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26, March 2018

President Buhari: The political and financial motivations for the Abduction of Ambazonia leaders and the negotiations with Boko Haram ⁰

Yesterday, Cameroon Concord News and the Cameroon Intelligence Report both published a news item in which the Nigeria Information Minister Lai Mohammed admitted that the Government of President Buhari was negotiating a cessation of hostilities and ceasefire with Boko Haram. This admission came in the heels of the report by Cameroon Concord News Group that the Buhari Government had paid colossal amounts of money in ransom to Boko Haram for the release of some Chibok School Girls and very recently that of the Dapchi School Girls. We of this group had in the past alleged that the links between Buhari and Boko Haram are deep rooted in their shared membership of Political Islam and that the former was indeed the god father of the later.

Following from the abduction of the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and members of the Interim Government on the orders of President Buhari in one of the most scandalous corruption deals in sub-regional history, Cameroon Concord News Group wondered where the moral compass placed President Buhari in his presumptuous lamentation over the abduction of the Dapchi School Girls which by every indication was arranged to occur by him to fulfill carefully calculated political goals. Cameroon Concord News alerted its readers that payments to Boko Haram whose leaders President Buhari and his entourage and fellow members of Political Islam knew so well were imminent, relying on the arranged abduction and payment to fulfill a commercial and political objective. The announcement by Information Minister Lai Mohammed about the negotiations between Buhari and Boko Haram has come to confirm the stories published in this media since Buhari came to power establishing a relationship between Mr. Buhari and Boko Haram. The connections between Political Islam, Boko Haram and the Government of French Cameroun have been widely affirmed by the Speaker of the National Assembly of French Cameroun Cavaye Djibril and by the extensive contact between the criminal organization with Ahmadou Ali the Vice Prime Minister of French Cameroun and Issa Tchiroma the Minister of Communication of the said government.

The abduction and ransom for the freedom of some 110 Dapchi School Girls North East Nigeria and that of the Chibok School girls before, shades more light on the operational dynamics of Political Islam in Nigeria and some countries in the sub-region, particularly French Cameroun. Cameroon Concord News shed the spotlight on this critical international security issue when then presidential candidate Mohammadu Buhari came out in support of Boko Haram and accused then President Good Luck Jonathan of deploying soldiers led by General Iherijiaka an international acclaimed General of Ibo origin in Eastern Nigeria to massacre innocent Northern Youth under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Shortly thereafter the Chibok School Girls were abducted and a political movement routing for candidate Buhari so-called “Bring back our Girls” mobilized nationally and worldwide to pressure and highlight the weaknesses of the Good Luck Jonathan Government in searching and rescuing the girls.

Jonathan was pressured to fire General Iherijiaka who was replaced by a pliable, gullible and malleable Air Force General with an alarming corruption baggage from his tenue as the Chief of Air Force Staff. The security situation degraded and the military advantages obtained under Iherijiaka were reversed. The United States and European Union countries who disdained the audacity of Good Luck Jonathan’s politics of economic sovereignty that made Nigeria one of the fastest growing economies in the Africa and the world, took concerted action to obstruct the purchase of arms by Nigeria to fight the Boko Haram terrorist organization. This move aimed at providing tacit support for Mohammadu Buhari whose visionless economic and political platforms were illusory making it possible for these countries to manipulate their way back to controlling Nigeria’s oil and maritime economy. Buhari hoped to compensate his visionless and unrealistic economic agenda that favoured the rolling back the gains attained under Good luck Jonathan by floating more than one hundred unattainable objectives and declaring a corruption witch hunt aimed and destroying his political opponents. It is ironic that the political campaign of Mohammadu Buhari was bankrolled by some of the most corrupt politicians in Nigeria, among them Asiwaju Tinibu an erstwhile Governor of Lagos State and a politics for profit political godfather. Meanwhile Buhari is the undisputed leader of the Northern political platform founded on a Political Islam agenda. Boko Haram was founded or coopted as a violent extremist militant group to enforce the Political Islam political agenda of Buhari and his cohorts. Pursuing a complex war with sophisticated weaponry by Boko Haram required a sophisticated network and enormous amount of resources. These elaborate resources were laundered through Political Islam political structures in Northern Nigeria, Northern French Cameroun and some countries of the African Sahel.

Opposition candidate Buhari came to power promising to end the Boko Haram insurgency within his first one hundred days in power. On attaining power, he opted for a negotiated solution to the release of the Chibok girls and indeed allegedly negotiated and paid a ransom for the release of some of the girls. For Buhari to have negotiated and paid a ransom, he must have known in intimate detail the leaders of Boko Haram. Hoping to protect his presidential image, Buhari opted to maintain an ambiguous relationship with Boko Haram. Not only did Buhari not tackle the war against Boko Haram as vigorously as he promised, he has through his silence and non-action encouraged the slaughter of hundreds and even thousands of Nigerians in the Middle Belt and other parts of the country by his cattlemen of his Hausa/Fulani ethnicity.

Since coming to power, President Buhari has not realized a cognizable major development or economic project. Nepotism is the hallmark of his administration. He has surrounded himself with dubious corrupt persons of his ethnicity. These are the people whose mandate appears to include the cutting of clandestine corrupt deals like the abduction of Ambazonia’s leaders in Abuja on January 5 2018.

To embellish his national security credentials, he turned to his Political Islam base to arrange the abduction and release of the Dapchi School girls through an alleged negotiation and the payment of a ransom. Information Minister went further to announce the ongoing negotiations of cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire with Boko Haram. Cameroon Concord News Group cannot independently confirm if Nigeria briefed or associated the Multilateral Force about its negotiations and deals with Boko Haram whom they are jointly fighting. With the admitted collaboration of French Cameroun with Boko Haram to which it has paid ransom several times on engineering the abduction of foreign nationals, Nigeria, a close ally in this game, needed not formally informed French Cameroun. Through abductions, key political leaders in Nigeria and French Cameroun make huge amounts of money to manipulate the political institutions within these countries to their political advantage. Let no one be duped, the ongoing negotiations between the Buhari Government with Boko Haram and the collaborative actions of French Cameroun towards Boko Haram highlights the dilemma facing the international community which is cooperating with Boko Haram sponsors to search for Boko Haram in the wrong places.

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman, Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

26, March 2018

Tale of ADF execution of a suspected traitor: A Warzone Eyewitness Report ⁰

Flasko was smiling when his abductors with guns rode with him back to the village, but few minutes later they shot him dead in front of a multitude of villages on Market Day.

In the morning of Wednesday, March 14, the Secretary of the Traditional Council of Ayong, a village of the Upper Balong clan in Nguti subdivision, was shot dead in cold blood at his home, in front of a multitude of villagers and people from elsewhere who had converged there for the weekly Market Day.

Mr Akum Zaccheus Nangwe, popularly called Flasko, said to be in his 60s, had been taken away only minutes after dawn by unidentified men, believed to be Ambazonia fighters, some of them with dane guns, who came on five motorbikes and surrounded his house. They took him away on one of the bikes. His bewildered wife fled to Manyemen, minutes’ drive away, to report what she called the “kidnap” of her husband, to friends and family members and to seek help from who could offer to secure his release.

Thirty minutes to one hour later, two gunmen returned with Flasko on a bike; one riding, the other sitting behind Flasko who was thus sitting between them. Few minutes later, Flasko was shot dead.

Besides his functions as secretary of the Traditional Council, Flasko was also the local Civil Registry Officer. It is not clear why he was targeted but some accounts say the gunmen accused him of being a “blackleg” who identifies and reports local people to government security and defence forces as collaborators of Ambazonia fighters. Some say he had been accused some three months ago of betraying local bush meat dealers who use the Ayong road which is a branch off between Talangaye and Ebanga villages. Witnesses say the seizure of bush meat which means huge losses for local boys, intensified with the present armed skirmishes.

People said to be familiar with the modus operandi of the Ambazonia fighters say when they take their suspects away, they put them through a trial which is a combination of interrogations and mystical verifications to establish their standing with ADF fighters. Those who have witnessed travelling past their road blocks say they wave a machete in front of the suspect and if he is an enemy to their cause, the machete would turn red or get smeared with blood. They believe that is what Flasko was put through that Wednesday morning before he was brought back to the village. His mortal remains were laid to rest on Thursday, March 22.

Below is the testimony of someone (his identity withheld for obvious reasons) who witnessed the execution of Flasko:

I witnessed the execution of Flasko with my own two naked eyes. That Wednesday was the Ayong Market Day. Word was on every lip that Flasko had been taken away by some men with guns who came on motorbikes at about 6.30am.

Incidentally, all the foodstuff I bought that day, I kept them on Flasko’s veranda which is besides the market. Before I could collect my things to leave, we saw two gunmen on one bike riding back with Flasko. There was great relief at the market. Flasko, sitting between the two men carrying dane guns hanging across their shoulders, was even smiling which to us implied an acquittal from the “trial’. People gathered from the market in joy.

The man behind who looked like the man in charge, asked Flasko to go into his house. Shortly after Flasko went in, the man in charge walked casually to the corner of Flasko’s house. Then he stopped suddenly in his tracks and stepped backwards as if he had seen something dangerous. From the front of Flasko’s house, he called out, “Pa come so, come so.”

When Flasko stepped out, the man motioned him to come to the corner of his house. We were watching. The man pointed at something on the ground, indicating something to Flasko near his room window. We couldn’t see what he was pointing at, but the man then said to Flasko, “Pa just di go so straight and no try for do anything funny.”

At that juncture, the man gave his gun to the other man who was the rider (though he too had a gun) and said to him, “Waste he, waste he.” The other man pointed the gun at Flasko from behind and fired the fatal shot that brought Flasko down and left him dead. At the time the shot went out, Flasko was turning his head to look behind.

I was left confused, with unanswered questions. From hope that all was well because Flasko was smiling when they brought him back, to the sudden order to shoot him dead, I have been wondering what would have happened. What did the gunman see on the ground outside Flasko’s window? Had Flasko flung something out through the window? What was it? By the way, the man didn’t pick up anything from where he was pointing and nothing was found there. Was it something mystical that naked eyes could not see?

When Flasko dropped dead, pandemonium broke loose! Within a couple of minutes, the Ayong market had emptied. Flasko’s body was first taken to the Manyemen hospital and later to the Kumba General Hospital mortuary.

By Franklin Sone Bayen

26, March 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: UN urges Yaounde to respect human rights ⁰

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has appealed to the Government of Cameroon to respect human rights of all citizens for the sake of peace. The commission’s representative in Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr Antonio Canhandula, made the appeal while speaking with newsmen on Monday in Makurdi. Canhandula said the instability in Anglophone Cameroon had forced thousands of citizens to seek asylum in Nigeria. He said Cameroonian Government should explore alternative ways of engaging with those who feel aggrieved for the sake of peace and that both parties should respect human rights.

“UNHCR urges the Government of Cameroon to explore ways of engaging with those who feel aggrieved, for the sake of peace. “We also reiterate the need for respect of human rights by all parties involved,’’ Canhandula said. He said the refugees complained of exclusion from the national life by the Cameroonian Government, political processes and important positions in the government. “Longstanding grievances against the central government in Cameroon took a new turn in 2016 when a group of Anglophone Cameroonians triggered civil society-led demonstrations. “This was based on allegations of marginalisation by the authorities, particularly in the education and justice system. “Initially, the protesters called for the return to a federal system of government and greater autonomy. “However, on Oct. 1, 2017, the separatist movement, Ambazonia Governing Council, declared unilaterally the independence of Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest Regions.

“Tensions ensued with government security forces clashing with movement, resulting in injuries and deaths and leading to an influx of English-speaking Cameroonians into Nigeria. “Critics accused government forces of killing dozens of civilians while the administration is also alleging that suspected separatists have killed more than 10 security personnel since the crisis intensified in October.’’

Canhandula further said that the UNHCR had registered 20,485 Cameroonian refugees seeking asylum in Benue, Cross River and Akwa Ibom states. He explained that the commission also opened a permanent office for the coordination of their activities in Calabar, Cross River, field offices in Adikpo, Benue and Ikom in Cross River. The UNHCR representative said that the Benue Government had allocated 191 hectares of land for the settlement of refugees in Kwande Local Government Area. He added that the site was being developed. According to him, each site has the capacity to host 4,000 persons. He, however, said that the influx is expected to continue and there is the need for more land in Benue. “We are still working with the state authorities in Cross River to identify a suitable location to move the refugees away from the border in line with international standards. “Issues of accessibility, security, topography, water resources, absorption capacity and good terrain for sanitation facilities are taken into consideration while selecting potential refugee sites.’’

Canhandula said the commission was yet to gain access to Akwaya, where some Nigerian refugees in Cameroon were located. “The Akwaya sub-division, in particular, hosts small refugee population of around 1,800 Nigerians and around 600 Cameroonian returnees, who had been refugees in Nigeria before being repatriated in 2015 and 2016. “This area is very difficult to access, particularly during the rainy season. “Nevertheless, our office in Cameroon is working to organise an assessment mission there. “But we cannot provide first-hand information at this moment,’’ he said.

Source: www.vanguardngr.com

26, March 2018

British defense secretary says Russia trying to divide Britain from allies ⁰

Britain’s defense secretary says that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to divide the UK from its allies, yet the world stands united behind the British in a “powerful message to the Kremlin.”

“The world’s patience is rather wearing thin with President Putin and his actions, and the fact that right across the NATO alliance, right across the European Union, nations have stood up in support of the United Kingdom… I actually think that is the very best response that we could have,” Gavin Williamson, who is in Tallinn, Estonia, said on Monday.

Willamson’s remarks come amid escalating tensions between Europe and Russia over the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, in a British town.

London claims the Soviet-designed Novichok nerve agent has been used to poison the pair and points the finger at Russia.

Moscow has rejected the claims as “absurd,” saying the substance used in the attack could have originated from the countries studying it, including Britain itself. It has offered cooperation with London in probing the case.

Williamson arrived in the Estonian capital on Sunday for a two-day visit to see British troops who are based there as part of a NATO mission in the Baltic states to deter “Russian aggression.”

Last week, EU leaders issued a statement in Brussels, saying it was “highly likely Russia is responsible” for poisoning the Soviet-era spy.

Earlier this month Williamson said, “Russia should go away and shut up” when asked how the Kremlin should respond to 23 of its diplomats, thought to be spies, being expelled from the UK over the poisoning.

In retaliation for London’s “provocative” measures over the alleged poisoning, Russia also said that it would expel 23 British diplomats.

Skripal was found guilty by a Russian tribunal of selling classified information to Britain’s spy agency MI6 and was imprisoned in Russia in 2006. He was exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.

Source: Presstv

26, March 2018

Israeli PM questioned for second time in telecom corruption case ⁰

Police have questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time in a corruption case involving Israel’s largest telecommunication company, Bezeq, as he is embroiled in two other cases.

Police assert that Bezeq owner Shaul Elovitch had instructed the Walla news website, which is fully owned by the telecom company, to provide favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his wife in return for favors from communications regulators.

According to Israeli media, Netanyahu’s spouse and son would be interrogated separately in the telecoms investigation over their relationship with Bezeq’s owner and his spouse.

Police, who have yet to make a recommendation about charges in the case, reportedly questioned the prime minister in his official residence in Jerusalem al-Quds.

Shlomo Filber, the former director general of the Communications Ministry, and Nir Hefetz, a former spokesman of Netanyahu, have agreed to serve as the regime’s witnesses in the case.

Israeli police investigators have also been grilling Netanyahu for corruption over his involvement in cases 1000 and 2000. The final decision about whether to prosecute him rests with the Israeli attorney general, which could take months.

Case 1000 revolves around alleged illicit gifts given to Netanyahu and his family by different businessmen, most notably the Israeli-born Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan.

The Israeli prime minister and his wife, Sara, claim that the value of the items was significantly lower than reported, and that they were only “trifles” exchanged between close friends.

Case 2000 focuses on an alleged clandestine deal made between Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth publisher and owner Arnon “Noni” Mozes, in which the 68-year-old chairman of the Likud party promised Mozes he would support a bill to reduce the circulation of Yedioth’s main commercial rival, the Hebrew-language freebie Israel Hayom, in exchange for favorable coverage of himself in Yedioth.

The political survival of Netanyahu’s four-term prime minister is greatly at risk over the corruption and bribery probes.

Source: Presstv

26, March 2018

Yaounde Arrests Boko Haram Fighters and Accomplices ⁰

Cameroon’s military has arrested several Boko Haram fighters and their 25 female accomplices who were attempting to supply food and weapons through Cameroon to the fighters in Nigeria. Most of the women say their husbands are fighters in Nigeria.

Alban Toupo, commander of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, the Cameroon military unit fighting the Boko Haram insurgency in the border town of Kolofata, said 31 people, including 25 women, were arrested while transporting ammunition, food, material to fabricate explosive devices, torches, drugs and medications to Nigeria in small quantities.

The commander said the suspects at times involved their children in the smuggling, claiming that they were either going to visit relatives across the border in Nigeria or were simply going to sell food and buy basic commodities.

He said after Cameroon military had killed fighters who were using force to transport food and military equipment through Cameroon villages to Nigeria, they could not believe women and children, at times accompanied by men, were carrying supplies to the terror group until they received a tip from the population.

He said his troops had protected the women and children without knowing they were either fighters or accomplices.

Alban said they were told the women recruited suicide bombers, planted landmines on border zones with Nigeria and served as informants for hostage takings between Cameroon border town of Kolofata and Nigeria.

Kolofata has suffered from Boko Haram violence with frequent cross-border raids since fighting started four years ago. The town hosts several hundred Nigerian refugees as well as internally displaced persons who have been forced to flee their homes due to persistent fighting.

Tchombai Ibrahi, the most senior Cameroon government official in Kolofata says the suspects have been helping the military in their investigations.

He said they have embarked on a tour to educate the population not to collaborate and not to do business with the criminals who pretend to be farmers and business persons but end up terrorizing villagers.

Soldiers from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger, as part of the multi-national joint task force of the lake Chad Basin Commission, rolled back Boko Haram gains and announced the terrorist group was living its last moments last year, but the insurgency switched to terror attacks and remains a threat.

The conflict that began in northeast Nigeria began eight years ago and has left at least 25,000 people dead and forced more than 2.6 million others to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

26, March 2018

Southern Cameroons Conflict Halts Cameroon-Nigeria Business ⁰

Separatist violence in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon along the border with Nigeria have completely stalled trade between the two countries. Buses no longer ply the Bamenda-Enugu road corridor as attacks and kidnappings continue.

About 70 men and women have assembled at Kandem, a village in southwestern Cameroon on the border with Nigeria to discuss what to do with their farm produce and how to get supplies from neighboring Nigeria. Five months ago, Kandem was a bustling market town along the $423-million African Development Bank-funded road linking Bamenda, Cameroon, with Enugu, Nigeria.

Pierre Atemengue, who came from central Cameroon, opened a plantation in Kandem. He says constant conflict between Cameroon government troops and armed separatists fighting for the independence of the English speaking from the French speaking regions of Cameroon have paralyzed business. He says 90 percent of the local farm produce has not been sold for the past five months.

He says he has asked all men to store cocoa in their community warehouse, while the women make sure that perishable farm produce like plantains, fresh maize and vegetables are harvested only when buyers come to their villages. He says women have been asked to work in groups to be able to meet supply deadlines whenever demand will be high.

Atemengue says goods imported from Nigeria are now difficult to come by, and when found are very expensive.

VOA mounted a commercial motorcycle to visit abandoned businesses in the village.

Rider Lionnel Mbung says the fighting has scared off the busloads of Nigerians that used to flood the village to buy farm produce and supply basic commodities, and that 80 percent of the youths in the village have fled the conflict.

Lionnel says he braved the crisis and stayed, but is now out of business after the government of Cameroon banned motorcycles because armed separatists were using the bikes to attack the military and kidnap government workers.

“Since the situation in Cameroon started, the bike business has dropped down, there is no way for us, things are not moving. They have passed orders that they do not want to see bikes, so we hide our bikes here, then we go to look for passengers because when we go there with our bikes, the police will catch [arrest] us.”

Access to most villages along the border with Nigeria is by motorcycle. The ban on their use has also helped to paralyze business.

Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroon minister of territorial administration who ordered the ban says the government will only reconsider its decision when peace returns and when an identification of the riders he has asked for is complete.

“The population has complained time and again because most of them kidnap, kill, destroy. So we are asking them to put order in this profession,” said Atanga Niji.

Cameroon, with a population of about 23 million, depends on Nigeria for most basic commodities, and Nigeria’s 160 million people count on Cameroon for rice, maize, tubers, plantain, cocoa and other farm produce.

The unrest in Cameroon began in November, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers in the Northwest and Southwest regions, frustrated with having to work in French, took to the streets calling for reforms and greater autonomy.

Over the past year, armed separatist groups have emerged demanding all-out independence for the two English-speaking regions. The government says at least 30 soldiers and police have been killed in recent clashes.

Culled from the VOA

26, March 2018

Cameroun votes new Senate as tensions plague Southern Cameroons ⁰

Senate elections took place in Cameroon Sunday, as tensions continued to soar in the French-majority country’s anglophone regions where separatist rebels have been fighting government forces for several months.

Senate elections do not take place by universal suffrage in the West African nation. Some 10,000 municipal councillors across Cameroon are voting for 70 members of the upper house for a duration of five years.

Appointees to the 30 remaining seats will be named later by President Paul Biya.

His party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), already holds a large majority in the Senate and is the clear frontrunner in the ballot. The main opposition, the Social Democratic Front (SDF) only has candidates in five of the 10 provinces.

The president of the Senate may act as an interim head of state but the chamber only plays a marginal role primarily focused on examining the second reading of draft laws.

Authorities closely monitored the ballot in the Northwest and the Southwest provinces, two English-speaking territories that became part of the French-majority country after independence in 1960.

Tensions have been flaring in these parts — accounting for about a fifth of the 23-million-strong population — since separatists proclaimed the autonomous republic of “Ambazonia” in October last year.

The country has had a tortuous colonial history that saw it pass from German rule to French and British hands, and the anglophone minority complain of having long been marginalised by the French-speaking elite.

The conflict between rebels and the army has become increasingly serious, as separatists urge the armed forces and government officials to leave the territory.

New separatist groups are emerging, while the Yaounde authorities have reduced their communications about the conflict to a minimum.

The unrest in the anglophone regions has prompted around 33,000 people to flee to neighbouring Nigeria.

AFP

26, March 2018

Paul Biya: Cameroon’s ‘absentee president’ ⁰

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has been in power for 35 years. But while his longevity in office is a talking point at home, the time he spends out of the country has stirred international comment – as Paul Melly, an associate fellow of Chatham House, explains.

Criticised by some for a supposedly “hands-off” style of rule, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya recently held a cabinet meeting for the first time in more than two years.

Presidential elections are scheduled for October and Cameroonians are waiting to hear if the 85-year-old will seek a further term. But no such announcement was made at the meeting.

Mr Biya has been in power since 1982, making him one of Africa’s longest serving leaders. Under his rule, Cameroon has survived an economic crisis and moved from being a one-party state to multi-party politics.

But it has also been marked by endemic corruption and reversal of democratic gains, leading to the abolition of term limits in 2008, which allowed the octogenarian to run for re-election in 2011.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) accompanies President of Cameroon Paul Biya (R) to view an honour guard during a welcoming ceremony inside the Great Hall of the People on March 22, 2018 in Beijing, China. — Image captionPresident Biya has been in China this week

Today’s Africa is changing. The era of decades-old presidencies is slipping away. Satellite TV and the internet tell a growing urban audience about democratic changes of power in other sub-Saharan countries.

Some 60% of Cameroonians are under 25 and so were not even born when President Biya first came to power. There is massive demand for jobs and viable livelihoods.

The opposition Social Democratic Front has now recognised these generational realities. Earlier this year, the party’s leader, John Fru Ndi, 76, stepped aside to make way for a new presidential candidate, 49-year-old businessman and former pilot Joshua Osih.

Swiss hotel

This is the challenge that confronts Mr Biya as he decides whether to stand for a further term that could take him into a fourth decade in power in a country hungry for change.

His repeated absences from the country have riled critics.

His foreign travels have been the subject of an online spat between the state-owned Cameroon Tribune newspaper and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which calculated the amount of time the president spent abroad using reports from the daily newspaper.

The OCCRP estimates that the president spent nearly 60 days out of the country last year on private visits.

It also alleges that he spent a third of the year abroad in 2006 and 2009. The Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva is said to be his favourite destination.

The state-owned Cameroon Tribune called their investigation “a clear electoral propaganda”.

President Paul Biya (L) and his wife Chantal Biya in Yaounde — Image captionCameroon football players bow before President Biya and his wife Chantal to mimic an obsequious greeting

Back home, President Biya adopts a low-key style, staying out of the limelight and sometimes retreating to his home village.

He entrusts the day-to-day running of the government to the Prime Minister, Philemon Yang, who holds monthly gatherings of a “cabinet council”.

The prime minister is accorded wide latitude to manage the work of his ministerial team, while the head of state meets senior figures in private at the presidential palace in the capital, Yaoundé.

Culled from the BBC

25, March 2018

German police arrest ex-Catalan leader on Danish border ⁰

Catalonia’s former President Carles Puigdemont has been detained by German police as he was crossing the border with Denmark by car.

The arrest on Sunday came just two days after Spain’s Supreme Court vowed to prosecute 13 key separatists, including Puigdemont and his nominated successor Jordi Turull, over their role in the region’s failed breakaway bid.

Puigdemont “was arrested today at 11:19 am by Schleswig-Holstein’s highway patrol force,” a German police spokesman said, adding that the detention was based on a European warrant.

“He is now in police custody”, added the spokesman.

Separately confirming his arrest in Germany, Puigdemont’s party spokeswoman Anna Grabalosa said, “It happened as he crossed the Danish-German border. He was treated well and all his lawyers are there. That is all I can say.”

Puigdemont was picked up by German police as he was traveling back to Belgium, his lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas said on Twitter.

He “was heading to Belgium to present himself, as always, at the disposal of Belgian courts,” added Alonso-Cuevillas.

On Friday, Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena issued an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont, accusing Catalonia’s former president of organizing the vote on secession in October last year.

The independence referendum, called by Puigdemont despite objections from Madrid, triggered an unprecedented political standoff between Catalonia and Spain. Puigdemont used the yes vote as a base to make a declaration of independence on October 27, prompting Madrid to dismantle his government and the regional chamber, where he made the declaration.

Following the referendum vote, Puigdemont fled to Belgium to avoid prosecution on charges of sedition and rebellion. A number of his ministers, along with senior regional authorities, have been jailed or freed on bail over similar charges.

The new Catalan parliament was formed after snap elections in December in which pro-independence parties, like that of Puigdemont’s, retained their majority.

While separatist parties won Catalonia’s regional elections, they have been unable to form a government for the region as numerous leaders are in exile abroad or in jail.

Puigdemont to appear in court on Monday

Later on Sunday, Spanish court officials said Puigdemont would appear before a judge on Monday after he was detained by German police on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain.

“The sole purpose of this appearance is to verify the identity of the person arrested. The regional tribunal of Schleswig-Holstein in the town of Schleswig will then have to decide if Mr. Puigdemont has to be taken into custody” in view of handing him over to Spain, the court was quoted by AFP as saying.

Source: Presstv