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Hundreds of Ukrainian conscripts desert during military training in Germany

21, August 2026

Hundreds of Ukrainian conscripts desert during military training in Germany 0

Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who were forcibly conscripted have deserted their units while undergoing military training in Germany.

Nearly 30,000 Ukrainian troops have been sent for several weeks of military training in Germany since Russia launched its special military operation in Donbas in February 2022.

Yet hundreds of these conscripts have chosen to flee during the training programs, deserting rather than returning to Ukraine to fight Russian forces, according to media reports.

In the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt alone, more than 80 Ukrainian soldiers have absconded during training since 2022, the weekly newspaper Die Zeit reported. Across Germany as a whole, the total number of deserters runs into several hundred.

Under Ukrainian law, these men are classified as deserters and face up to 12 years in prison if apprehended. Many of them were involuntarily drafted into the army in the first place.

Forced recruitment crisis

Kiev has faced a persistent shortage of volunteers willing to confront the larger and stronger Russian army. In April 2024 a mobilization bill was passed under the pretext of “improving mobilization, military registration, and military service.”

Since the new law took effect in May 2024, recruitment officers have ambushed military-age men on the streets of cities and towns across Ukraine. Multiple viral videos have shown officers forcibly seizing men aged 18 to 60 from public places and dragging them into the army.

Human rights groups have condemned the coercive methods used to force these men into service.

In a further sign of desperation, Ukraine has even turned to convicts. Under a presidential decree, some 2,750 Ukrainian prisoners signed voluntary contracts for mobilization in exchange for parole, swelling the ranks of those sent to fight Russian troops.

Yaoundé: Japan plans 2027 festival to introduce Cameroonians to its culture

21, August 2026

Yaoundé: Japan plans 2027 festival to introduce Cameroonians to its culture 0

Japan is exploring plans for a cultural festival in Cameroon in 2027, as part of a broader effort to expand bilateral ties into the cultural and creative industries.

The proposed festival was a key topic at an Aug. 14, 2026, meeting in Yaoundé between Arts and Culture Minister Bidoung Mkpatt and Japan’s ambassador to Cameroon, Minami Kentaro.

The initiative has yet to be finalized, but it marks a shift in cooperation that has long been dominated by development projects, infrastructure and support for several economic sectors. Tokyo is now seeking to expand its cultural engagement in Cameroon and increase exchanges between the two societies.

The proposed festival is not expected to focus only on the Japanese cultural products best known to Cameroonian audiences, particularly manga and anime. Discussions also cover the promotion of music, traditional arts, contemporary forms of expression and various Japanese cultural practices and traditional skills.

The Japanese Embassy is seeking support from the Ministry of Arts and Culture for the preparation and organization of the event.

Beyond cultural diplomacy

The festival project comes as the two countries are also exploring cooperation in culture-related sectors with the potential to generate economic activity.

Cinema, design, arts and crafts, heritage conservation, digitization and cultural promotion were among the areas identified during the discussions. These sectors could open the way for cooperation that goes beyond cultural promotion to include training, knowledge transfer and the development of creative industries.

Cameroon is particularly interested in drawing on Japan’s experience in heritage conservation and promotion, as well as in sectors such as animation, design and cultural content.

The renewed push for closer cultural ties follows Cameroon’s participation in the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, where the country sought to showcase its heritage, tourism potential and some of its know-how to an international audience.

The Expo gave Cameroon an opportunity to raise its profile in Japan. The festival planned for 2027 would, in turn, provide a platform for presenting Japanese culture to the Cameroonian public.

Cooperation still to be structured

The Ministry of Arts and Culture says it already provides technical support for events organized by the Japanese Embassy in Cameroon. But developing a more structured framework for cooperation will require translating the discussions into concrete projects.

With that in mind, Bidoung Mkpatt proposed establishing a joint technical unit to coordinate and follow up on the various initiatives discussed.

That step will be critical. At this stage, neither the festival’s budget nor its detailed schedule, financing arrangements or participation terms have been specified in the details released so far.

The extent of the new cultural cooperation will therefore depend on the ability of both sides to turn their intentions into lasting programs, particularly in the cultural and creative industries.

The 2027 festival could serve as an early showcase for this new direction. Its significance would be broader if it also serves as an entry point for partnerships in training, heritage digitization, artistic creation and access to cultural markets.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Yaoundé: Biya returns after 74 days abroad

21, August 2026

Yaoundé: Biya returns after 74 days abroad 0

Paul Biya returned to Cameroon on August 20, 2026, after more than 10 weeks abroad. His absence had fueled speculation about his health and raised questions about how the government functioned while he was away.

The president, accompanied by Chantal Biya, landed at Yaoundé-Nsimalen International Airport at about 4:45 p.m. before heading to the Unity Palace.

Biya left Yaoundé on June 7. The presidency said at the time that he was leaving for a “short private stay in Europe,” without specifying how long he would be away. In total, Biya spent about 74 days outside the country, his longest recorded stay abroad since taking office in 1982, according to Reuters.

His return ends an unusually long absence. For more than two months, the president’s absence from public view and limited official communication about his stay fueled rumors and questions, eventually prompting the government to respond publicly. Speaking to RFI on August 2, Communication Minister and government spokesman René Emmanuel Sadi said the president was alive and that the presidency was not vacant. He also said Biya would return soon, without giving a date.

At the same time, the presidential camp maintained that Biya continued carrying out his presidential duties while abroad. Several presidential acts were issued during the period, including appointments within the defense forces on August 3.

Biya’s Absence Raises Questions About the Vice Presidency

The episode also exposed a new difficulty in Cameroon’s institutional framework. The constitutional revision of April 14, 2026, created the office of vice president and changed the rules governing presidential succession and continuity of government. Yet more than four months after the reform, no one had been appointed to the position when Biya returned to Yaoundé. Several political parties responded to the situation.

On July 18, the Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU), led by Hermine Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya, called for the vice presidency to be filled and for prolonged presidential absences to be more clearly regulated. The party also called for the public to receive more regular information about the functioning of state institutions when a president remains outside the country for an extended period.

The CDU did not argue, however, that Biya’s absence meant the presidency was legally vacant. Instead, the party questioned how the new institutional framework could operate in practice while one of its key offices remained vacant.

Samuel Hiram Iyodi’s Patriotic Movement for the Prosperity of the People (MP3) went further. In a letter sent to the president of the National Assembly on August 6, the party called for a debate on the legal framework governing prolonged presidential stays abroad. It proposed, among other measures, clarifying information requirements and the institutional mechanisms that could be activated when an absence extends over a long period.

Biya’s Return Ends the Absence, Not the Institutional Debate

The political debate is separate from the legal question of whether the presidency is vacant. Cameroonian law does not treat a president’s prolonged stay abroad as creating a vacancy merely because of how long it lasts. The April reform notably sets out provisions governing permanent incapacity and gives the vice president a central role in presidential succession and continuity of government. Biya’s return removes the immediate source of the controversy, but the institutional questions raised during his absence remain.

The episode highlighted the gap between the president’s legal ability to exercise his powers from abroad and public expectations about how the presidency should function during a prolonged absence with limited official communication.

It also brought the office of vice president back to the center of the debate. Although the April reform gave the vice presidency a key role in the new constitutional framework, no appointment has yet been made. Biya’s return therefore ends his 74-day absence, but not necessarily the institutional debate that began on June 7.

Source: Sbbc

Football: Djibouti federation accused of misusing funds

21, August 2026

Football: Djibouti federation accused of misusing funds 0

The tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti is embroiled in a football corruption row after a government audit accused its federation, largely funded by FIFA, of favouritism and inadequate competitive bidding.

The recent success of Cape Verde — which reached the knockout stage of this year’s World Cup — has shown that tiny African nations can succeed with the right organisation.

So Djibouti footballers are furious at their federation over allegations it has misused money from the world football governing body, which provides the vast majority of its funding.

Funds provided by Saudi Arabia for a new headquarters for the Djibouti Football Federation are also said to have been misused.

One local club manager, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP his team would boycott this year’s league unless there was a change in leadership.

“The (Djibouti federation’s) resources are not used for the development of football,” he said.

“When I see what Cape Verde is capable of achieving… I tell myself there is a structural problem within our federation,” he added.

The allegations stem from a 2024 government inspector’s report, recently obtained by AFP, that accuse the federation of “favouritism” in awarding the contract for the headquarters, and overpricing for many elements of the contract.

FIFA, which along with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) provides more than $1 million a year to Djibouti’s federation, did not respond to queries from AFP.

A member of Djibouti’s federation, Mohamed Elmi Farah, resigned from its executive committee on August 12, expressing “concerns regarding the management and use of the federation’s resources”. He did not respond to questions from AFP.

Souleiman Hassan Waberi, the longtime head of the Djibouti Football Federation, told AFP it had been cleared of all wrong-doing by FIFA.

“FIFA has officially confirmed to us that, to date, its monitoring mechanisms have revealed no indication of wrongdoing regarding the funds it disbursed,” said Waberi, who also serves on the FIFA Council as a representative of CAF.

CAF is a major supporter of FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, who has recently courted controversy with plans to open FIFA to private investors.

Waberi acknowledged “shortcomings regarding competitive bidding” in “certain operations”, but blamed the limited availability of many items in Djibouti, which has a population of just one million, and said procedures had since improved.

The government did not respond to AFP queries.

Djibouti, ruled by President Ismael Omar Guelleh since 1999, ranks 124th out of 182 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perception index.

Source: AFP

So, Cameroonians, what exactly do you want from President Biya?

20, August 2026

So, Cameroonians, what exactly do you want from President Biya? 0

For more than three decades, one political chorus has echoed across Cameroon with the consistency of a national anthem: “Biya must go! Biya must go!”

From the 1990s through protests, elections, political debates and social-media battles, the message seemed perfectly clear. After more than four decades in power, Cameroonians who wanted political change appeared to have settled on one simple solution: Paul Biya must leave.

Fair enough. But now comes the plot twist worthy of a Cameroonian comedy. Biya has been gone from public view for about two months, and suddenly another chorus is rising: “Where is Biya? We have not seen our president!”

Excuse me? So, Cameroonians, please help the rest of the world understand. When he was there, you said, “Biya must go!” Now that he is not there, you are saying, “Biya must appear!”

This is beginning to sound less like a political demand and more like a complicated romantic relationship.

“Leave me alone!”

“Okay.”

“Why did you leave me alone?”

At this point, even President Biya might be wondering whether he is supposed to govern the country or simply maintain a daily attendance register. Perhaps Cameroonians should clarify the job description. Is the head of state required to be physically visible, or merely constitutionally present?

Must he appear on television every morning, perhaps waving from the Unity Palace just to reassure the nation?

“Good morning, Cameroonians. I am still here. The electricity is still expensive. The roads are still under construction. Emergence 2030 will begin soon!! Have a nice day.” Maybe that would solve the problem because the current situation is becoming wonderfully paradoxical.

For years, people complained that Biya was everywhere politically but nowhere physically. Now, when he disappears from public view, some of the same voices become anxious about his absence.

This raises the obvious question: What exactly do Cameroonians want from President Biya?

Do you want him to go? Or do you want him to stay? Do you want him visible? Or do you want him invisible? Do you want him to govern? Or do you simply want proof that he is alive?

And perhaps the most important question of all: If Biya finally leaves, what exactly are Cameroonians expecting to happen next? Because removing one man is not the same thing as repairing a country.

A political system is bigger than the person sitting at the top. Institutions matter. Elections matter. Parliament matters. Courts matter. Civil society matters. The economy matters. And, most importantly, citizens matter.

So perhaps this is the perfect moment for Cameroon to move beyond the wonderfully convenient political slogan of “Biya must go” and start answering the much harder question: “Biya goes—and then what?”

Because shouting “go!” for 36 years is easy. But designing the Cameroon that should come after him is considerably harder.

And if Cameroonians really want Biya gone, they should probably stop treating his disappearance like a missing-person mystery. After all, you cannot spend decades shouting “Biya must go!” and then, when he actually goes quiet,  you start shouting “Biya, where are you?”

At some point, even the president deserves to ask: “My people, make wuna decide. You want me to go, or you want me to report for duty?”

Cameroonians, the microphone is yours. What exactly do you want from President Biya?

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Kyiv targeted by massive Russian strikes killing several people

20, August 2026

Kyiv targeted by massive Russian strikes killing several people 0

Russian bombardments killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens in Ukraine’s capital and its surrounding region overnight, authorities said on Thursday.

The foes have ramped up long-range attacks in recent months, driving up the civilian death toll on both sides in the four-and-a-half-year war.

The massive missile attack on Kyiv struck residential areas and warehouses, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram Thursday.

A medical facility and an educational institution were also damaged, according to the city’s military administration.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later wrote on X that the death toll in the capital had risen to 12 and that 40 people had been wounded.

“The Russians had been preparing for a long time, combining different types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, aiming to cause as much damage as possible to civilian infrastructure,” he wrote.

An attack in the Brovary district of the broader Kyiv region killed one man and wounded another, Kyiv regional governor Tymur Tkachenko said.

“One industrial facility has been damaged. All relevant services are on site, working to extinguish the fire,” he added.

Ukrainian air forces said on Telegram that Russia launched dozens of ballistic, ​cruise, ‌and ⁠hypersonic missiles, as well ‌as 168 drones in ⁠its overnight attack on the country.

It ​said that air ‌defence units downed 145 drones and ‌most of the cruise ​missiles but none of the missiles that ​run on ballistic trajectory.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram that it hit facilities producing drone components, a military depot and a logistics hub.

Ukraine’s air force had earlier warned of Russian “Kalibr” missiles in the vicinity of the village of Kagarlyk within the Kyiv region, heading towards the capital.

The attacks also prompted security responses in neighbouring NATO member states.

Poland’s military command said it had mobilised aircraft and activated air defences aimed at protecting Polish airspace, particularly in areas bordering Ukraine.

Romania’s defence ministry said radar systems detected aerial targets near the Ukrainian border overnight, prompting the scrambling of two Spanish fighter jets deployed on NATO missions and a Romanian air force helicopter.

The ministry said a drone entered Romanian airspace near Galati before crashing in an unpopulated area in Tulcea county.

Russia also reported a large Ukrainian drone attack.

Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 250 drones had flown towards the Moscow region between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, with most destroyed at a significant distance from the capital itself.

“Twenty-eight drones were destroyed in the Moscow region,” Sobyanin added.

While Kyiv has faced near-nightly attacks, Ukraine has also escalated its retaliatory strikes on Russia in recent months, in part to attempt to pressure Moscow into coming to the negotiating table to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Source: Reuters

Ukraine: President Zelensky’s senior aide fired amid corruption crisis

20, August 2026

Ukraine: President Zelensky’s senior aide fired amid corruption crisis 0

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed a senior aide amid a new corruption investigation; one day after his former defence minister warned of a “crisis of governance” and called for a wartime presidential election.

Iryna Mudra, a deputy chief of staff in the presidential office, was removed by decree on Wednesday. Ukrainian media reported that investigators were searching her home as part of an alleged money-laundering inquiry.

The case has been described as involving a group of people alleged to have laundered 150 million hryvnias ($3.4 million) to pay bail for a defendant in a major graft case last year, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.

The case, which involves the state-owned nuclear power company, brought the resignations of Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers earlier this year.

A former lawmaker, the chairperson of a state bank’s board, the head of the bank’s supervisory board, and a deputy head of the presidential office have now been added as new suspects in the case.

The scandal follows earlier resignations and investigations that damaged the president’s standing, including the departure of former chief aide Andriy Yermak.

Mudra’s dismissal came a day after the former defence minister called for elections.

Former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who was recently ousted, warned in a video address released late on Tuesday that the country was facing “a crisis of governance” and needed to hold a presidential election.

Zelensky showed no direct reaction to Fedorov’s statement or his election demand, and instead thanked Ukraine’s parliament for voting to confirm Fedorov’s replacement, Yevhen Khmara, as the new defence minister.

For weeks, Ukrainians have protested Zelensky’s dismissal of Fedorov, gathering daily in Kiev. The protests reflect public frustration with frequent reshuffles and a perceived lack of transparency in Zelensky’s administration.

His dismissal became a rallying point for those demanding effective leadership and innovative solutions to address Ukraine’s increasing shortage of young army-age personnel, which has strained the regime’s ability to sustain its war effort.

In the video, Fedorov blamed Zelensky for widespread corruption, saying the actor-turned-president lacked the competence to eradicate the problem from its root.

“Corruption is only a symptom. The main problem runs much deeper. We have a systemic crisis of governance,” Fedorov said in the nine-minute video posted online Tuesday.

The former defence minister said it was possible to “restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war.”

Zelensky’s five-year term as president has been extended indefinitely, as presidential elections are suspended under martial law following Russia’s launch of its special military operation in Donbas in February 2022.

Yaoundé allocates CFAF400 million to SMEs

19, August 2026

Yaoundé allocates CFAF400 million to SMEs 0

Cameroon has allocated CFAF400 million to finance small and medium-sized enterprises involved in the distribution of locally produced food, targeting a key bottleneck in the government’s import-substitution program: getting domestic products from producers to consumers.

The funding was announced on August 18, 2026 in a Trade Ministry release disclosing an agreement signed by Trade Minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana and Amadou Haman, Managing Director of the Cameroon Bank for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (BC-PME).

According to the Ministry of Trade, the CFAF400 million was transferred to BC-PME under the ministry’s 2026 budget. The bank will provide financial and technical support to businesses operating under the Integrated Agropastoral and Fisheries Import-Substitution Plan (PIISAH).

The facility targets companies involved in processing, packaging, storage, logistics and distribution, with rice, maize, flour, palm oil and milk among the priority value chains. The objective is to build distribution networks capable of bringing locally produced goods to market under competitive conditions.

The initiative addresses one part of Cameroon’s broader import-substitution strategy: ensuring that increases in domestic production are matched by the capacity to store, transport and sell those products efficiently.

“Producing more is not enough,” Mbarga Atangana said, stressing the need to strengthen the link between production and consumers. The financing comes as food imports continue to weigh heavily on Cameroon’s import bill. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the country spent CFAF543.7 billion on cereal imports in 2024, up 40.3% from 2023.

Rice imports alone reached CFAF318.6 billion, an increase of 58.6% year on year, while wheat imports stood at CFAF214.1 billion. In the first quarter of 2025, cereals accounted for 11.2% of Cameroon’s total import expenditure, with rice representing 7.1% and wheat 3.8%.

The pressure extends beyond food products. INS figures show that Cameroon’s overall trade deficit widened by 22.8% to CFAF2,145.2 billion in 2025, from CFAF1,747.3 billion a year earlier, while total import expenditure increased by 4.6%.

Against that backdrop, the government is seeking to strengthen the commercial side of domestic production. According to the Trade Ministry, locally produced goods must not only be available in sufficient quantities but must also meet requirements related to quality, traceability, regular supply and competitive distribution.

Mbarga Atangana said the partnership with BC-PME is intended to make trade a more active part of the country’s production and industrialization drive.

“This agreement reflects our shared determination to make trade a genuine lever for economic transformation and wealth creation,” the minister said, adding that the partnership is also intended to improve “the competitiveness of Cameroonian enterprises.”

PIISAH covers the 2024-2026 period and forms part of Cameroon’s import-substitution policy under the National Development Strategy 2020-2030. The government has again identified the plan as one of its economic priorities for 2026.

Mbarga Atangana said implementation will require coordination among public institutions, businesses and professional organizations.

“The success of PIISAH depends on the collective mobilization of the State, professional organizations and businesses,” he said.

Source: Business in Cameroon

East Region: At least 33 dead in landslide at gold mine in Garoua-Boulaï

19, August 2026

East Region: At least 33 dead in landslide at gold mine in Garoua-Boulaï 0

At least 33 people have died in a landslide at a gold mine on the border between Cameroon and the Central African Republic, according to local authorities.

Many more miners are believed to be buried under the debris, said Julien Martial Asse, the municipal administrator of the nearby Cameroonian border town of Garoua-Boulaï.

The landslide at the artisanal mining site occurred Tuesday midday. Rescue workers continued searching for survivors on Wednesday. Some injured miners were receiving medical treatment.

The cause of the collapse was initially unclear, as was the number of miners prospecting for gold at the time of the accident.

The border area between Cameroon and the Central African Republic is rich in gold. A lot of gold mining in the region is carried out by hand. Low safety standards mean serious accidents are a repeat occurrence.

Source: dpa

Benedictus Lysinge: Homily, Mass of the Bamenda Provincial Association of Diocesan Priests

19, August 2026

Benedictus Lysinge: Homily, Mass of the Bamenda Provincial Association of Diocesan Priests 0

Homily: Midnight Holy Mass:August 12, 2026

In Memoriam: Most Rev. Francis Teke Lysinge

St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Mamfe

(Association of Diocesan Priests, Religious Men and Women, and Seminarians)

Dear Rev. Fr. Augustine Nkwain, Chairman of the Provincial ADP,

Dear Esteemed Fathers, Religious Men and Women, Seminarians,

Dear Holy People of God,

  1. “We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus: God will bring them with him.” (1 Thess:  4:14). To the Thessalonians, it was not just enough to declare that Jesus is Risen. It was equally of utmost importance that they understood just why and how this singular resurrection of Jesus was consequential to their lives in the particular context of the First Century of Greek Macedonia. And this was the central nexus of the Pauline teaching: both the living and the dead share a future with Christ, as a consequence of Jesus’ resurrection.
  • The resurrection of Jesus is the Father’s eschatological event in history. It is the definitive epiphany of God. It is God’s verb in the grammar of human existence. God has done something in Jesus of Nazareth that has implications for the world. By raising Jesus from the dead, God has shown that He is interested in doing something about evil, pain, injustice, and sin in the world. Like the Thessalonians, we too have power to shape history. The resurrection of Jesus shows that love has quick steps, that love wants to do the good for the beloved and to do so quickly.Jesus’ resurrection is thus, an evolutionary leap that completely changes the dynamisms of history in both its linear and cyclic senses. As the Risen One, Jesus is now both the center and fulfilment of history. Heaven, the fullness of God, begins here. In the Risen One within history, the God that Greek philosophy articulated as the Unmoved Mover, as the One Beyond Being, is now Infinite Closeness, Infinite Nearness. We pass from bio to zoe, from life to life, because of the Risen One, Life itself. We need not fear, even if we go through the valley of darkness, as the Psalm of this liturgy reminds us.
  • Jesus died and rose again. God will bring us all with Jesus. These creedal statements by Paul, can offer us some keys that might enable us to grasp the message that comes to us from the life of our beloved Bishop Francis Teke Lysinge. Later today, we will bury the remains of our beloved Mola in the earth of this Cathedral Church that he labored with his whole heart to construct to the glory of God, as a seed of immortality – an immortality borne from memory, love, dialogical relationality with Christ, the Living One (Ratzinger, Eschatology).Hence, our relationship with the living Christ is the metaphysical condition for our immortality, which, for the Christian, is not just of the soul – as one finds in Plato, but even more, is bodily, glorified bodies, as Paul again explains in his letter to the Church in Corinth (1 Cor 15:43).Though our hearts are rightly saddened, in the light of our faith as explained to us by Paul, we are hopeful and grateful to God, for blessing this local Church with such a Christ-centered shepherd, a man of God, of profound faith, humble hope, and great love.
  • Jesus died and rose again! Because of the resurrection of Jesus, word and action are now efficacious. And this is the foundation of this Sacrament of the Holy Mass. A Sacramentis that which we do, that left to ourselves, we cannot do.We are only able to be and to do in the name of Christ, because He, Christ, has loved and called us first: vos autem dixit amicos – I call you friends. And this, our saintly Bishop Lysinge, so consistently lived out in his priestly life. Only one who has understood and experienced a certain level of intimacy with Jesus, could be so attached to Eucharistic Adoration, to the Office of Readings, to prayer, as our beloved Mola was.
  • The ancient Romans defined friendship as, same likes, same dislikes – idem velle, idem nolle. Friendship with Jesus is to love what Jesus loves. Because Jesus has made us his friends, we have been invited into his power, into his relationship with the Father. Standing by Jacob’s well (Jn 4:6-15), we suddenly realize that it is not the well that is deep and us having no cistern to draw from the well. The real well is Jesus, and the water Jesus gives us to quench our thirst is our friendship with him.  From this intimacy of Jesus and the Father, we too, like our beloved Bishop Lysinge did so fruitfully, become agents of bringing about God’s liberating love to our world that is so much in need of God’s love, and yet often unconscious of this need.
  • Idem velle, idem nolle: What was the young Godwill Teke Lysinge of Sasse College after, when he converted to Catholicism in 1955, chiefly influenced by a reading of the lives of the saints, especially that of St. Francis Xavier? Here again, we see the saints, as the main apologists of Catholicism. Like Francis Xavier, Francis Lysinge was after Jesus Christ. He sought Jesus with all his heart and might and was always eager to bring Jesus to others. His conversion in Sasse that led to the choice for the seminary shows us what our beloved pioneer bishop of Mamfe truly lived for, which is tied to what he truly worshipped: God in Christ Jesus. Like Ignatius of Loyola, Lysinge of Mamfe was drawn by an interior consolation in reading the accounts of the saints. And from this knowledge of the saints, our beloved Mola grew in intimacy of knowledge and communion with Jesus, his friend, for friendship always demands intimacy and knowledge. And starting from this friendship with Jesus, we can discern three hermeneutical keys thanks to which our beloved late bishop sought to help us know, love and understand Jesus better:
  • I am what I am, by the grace of God: (1 Cor 15:10) Every priest makes a decision at the time of his priestly ordination to adopt a text that captures his inner consciousness of the ministry he is about to undertake, thus providing an indication of how he intends to live out the gift of the priesthood. At his priestly ordination on April 17th, 1966, the young Fr. Lysinge adopted St. Paul’s retrospective analysis of his life: I am what I am, by the grace of God! Herein lies the first hermeneutical keyto understanding the great legacy of our beloved and saintly pioneer bishop. Bishop Lysinge’s life teaches us thatgrace is a dialogical relationship. A thingnification approach to grace misses out on what is most essential. Because of this dialogical relationality, there emerges, as a consequence, an anthropological eclipsing of the self,that was so unmistakably evident in the life of our beloved late bishop: Jesus, must increase;Lysinge must decrease.
  • We could characterize the life of our saintly late bishop using the category of “disposable anthropology.” Anyone who encountered Mola was immediately struck with the man’s Christ-centeredness. His life was an example of a Christian existentialism noticeable in the likes of Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard and Blondel. It was easily noticeable that for Bishop Lysinge, life was simply a standing for Another. He was a representative of Another, a being-in-reference to Another. From this, it became so evident that the life of this humble servant of God, had become so conformed to Jesus that it had a single purpose: to keep the window of the world open to the refreshing and life-giving breeze of God. Our beloved late bishop had responded to the call of the Lord as a priest with so much generosity that his life in the horizontalization of priestly ministry was a reflection of the verticalization that took precedence and shaped the resultant person-outcome of Francis Teke Lysinge.
  • But as Augustine came to discover as recorded in his Confessions, the eclipsing of the self in Christ, this decreasing of the self, is precisely the pathway to the finding the self – Sero teamavi – Late, have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new: late have I loved you! You were within me, and I was outside myself. I have tasted you: and now I hunger and thirst for more. You have touched me: and I have burned for your peace (Confessions, X, 27 (28). As Karl Rahner explains, in receiving God, the human being does not cease to be human. Rather, God’s ontological, total, self-communication actualizes humanity’s deepest potential. Humans are spirit-in-the-world, the supernatural existential. I am what I am, by the grace of God. Because of Christ, I am someone. I am being, to use a phrase of Heidegger. From April 17, 1966, Fr. Lysinge never lost this consciousness that all was grace, meaning the purpose of life was to be in Christ. We saw this in the life of our holy bishop Lysinge, that a life of grace shows that God is real, faith is real, and to live from God and for God, is something beautiful. The good, the true, and the beautiful, constitutive a comprehensive unity, a Hegelian synthesis if one may call it that, in what the spiritual masters, our beloved Lysinge clearly amongst such, characterize as the will of God.
  1. Fiat Voluntas Tua– Thy Will Be Done: This is the second hermeneutical key that unlocks the great life of Lysinge of Mamfe. To do the will of God at the present moment has always been the primary preoccupation of the saints. Following the drama of Gethsemane – Not as I want, but as you want – saints never seek to do their own will. Certainly, Gethsemane remains even today, the battle royale for many a Christian and priest. There is always the human appeal of our subjective freedom: “Take this cup from me.” This is the desire for self-realization, of the autonomous will of Kant, Voltaire, Nietzsche and Feuerbach. It is in human nature to construct a tower of Babel, based on the will to power!For us religious persons, this desire easily takes the form of a religiosity whose inner core has absolutely nothing to do with the God of Jesus Christ, as one finds in Dostoyevsky The Grand Inquisitor, Soloviev’s The Anti-Christ, andBenson’sLord of the World. But the saints, like our beloved Bishop Lysinge, show us another path: To discern, and do God’s will, as challenging as it is, is what eventually brings about human fruitfulness and joy. It is what ultimately endures. Only God truly matters.
  1. Fiat Voluntas Tua – Your Will be done! Even for our beloved late bishop, discerning the will of God did not come easy. He was unsure what to make of the dream of the Dominican Nun who, months earlier, had forcefully declared to him in the sacristy one day after Mass, that she saw him being ordained a bishop. Sitting before Nuncio Felix Del Blanco, he was convinced that the priest that had accompanied him to the Nunciature in Yaoundé had more administrative skills than he and had made up his mind to ask the Nuncio to instead recommend that priest to the Holy Father for the See of Mamfe. On the eve of his episcopal ordination, while in Adoration and almost inimical to Gethsemane, he worried if he was doing the right thing accepting ordination as bishop of Mamfe. He disliked the fact that in a sense, he was at the center of the event. It is always the mark of saints: Jesus must increase, they must decrease: “Not to be encompassed by the greatest, but to let oneself be encompassed by the smallest – that is divine. – Non coercerimaximo, contineritamen a minimo, divinum est” (Ratzinger, Christianity, 146). Saints are always uneasy about themselves, because their God-centeredness amplifies their own littleness and unworthiness. To saints, Chalcedon, by upholding both the divinity and humanity of Jesus in a healthy tension, provided the foundational framework of Christian living.
  1. Like all saints, Francis Lysinge was very conscious of his own inadequacies and limitations. He was not a Nietzschean Übermensch. Bishop Lysinge,like Augustine of Hippo, saw the episcopacy as communion and love. Like all saints, he believed that the Church was ultimately the work of God. Like all saints, he was knowingly ignorant of human sinfulness, of the abuse of human freedom. Like all saints, he too had his hours of desolation, his Good Fridays. But again, like all saints, our Christ-centered bishop believed very firmly that Mamfe was the work of God. And as Jesus’ resurrection shows us, It is in the nature of God to live, not to die.
  1. Now is not the time to do an assessment of theenormous human and material enhancements and constructions carried out by our beloved pioneer bishop, thanks to his tireless appeals and trips, both within the diocese and in the diaspora: from his legendary relationship with the Church in Nigeria that brought so much good to Mamfe, material and personnel wise, especially regarding the formation of our seminarians; to his frequent trips to Germany that formed bonds of partnerships with Mamfe; from Austria to Italy; from France and the UK to the USA, and the list goes on.Bishop Lysinge went everywhere that it was possible to go to, to secure help for this diocese. Christian Cardinal Tumi once said to Bishop Lysinge in my presence: “Francis, from where are you getting all these monies that you are building all these things in Mamfe? Whenever I ask you, you say it is God! Are you the only one who know God? I know you won’t tell me. Italian Mafia!” Our beloved late Bishop established firm essential diocesan structures that continue to serve the pastoral and administrative needs of our  diocese.
  1. But even more, to those seeking to play the administrative judgment card in terms of suitability, it might be helpful to listen again to these words of Ratzinger at the Holy Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice preceding his election as Bishop of Rome: (April 18, 2005): “All people desire to leave a lasting mark. But what endures? Money does not. Even buildings do not, nor books. After a certain time, longer or shorter, all these things disappear. The only thing that lasts forever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity. The fruit that endures is therefore all that we have sown in human souls: love, knowledge, a gesture capable of touching hearts, words that open the soul to joy in the Lord.” And again: “To him who as spirit upholds and encompasses the universe, a spirit, a human heart with its ability to love, is greater than all the milky ways in the universe. Quantitative criteria become irrelevant; other orders of magnitude become visible, according to which the infinitely small is the truly embracing and truly great.” (Ratzinger, Christianity, 146 – 147). And more: “The highest power is demonstrated as the calm willingness completely to renounce all power; and we are shown that it is powerful, not through force, but only through the freedom of love, which, even when rejected, is stronger than the exultant powers of earthly violence.” (Ratzinger, Christianity, 150). Mola’s enduring fruitfulness and greatest legacy are not the constructions especially in setting up the basic diocesan structures upon which his successors have continued to build, as great and broad as these are, but more importantly, the fruits of love, tenderness, humility and compassion that so marked his pastoral ministry in Mamfe
  1. Mola’s was a pastor’s heart that we find in the Gospel of this liturgy. Like Jesus, he saw, he felt pity, he moved towards the bereaved and downcast, he comforted all.His frequent visits to the sick, irrespective of their religious creed, to prisoners, to the homes of the Christians, brought alive the reality of the articulated in the Gospel of this liturgy: “A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people.” His pastoral generosity made the people of Mamfe, Catholics and non-Catholics alike to know that they had a bishop amongst them. “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it” (Lk 17:33).The characteristic humble, generous and sacrificial spiritof the priests of Mamfe Diocese is traceable in large part to the spirit instilled in this presbyterium by Bishop Lysinge. You could accept to stay in the small rectory in Mbeme at the time, because you saw Lysinge living in the same rectory with you, without complaining. And he was always eager to welcome the priests of Mamfe into his house, which he fondly referred to as the “people’s house.”
  1. AliquodPulchrum Deo – Making Mamfe Diocese Something Beautiful for God. This is the third hermeneutical key into the life of our beloved late bishop Lysinge. This was not just a maxim for our saintly bishop. He truly believed it and gave his whole soul to building up our beloved diocese. This was the overarching goal of his pastoral ministry. And even before synod and synodality became fashionable in the universal church with the Francis pontificate, Bishop Lysinge, in one of his major final episcopal acts, gave Mamfe Diocese our own Synod, whose fruits he gathered in the post synodal episcopal exhortation, AliquodPulchurm Deo – a great roadmap for the evangelization of our diocese, with its very Christocentric focus – to renew all things in Christ, who has made us for himself, and restless are our hearts, until they rest in God (Confessions, I, I, (I).
  1. “I am what I am by the grace of God;” Thy Will be Done;” “Something Beautiful for God;” ; – in these three expressions, we see the heart and soul of our beloved Bishop Lysinge. In the first years of his episcopate, he went from village to village in this Diocese, guided by Christ. But after his retirement, he increasingly entered into the communion of Christ’s sufferings. Eventually, the one who had spent countless hours gazing at Our Lord, hidden in the Eucharist, completely lost his physical sight. BishopLysinge then increasingly came to understand the truth of the words our Blessed Lord had addressed to Peter: “Someone else will fasten a belt around you.” (Jn 21:18).In this very communion with the suffering Lord, he continued to proclaim the Gospel.
  1. Ever so often, our saintly bishop, on seeing the hills along the Obang-Bachuo road, will allude to the eternal hills of heaven. He often spoke about heaven with such mystical certainty and metaphysical realism that was so akin to the fire of Pascal: Fire! Fire! Fire! God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers – a text that our good bishop often loved to invoke at table lively table conversations. We can be sure that our saintly Mola, the people’s bishop, Lysinge of Mamfe, now amongst the blessed, no longer beholding the LordHidden in the Eucharist in the lumen fide, but is now beholding Him, face to face, in full sight, in the lumen gloriae. Our cherished bishop completed his Licentiate in Sacred Theology focusing on the remarkable Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. How often did he reference those profound words from Bonhoeffer: “Death is the supreme festival on the way to freedom”? Like his academic mentor, we hold the belief that our beloved Mola is now truly free, in the blessed company of the saints.
  1. With immense gratitude and uplifted hearts, we thank you, our humble and gentle bishop, for your Christ-centered life. We thank you for your total love for this diocese. We thank you for giving your life totally for this diocese, which the Lord entrusted into your hands on April 21, 1999. Mamfe will never forget you. You so much loved the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary and committed your life to this devotion. We entrust your gentle priestly soul into the merciful hands of Jesus and loving hands of Mary. Yes, Benedictus Lysinge, friend of Jesus Christ, continue to pray for us, continue to watch over us, and as you follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 14:4), bring all of us your children, and Mamfe Diocese along with you, Amen.

Rev. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

Priest of Mamfe Diocese

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