameroon Intelligence Report has not gotten any reaction from the Bishop’s House in Mamfe. But what we do know is that the late Rev Father Cosmos Ondari was killed in front of the church building by Francophone soldiers deployed to Kembong by the French Cameroun regime to combat the Ambazonia Restoration Forces. The soldiers reportedly stormed the Church compound made a mockery of the priest before firing two shots at him.

Our chief correspondent in the Manyu County pointed out that the motive behind the killing of the Kenyan priest remains unclear. But the Francophone soldiers who carried the act were heard murmuring privately that all English speaking clergies were directly behind the Ambazonian separatists fighters. All attempts at getting to His Lordship Bishop Andrew Nkea, Bishop of the Diocese of Mamfe who has demonstrated a moderate view ever since President Biya declared war against the English speaking minority were futile.

Several Christian churches operating in the Manyu County have ordered everyone to stay at home. The remains of the late Man of God will be moved today to Mamfe, the headquarters of the diocese. No Cameroon government official has commented on the incident.

Recently, an American missionary Charles Wesco Trumann was killed by Cameroon government forces on grounds that he was a CIA agent secretly providing assistance to the Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces. Another Roman Catholic priest Rev Father Alex Sob was murdered in Muyuka by Cameroon government forces some few months ago.

By Judith Fon in Mamfe

22, November 2018

Biya and his consortium of CPDM crime syndicates cannot run democracy ⁰

The international community cannot expect the CPDM crime syndicate in Yaounde to pursue and implement democratic principles in a country they have misruled for 35 years. Over the last 35 years, Biya has become very dictatorial and he has successfully deleted any lines that existed between the executive, judiciary and legislative branches of the government. It should be recalled that Mr. Biya appoints all magistrates and judges in the country and has a huge influence on members of parliament and senators, 30% of whom are directly appointed by him, while 70% are elected in a counterfeit election whose results are usually known many months ahead of time. And this same influence could be seen during the just-ended presidential elections.

The AU, EU and the UN should understand now that beating the incumbent through the ballot box in Cameroon is a Herculean task. The electoral code is beautifully written to ensure that the 85 year old Paul Biya is maintained in power. Even the election organizing body, ELECAM, is replete with members of the ruling party and this makes it hard for real impartial elections to be held in a country like Cameroon that lacks basic, transparent and fair election rules.

The ruling CPDM (Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement) party is considered by many Cameroonians are a crime syndicate due to the type of people who are its members. This party’s membership comprises ex-convicts, hardened criminals, murderers, business-people evading taxes and embezzlers. It has been banned in the Southern Cameroons by the Ambazonian Interim Government and designated as a terrorist organization.

The recent presidential elections in Cameroun that was state-managed on October the 7^th took place in a repressive political environment and the ruling cabal failed to provide conditions for fair and free voting. Both the Europeans and the current US administration are really awakened by the fact that the butcher in Yaounde cannot be trusted to run a democracy.

No right thinking democrat will be in power for 35 years and seek and gotten a 7^th term. Biya cannot be a democrat when more than 4000 Southern Cameroonians have been killed by troops under his command and when hundreds and thousands of both Ambazonians and French Cameroun political elites and activists’ are languishing behind bars.

The so-called presidential elections in French Cameroun following a massive boycott in Southern Cameroons was to recruit new criminals into the CPDM crime syndicate who will only implement what the dictator says and continue to misrule the impoverished nation.

By Chi Prudence Asong in London

21, November 2018

History will slaughter the men squeezing Southern Cameroons children to death ⁰

More than 4000 Southern Cameroons men, women and children have died in the territory now known as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia ever since the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé declared war against the English speaking minority-though the UN Office in the Sub Saharan region under strong French government influence enthusiastically puts the figure at 400. No UN official has visited the Southern Cameroons since the Francophone genocidal campaign started. The bourgeoisie Commonwealth Secretary General, Patricia Scotland only spent some few hours in Buea under heavy security provided by French Cameroun soldiers. Meanwhile, the killing of Southern Cameroons women and children continues almost daily.

Fifty-seven years after the so-called reunification of the two Cameroons, there is not an iota of development in the Ambazonia territory by successive French Cameroun governments. So, wherever you go in the Southern Cameroons, there is mud in the rainy season and dust in the dry season. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat. With French government backing within the African Union and the United Nations Security Council including the European Union, the Ambazonian exiled Interim Government headed by Dr Samuel Ikome Sako is denied the platform to make the Southern Cameroons case as regards the massive killings and torture orchestrated by the Biya Francophone regime to the international community. At the same time, the UN human rights wing dominated by the French, has blocked or delayed a range of political actions against the Paul Biya regime by its continues release of patronizing statements such “The violence in the Anglophone regions has led to massive internal displacement – at least 436,000 people are believed to be internally displaced, while more than 30,000 have fled to Nigeria since September last year.”

French Cameroun military helicopters with aerial intelligence from the French government and tactical intelligence from the President Buhari regime in Abuja, Nigeria have carried out several attacks on camps hosting innocent Southern Cameroons women and children fleeing the conflict both in Cameroon and Nigeria. An American missionary, Charles Wesco Trumann was recently killed by Cameroon government forces on lame and ridiculous reason that he was a CIA agent helping the Ambazonian Restoration Forces. Several Southern Cameroons medical doctors and university professors have been killed and many have fled the territory into French Cameroun. The French government and now Saudi Arabia are supplying the Paul Biya regime with sophisticated weapons and the French Cameroun army onslaught against the English speaking people of Southern Cameroons is almost every day: it is the most malicious killing of the black race in mankind’s history since the slave trade. Yet, very little appears about it in the international media due to the political packaging of the French backed French Cameroun military campaign conducted under the cover of fighting Southern Cameroons terrorists and Ambazonian separatists which have no authorization from both the AU or the UN.

In covering up for its crimes in Southern Cameroons, the Francophone regime announced a 12 billion FCFA reconstruction aid to victims of its own atrocities and ever since the Commonwealth Secretary General, Patricia Scotland left Yaoundé, nothing has been heard about that plan. The Francophone army has targeted every sector in the Southern Cameroonian life including: villages, fishing boats and farmland. A farmer and his three sons were killed by Cameroon government forces as they were returning home from their farm in Ekona. A Roman Catholic priest was killed in Muyuka after Holy Mass. At the time of writing this report, another Roman Catholic priest, Rev Father Cosmas Omboto Ondari was killed by Cameroon government forces in Kembong in Manyu. I travelled home incognito for the burial of the late Rev Father Alex Sob and I stood in the cemetery during his final funeral rites and heard an old woman from the Legion of Mary shouting that, “I want to speak to the late John Ngu Foncha who took us to these French speaking people.”

The war in Southern Cameroons is a war against Ambazonian children on many fronts. Firstly, it was a policy to assimilate them by imposing the French language upon them and enslaving them with no jobs after university education. That failed woefully as many like myself migrated to the West. The second phase is what we are seeing now and it involves military attacks with financial support from Paris and Beijing.

After the Eastern Regional Crisis in 1953 which heralded the quasi federal status for British Southern Cameroons, Southern Cameroons parents were fined for failing to send their children to school. To be more accurate, the French Cameroun phenomenon of street children or children begging was unheard of in Southern Cameroons. Southern Cameroons had reached a stage where the people were hoping for a royal visit by Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain after our traditional rulers were invited during the Queeen’s trip to Calabar in Nigeria. After 57 years following its forged reunification with French Cameroun, Southern Cameroons with its abundant natural resources is among the world’s bottom.

Many schools in Southern Cameroons have been targets in the French Cameroun-led blitz and several hundred of the children are living in the bushes with their grandparents suffering from malnutrition, dysentery and malaria. The French Cameroun government officials have been blocking shipments of foodstuff and cloths coming from the Southern Cameroons Diaspora to the suffering Ambazonian population. When I questioned a Francophone custom officer at the Douala Port, he in a typical ruling CPDM party pattern responded that most of the materials arriving the Douala Port had been banned by the government for health and safety reasons.

The UN staffers in Yaoundé and Abuja with the help of French diplomats have developed a special relationship with Cameroon government officials with many using the Francophone lobby within the UN system to get promotions and appointments into more lucrative UN jobs and positions. Consequently, the prospect of any public expression of a rebellion within the UN bureaucracy as regards to the war in Southern Cameroons is completely absent and non-existent mindful of the fact that the UN under Antonio Guterres is slowly but surely in the process of destroying an entire African English society. History will slaughter men like Paul Ghogomu, Philemon Yang, Chief Tabetando, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Victor Mengot, Patrick Ekema, Peter Mafany Musonge, Paul Tasong and Paul Atanga Nji including other Southern Cameroonians responsible for the killings currently going on in Southern Cameroons.

For how long should Southern Cameroons women and children including the old and the blind be exposed to such vicious French Cameroun military punishment for something they have never done before the UN listens to the Ambazonia Interim Government? Only a corrupt mind can tolerate what is being done to the Southern Cameroons people. Yet no resignation is expected from Southern Cameroonians serving in the Biya regime. History will indeed slaughter them!! By the time the international community will wake up from its sleep to put a stop to this senseless war going on in Southern Cameroons, ten thousand lives would have been lost in the cause of nothing, fuelled by French geopolitical calculations in the Gulf of Guinea and French government support for ruthless dictators in Francophone Africa.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

21, November 2018

Gabon: President Ali Bongo heading to London for medical recovery ⁰

Gabon’s sick president Ali Bongo Ondimba has recovered after he was admitted for severe fatigue on medical advice.

Even as his situation becomes better after weeks at the King Faisal hospital in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, reports indicate that he is heading to the United Kingdom to continue recuperation.

The Jeune Afrique portal which broke the news of Bongo’s ill-health in October 2018, said London was chosen to allow Bongo receive specialist care. It added that Morocco was the other destination on the cards but London had been settled on.

The last government update on Bongo’s health was on November 11 with presidential spokesman, Ike Ngouni, confirming that the president was recovering his faculties and was to remain in Saudi on expert advice.

Since then, the country’s top court has ordered a significant ruling that allows cabinet meetings to be chaired by the vice-president in the president’s absence.

The meeting had been off since Bongo was taken ill. He was in Saudi to attend an investment summit when he was taken ill. Some reports said he had suffered a stroke.

Source: Africa News

21, November 2018

Cameroon army frees kidnapped students in Kumba ⁰

Cameroon’s security forces have rescued kidnapped students and one teacher after a raid on a camp of separatist fighters in the South-West region.

The group of nine, not 20 as first reported, was taken from a school in the city of Kumba, on Tuesday.

Four attackers were shot dead in the operation but one was captured, a senior official told the BBC.

Cameroon’s North-West and South-West regions have been hit by a separatist rebellion since last year.

Armed groups in the two English-speaking regions have called on local residents to boycott schools until a referendum on independence is held.

Protests against marginalisation by the country’s French-speaking majority have been met with a crackdown.

They want to create an independent state called Ambazonia.

Gunmen entered the Lords Bilingual School on Tuesday afternoon causing panic. Many of the students jumped over the school fence walls to avoid being taken.

In the confusion, earlier reports had suggested that a higher number of students had been taken, journalist Peter Tah, who has been covering the conflict in the region, says.

Three students were released on Tuesday night after two gunmen were shot dead in a shootout with security forces who raided their camp. In addition, one gunman was captured, Nto’ou Ndong Chamberlin, Senior Divisional Officer for Meme district, in the South-West region, told the BBC.

The seven remaining hostages, including the teacher, managed to escape after the melee.

Two other attackers, including the group’s leader called “Man of Locks” were killed in an operation on Wednesday morning, Mr Nto’ou said.

Security forces seized nine guns in the operation as well as cartridges and three motorbikes, he said.

Guns seized from the Cameroon separatists

The incident comes almost a fortnight after nearly 80 students were safely returned after being taken from a school in the North-West regional capital of Bamenda.

The government had accused separatists of being behind that kidnapping. The Anglophone separatists denied they were involved.

Kidnappings of students, teachers and high profile people has become common in the Anglophone regions.

Journalist Peter Tah says that Kumba city had been badly affected by the unrest.

Most of its residents and those in surrounding towns in the South-West region have fled because of the fighting, he says.

Cameroon – still divided along colonial lines

French commentary on the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885: Otto von Bismarck, then Chancellor or Germany, is portrayed here wielding a knife over a sliced-up cake, labelled "Africa". His fellow delegates around the table look on in awe.

Colonised by Germany in 1884
British and French troops force Germans to leave in 1916
Cameroon is split three years later – 80% goes to the French and 20% to the British
French-run Cameroon becomes independent in 1960
Following a referendum, the (British) Southern Cameroons join Cameroon, while Northern Cameroons join English-speaking Nigeria

Culled from the BBC

21, November 2018

US: Trump stands by Saudi ally despite Khashoggi murder ⁰

President Donald Trump said the United States would not punish its Saudi ally for the gruesome murder of US-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi, despite conceding that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known of the killing.

Defying pressure from US lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom. Such a “foolish” move would only benefit Russia and China, said the US president, whom critics accuse of exaggerating the importance of those weapons sales to the American economy.

Trump said US intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence around Khashoggi’s murder and who planned it.

“It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump said in a statement.

“We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia.”

The gruesome murder of Khashoggi, who vanished after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, has hugely embarrassed Washington.

The killing torpedoed a powerful PR campaign led by the crown prince to show that the conservative Islamic state has embarked on a new reformist path.

It also threw into question the White House strategy to make MBS, as the royal prince Mohammed Bin Salman is widely known, its main partner in the tinderbox region.

After offering numerous contradictory explanations for Khashoggi’s disappearance, Riyadh said last week he had been killed and his body dismembered when “negotiations” to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. It said allegations the prince had ordered the killing were false.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in Washington on Tuesday that Turkey was not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it was receiving from Riyadh on Khashoggi’s murder and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said they had asked Trump for a second human rights probe over Khashoggi’s killing.

Similarly, Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should apply the so-called Magnitsky Act to those responsible for Khashoggi’s death. The law freezes US assets of human rights violators and prohibits Americans from doing business with them.

Saudi prince ‘involved’ in murder

Trump has for weeks resisted accepting mounting evidence of Saudi government involvement in the Khashoggi killing – and accusations that MBS ordered the hit.

However, with The New York Times reporting that the CIA has definitively concluded that Prince Mohammed was involved, the focus turned to whether Trump would punish his Saudi partner or find a way to let it slide.

In his statement, released by the White House press office, Trump took the latter option, saying that the US-Saudi relationship was more important than the possible involvement in the crime of Prince Mohammed.

He noted that Saudi King Salman and the crown prince “vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr Khashoggi”.

Also, Saudi Arabia, he said, provides crucial help in the US struggle to contain Iranian ambitions, as well as having committed to $450 billion in US weapons contracts and other investments. In addition, the Saudis have helped in keeping oil prices low, Trump said.

“The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region,” he said.

Trump acknowledged a strong push in Congress for the United States to sanction MBS and take other action against the Saudi leadership.

“I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America,” he said.

However, this statement was described as “shameful” by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a tweet on Tuesday.

“Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests – just like the Finns do?” Zarif wrote on Twitter.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)

21, November 2018

436,000 Ambazonians internally displaced, Humanitarian response plan underfunded ⁰

With at least 436,000 people currently internally displaced in Cameroon’s South-West and North-West – and in neighbouring departments – due to hostilities between armed groups and security forces, the country remains of urgent humanitarian concern.

Humanitarian presence and response are slowly increasing in the affected areas, with priority given to the South-West region which is the epicentre of the displacement crisis with 246,000 IDPs. OCHA has strengthened its capacity including on access and civil-military coordination, and other UN humanitarian agencies are establishing a presence in the two regions and are responding primarily through NGOs in the affected areas.

However, limited access due to insecurity and lack of funding remain impediments to the scale-up of humanitarian programming.

A special three-months response plan launched at the end of May to address the urgent needs of 160,000 vulnerable people in the South-West and North-West requested US$15 million in funding. But only a $5 million rapid response grant from the Central Emergency Response Fund has been received.

The overall 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan for Cameroon requesting $320 million is also underfunded at less than 37 per cent.

Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

21, November 2018

Mumbai: Cameroon women held with fake passports ⁰

Two Cameroonian nationals who wanted to join their families in France were intercepted at the Mumbai airport on Friday after attempting to fly out using forged Guatemalan passports.

Alvine Nokam and Ololie Konhawo, who live in the Central African country, arrived at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on Friday night to board a Jet Airways flight to Paris, the police said.

At the immigration counter, they furnished passports issued this year by Guatemala’s Director of Migration, and which identified them as nationals of Cameroon. However, a routine inspection by an immigration official of their passports under a scanner’s ultra-violet lights revealed that the bio-pages of both documents, which contained their names, ages, dates of birth, passport number and expiration date, were forged.

Upon being questioned by a senior Bureau of Immigration official, the women admitted that they were from Cameroon, who planned to move to Paris to be with their families and in search of better financial prospects, the police said. An official at Sahar police station said earlier this year, the women had contacted a travel agent in their native country on Facebook. “Both the women paid the agent 2000 Euros each for a fake Guatemalan passport,” the official added.

Source: Indian Express

21, November 2018

Believers trapped as Biya regime wages war on two fronts ⁰

The stakes are high and believers are running out of places to go as Cameroon wages war on two fronts. Illia Djadi – Africa Bureau Chief at World Watch Monitor – describes a Boko Haram insurgency in northern Cameroon. “Ministers in that area are not safe,” he notes. “They had to leave the area or [be] attacked, ransacked, set on fire, destroyed by Boko Haram.

“We had a number of stories of church ministers killed by Boko Haram. Attacked and killed.”

At the same time, government forces are fighting armed separatists in western Cameroon.

Fighting in the North

(Screenshot)

Boko Haram officially began expanding its operations from Nigeria into Cameroon in October 2014. However, northern Cameroon was one of the first places authorities searched six months earlier following Boko Haram’s infamous Chibok abduction. Last month, 57 Chibok captives were spotted at two Boko Haram strongholds.

On Holy Week in April 2014, Boko Haram abducted hundreds of schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, sparking international outcry. Over 50 girls escaped during the initial months of their captivity, and 106 have been released so far. One hundred are still thought to be in the grasp of terrorists.

Furthermore, Boko Haram terrorists are reportedly raiding and pillaging villages throughout northern Cameroon, stealing food and destroying property. “They (Christians) had to leave,” says Djadi.

“They had to run for their own life, for their own safety, and for the safety of their children and families.”

Fighting in the West

As explained in this report by BBC News, the clash between English-speaking separatists and Cameroon’s French-speaking government began last year. The conflict has killed hundreds since then, and approximately 436,000 have been displaced.

(Screenshot captured from Charles Wesco memorial video)

American missionary Charles Wesco was caught in the crossfire at the end of October. Wesco and his family moved to Cameroon from Indiana to begin missionary service 12 days before he was fatally shot.

“This American missionary has become [the] victim of an issue…but before him, other church ministers, leaders, have also been killed,” Djadi states.

The separatist conflict may seem limited to western Cameroon, Djadi adds, but it could quickly become a regional issue.

“That’s exactly what happened with Boko Haram. It first affected north-eastern Nigeria, and now…it is affecting northern Cameroon. It is affecting Chad, it’s affecting Niger.”

3 ways to pray for Cameroon

For their safety, believers are being told to leave both northern and western Cameroon. Djadi says the dilemma is more complicated than it appears.

“They have a strong sense of their calling, to go there even if it’s not safe,” he explains.

“That’s the key issue: what to do? There’s no easy answer.”

While the crisis in Cameroon is multifaceted, there are three specific ways you can pray. First, pray for peace.

“For missionaries [and] churches to run their ministries, they need peace,” notes Djadi.

Second, ask the Lord to protect His followers in Cameroon, and pray for wisdom as they make difficult choices. Third, “pray for the Cameroon authorities, political authorities, for wisdom.”

Source: Mission Network News

20, November 2018

Nigeria: Political class gathers as ex-president Goodluck launches book ⁰

Top political players in Nigeria gathered in the capital Abuja for the launch of a book by the former president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Jonathan chose his 61st birthday to launch the book, “The Transition Hours,” which detailed events leading up to his concession after he lost elections in 2015.

Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and other top guns were present at the event that took place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja. President Buhari was advertised as attending but instead he was represented by Secretary General of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, local media portals reported.

Also in attendance were top officials of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. It’s candidate in next February presidential polls, Atiku Abubakar, was also present.

Nigeria’s former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Abdul Salam Abubakar were also present for the event. A heavy presence of former presidents across the subregion was also recorded with Ghana’s John Dramani Mahama, Benin’s Thomas Boni-Yayi and Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma all in attendance.

‘My Transition Hours,’ chronicles how Jonathan accepted defeat in highly contested polls barely four years ago. At the time, Jonathan was seeking a final term in office as candidate of the PDP. He lost the contest to incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari.

It was the first time in Nigeria’s recent history that an opposition party had wrestled power from the ruling party? PDP had been in power for sixteen years prior to 2015.

Before the APC government, PDP had ruled eight years through Olusegun Obasanjo who handed over to Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who died in office. His then vice president Jonathan completed his term and won his substantive first term in 2011.

Culled from Africa News

President Goodluck Jonathan: Recognizing the vision and record of a great leader

Cameroon Concord News Group was pleased to announce former Nigeria President Good Luck Jonathan as their man of the year 2015. We arrived at this conclusion after a careful and anxious consideration of a wide range of candidates. We considered the contributions of the candidates to the development and improvement of the human condition within their communities, their countries and the world at large. Our choice fell on the former Nigerian president Good Luck Jonathan due to his contributions to the enthronement of a sound democratic culture and society, democratic constitutionalism, peace, security and good governance in his country the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The vision and record of Good Luck Jonathan will greatly contribute to the development of a credible democratic culture and economic emancipation of Africa.

Former Nigerian President Good Luck Jonathan maintained the integrity and unity of Nigeria which this paper regrets, Buhari is jeopardizing with his ethnic politics that undermines the federal character of his country. The resurgence of the popular clamour for the reactivation of the sovereign state of Biafra as the recent demonstration by millions of people of Eastern Nigeria origin at home and worldwide is an obvious indicator.

While in opposition President Buhari made statements that undermined the war effort against Boko Haram. He later rallied the ethnic support of Northern Nigeria and hoodwinked the gullible Yoruba power elite to return power to the North. Now in power President Buhari’s inconsistent policy of wanting to negotiate and fighting Boko Haram is an indication that he does not intend to fight them with the same intensity that Jonathan did. Jonathan an ethnic minority Ejaw from the volatile Niger Delta of Nigeria succeeded in negotiating a peaceful abatement of the armed insurgency in the Niger Delta that disrupted oil exploitation, the main stay of the Federation’s economy and international maritime traffic. That was a major achievement that merits recognition.

Jonathan has been criticized of being lax in the fight against corruption. This criticism is exaggerated considering the fact most efforts he made in the fight against corruption were indeed sabotaged by some of the very born again torn coat politicians who energized and sponsored the then opposition APC alliance to wrestle power from Jonathan. It was on Jonathan’s watch that some of the Sani Abacha loot was repatriated and fiscal and financial discipline introduced into governance. The Ngozi Okongo Eweala led nationally and internationally acclaimed economic policies identified and closed loopholes in government fiscal and financial policies, depriving corrupt politicians and business men of the impunity with which they looted public wealth. This made powerful enemies against Jonathan within and out of his own political party the PDP. Some left to join the opposition APC alliance and have since been portrayed as the saints who will wipe corruption from the face of Nigeria. Sooner or later, the true motives underpinning the born again posturing of these political torn coats will become as obvious as day follows night to all to see. Then and only then will Nigerians discover the truth that leopards do not indeed change their spots.

Jonathan’s respect of the Federal character in critical government appointments; in particular appointments into ministries and portfolios overseeing national sovereignty insured that Nigerians of all ethnicities had roles and stakes in national decision making. The national conference organized by Jonathan provides Nigerians an opportunity to chart a new future for their country and to recommit to the idea of unity in diversity. The national conference is one of the landmark attainments of Jonathan enduring legacies to his people which history has recognized and recorded for our generation and generations unborn.

Cameroon Concord News Group has always held the considered opinion that Boko Haram is a tricky adversary which is hated and loved in equal measures by gullible politicians in Nigeria and Cameroon. First it offers power thirsty politicians the opportunity to attain power. It also provides them the opportunity to retain power, siphon money meant to support the war effort.

Like President Yaradua before, President Jonathan inherited Fulani cattlemen attacks in the Middle Belt, the Niger Delta crisis and the Boko Haram insurgency in the North from the previous administration of President Obasanjo. During his reign, President Jonathan made considerable efforts in rallying sub-regional and national efforts to confront these challenges. Time has so far proved that President Buhari who criticized Jonathan’s Boko Haram strategy promising to end the insurgency if elected in a matter of months, has so far not offered any combat strategy different from that of President Jonathan to confront the armed challenges. He has also not offered any specific economic policies that defer from those put in place by President Jonathan. The slow pace of the Buhari administration may indeed be interpreted due to be a paucity of any credible economic policies that are superior to those put in place by President Jonathan.

Most significant, history will retain that President Jonathan successfully organized a free and fair election, the outcome of which he graciously accepted and respected, sparing Nigeria the risk of the bloodletting that has characterized several elections within the troubled continent of Africa.

It is sad that those who won the elections promising to bring better reforms than those put in place by Jonathan are still struggling to realize even a single promise they made to the electorate. The admitted rationale for the election of President Buhari in the last election was his proven record in combatting corruption as a military leader. President Buhari’s famed war against corruption largely succeeded then because of the dictatorial military instruments of coercion he wielded then to impose and enforce his policies. Those instruments were not available to Jonathan and absent them now a civilian president, President Buhari, facing the same adversaries may not be a hopeful of the successes he recorded in the war against corruption as a military ruler. The same forces that applauded him to power this time around will be an impediment to his corruption fighting policies and strategies due in part on human rights and rule of law considerations and potential impediments.

History will rate Jonathan fairly and may be classify him as one of the great political leaders to come out of Africa. He has demonstrated by words and deeds that he is patriotic, visionary, democratic, humane, and honest and readily one the great leaders of our generation, Africa and the democratic world. He merits our recognition.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai