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14, April 2023

French Cameroun: Journalists Call for Protection After Mayor Issues Death Threats ⁰

Two journalists in northern Cameroon are calling for government protection after witnesses say a mayor publicly threatened to kill them for investigating corruption in road construction contracts. The Cameroon Journalists Trade Union has condemned the threat, which came after the killings in January of two reporters who were outspoken on corruption.

The journalists say Sali Babani, the mayor of Maroua, a city near the northern border with Chad and Nigeria publicly threatened several times this month to kill reporters there.

The Cameroon Journalists Trade Union in a statement April 8 said the mayor threatened freelance reporter Ousman Alh Boubakari for asking about accountability on development projects.

Boubakari had accused the mayor on Facebook of abandoning some road construction projects in Maroua.

Mahamat Hamidou said that during a public ceremony at Kakatare last week, he heard Babani threatened to punish or kill journalists for reporting that some public projects have been abandoned. Hamidou said Cameroon’s government should investigate why the mayor threatened to kill journalists instead of explaining why the road projects have not been completed as the Maroua Council promised.

The journalists’ union said the mayor also threatened to kill Douala-based Channel 2 International’s correspondent, Aminou Alioum.

Alioum and Boubakari said they received several anonymous calls threatening violence if they do not stop critical reports against the mayor.

Alioum told VOA that Boubakari received death threats from Babani for reporting that some roads in Maroua and construction work on the Kakatare junction in the same city have been abandoned. Alioum also said the mayor threatened him for taking pictures of the abandoned projects. He said the death threats from Babani add to other threats and intimidation reporters along Cameroon’s northern border with Chad and Nigeria regularly get from Boko Haram militants.

Babani refused to respond to VOA’s questions on the threats, which journalists also took to the police.

The spokesperson for Cameroon’s police would not comment on the threats, but told VOA it was their duty to protect all citizens.

Alioum and Boubakari said the threats will not stop them from carrying out their work as reporters but joined the journalists’ union in calling for the government to ensure their safety.

Cameroon’s government has not yet commented on the journalists’ plea for protection.

Babani’s threats of violence against the media come less than two months after two journalists were killed in Cameroon.

The mutilated remains of Martinez Zogo, a popular radio announcer and journalist, were found January 22 in Yaoundé.

Police arrested 20 people in connection with the killing, including senior police intelligence officers and a well-known media mogul, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga.

On his radio program, Zogo had accused Belinga and several government ministers of planning to kill him for his reporting on their alleged corrupt deals.

Radio presenter Jean-Jacques Ola Bebe was also found shot dead on February 2 outside his home in the capital.

Like Zogo, Bebe was an outspoken critic of government corruption.

Source: VOA

13, April 2023

French Cameroun: Villagers Say Elephants Devastate Farmlands, Plead for Help ⁰

Villagers in southern Cameroon are complaining about the destruction of farmland by wild elephants in areas bordering Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and are calling on authorities to help.

Villagers say elephants have chased people away and made it impossible for farmers on both sides of the border to plant this season’s crops. Officials blame farmers for occupying the elephants’ habitat, provoking human-wildlife conflict.

Officials on Cameroon’s southern border with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea say scores of villagers came out in market squares at Vema and Nkol-Efoulan on Thursday, protesting the destruction of several hundred hectares of their farmland by elephants.

The villagers say the stray elephants chase civilians and make it impossible for farmers to plant on either side of the border with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea since the planting season started six weeks ago.

Speaking to VOA via a messaging app, Justin Enam Ntem, the traditional ruler of Nkol-Efoulan village, said locals are angry and hungry because they can no longer go to their farms since the elephants positioned themselves about 500 meters south of the village from the border with Gabon this week. He said seven of the several hundred hectares of plantain, banana and cassava plantations belonging to his family have been destroyed by the stray elephants.

Ntem said it was difficult for villagers, who are scared and escaping from their homes and farms, to know the number of elephants that are destroying their crops.

The villagers say no civilian has died in an elephant attack but warn that hunger will loom if the government does not step in to force the animals back to their natural habitats.

The Cameroonian government says there are more than 220 forest elephants in the nearly 700,000-hectare Campo Ma’an National Park located near the border area with the other two countries.

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Parks of Gabon report that Gabon harbors about 95,000 forest elephants. Equatorial Guinea says it has about 900 elephants.

The three countries say elephants have been destroying plantations on both sides of their common border within the past six months. Cameroon says at least eight of its border villages and several hundred plantations, especially in Vema and Nkol-Efoulan villages, have reported regular attacks.

The elephants are leaving their habitat because of a lack of food and water due to climate change and the occupation of their living environment by civilians, according to Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife.

Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea say many plantations opened by the governments and civilians reduce the elephant habitat.

Kenneth Angu Angu, a forest program coordinator with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said central African nations should work together to stop conflicts between humans and elephants.

“We need the governments of the countries to sit together and reinforce cross-border projects so that they can contain these elephants not to encroach in communities and in agricultural land,” said Angu, who spoke to VOA by phone from Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. “But if it is the communities that are encroaching, we start asking the questions: why are they doing so? Is it that their lands are no more fertile? Is it because there is poverty? So, this is where you would have livelihood activities to enable the communities to remain in their respective lands,” he added.

He said human-wildlife conflict remains a major conservation concern in elephant range countries.

Despite the attacks, Cameroonian wildlife groups have been urging civilians not to kill the animals, which are classified as endangered.

Source: VOA

13, April 2023

Cameroon: Give the elderly a new lease on life! ⁰

There is no challenge greater than living as a desperate old person in any part of the world. This is all the more true in Cameroon where there are no social safety nets for the elderly and the country’s government is not in any haste to change things for the elderly, most of whom live in poverty from the cradle to the grave.

This unfortunate situation can be reversed through government policy which makes the elderly a key component of our society and a population segment which can be given a new lease on life.

Many elderly people in Cameroon have never earned an income. Most have either been farmers in their villages or the hustling poor in the country’s burgeoning slums.

Working on your own farm may be a guarantee of food for personal consumption while the energy levels are still good, but when nature’s rules kick in as time continues its onward march, these farmers and the hustlers start losing their energy and this makes it hard for them to continue producing food for personal consumption or for sale just to earn extra income which can help them address some of their multiple financial needs.

But when they start running out of energy, things usually take a turn for the worse. Things only become more desperate if their own children do not secure jobs which can enable them to reach out to their own parents.

The elderly constitute a key segment in our African societies. They are considered as human libraries whose role is to help transmit knowledge and our rich cultures to the young. However, how can they conveniently play their roles on an empty stomach or when they are sick and cannot access the care they need?

There is no gainsaying that age comes with a slew of health issues. Diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases and even kidney-related problems are some of the diseases which bring fear and uncertainty into the lives of the elderly, especially when they are cash-strapped.

However, their condition is not fatalism. It can be reverse where there is a political will. The government of Cameroon can help alleviate the apprehensions of our elderly by ensuring that the medication they need is available and highly subsidized.

Diabetics need a lot of money and discipline for them to live long. Those who are hypertensive need much support either through sensitization or financial support for them to be hopeful in the future.

Elderly victims of kidney problems, especially those who are on dialysis need more than family moral support to stay strong and hopeful! They need to be reassured that they can have their dialysis sessions on time and that they can eat properly in order to avoid creating new health issues for themselves.

While family support might be necessary, it might not go a long way in instilling confidence in the elderly who are being assailed by multiple ailments which require lots of financial support and much medical attention.

The government can put these elderly on a monthly allowance for them to face the future with confidence. CFAF 40,000 a month will inspire hope in many of these desperate Cameroonians. This financial support will be a breath of fresh air for our elderly who, for want of proper financial support, are always willing to die in order not to bleed their already impoverished families dry.

The problem in Cameroon cannot be that of a resource paucity. Cameroon’s problem is lack of planning and a political will which can transform the lives of the country’s citizens, especially those living in our forgotten rural areas.

There is money in Cameroon but it is in the hands of a select and corrupt few. Early this week, the salary of Adolphe Moudiki, the Managing Director of SNH, a state-owned corporation, was published online and this created a scandal.

The SNH boss is earning well over CFAF 50 million every month in a country wherein the average salary is CFAF 100,000 and the most disheartening thing is that there are SNH staff who earn less than CFAF 100,000 a month.

This type of salary disparity only points to the fact that the government prefers a system wherein a few call the shorts while the majority languishes in the slums, with the elderly left to their own devices.

A little largesse towards the elderly can go a long way in granting these people who are suffering from all types of ailments a new lease on life.

To ensure that such a safety net is functional, there should be a clear definition of the word Elderly. This could be someone who is 65 years old and more, and those who are receiving a pension should not qualify for this social support.

The modalities for the earning of such money can be defined by experts and all measures should be in place to ensure that there is no abuse.

By Dr. Joachim Arrey

12, April 2023

Francis Ngannou Meets Legendary Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger ⁰

Cameroonian-French Mixed Martial Art fighter, Francis Ngannou has shared his time with popular American actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The UFC star was spotted together with the seven-time Olympia weightlifting champion during a workout session in a gym.

Ngannou, who has been inactive for sometime now, took to social media to share his excitement after meeting the legend.

Meanwhile, Ngannou is working his way back to getting a new deal and a fight in the coming months.

Source: Sportsbrief

12, April 2023

Crushing punishment from Amba fighters awaits Francophone army soldiers, Yerima warns ⁰

Southern Cameroons exiled leader Dabney Yerima has said that very harsh and crushing punishment from all Ambazonia self defense groups awaits troops still loyal to the occupying regime in Yaoundé over its barbaric violence in Southern Cameroons.

Dabney Yerima made the remark during a conversation with Cameroon Concord News on Monday.

Yerima observed that in the last six years, the French Cameroun regime has turned into an unrestrained and increasingly criminal killing machine by violating all international laws.

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government called on all Southern Cameroonians across the world to stay united in support of their valiant and resistant brothers and sisters in Ground Zero.

“The regime in La Republique du Cameroun knows that, based on the strength of the Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards, a harsh and crushing punishment awaits them in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia” Yerima concluded.

By Isong Asu in London

12, April 2023

“Southern Cameroonians will soon witness collapse of Biya regime” ⁰

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government has vehemently condemned crimes committed by Francophone army soldiers against the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, saying Southern Cameroonians will soon witness the collapse of the consortium of CPDM crime syndicate in French Cameroun.

Dabney Yerima, the exiled Southern Cameroons leader made the remarks in a Tuesday statement issued to condemn the Yaoundé regime’s recent acts of provocation and attacks in Fako and Mezam.

“By trying to counter our Kontry Sunday policy, the corrupt regime in French Cameroun is now showing signs of fear and frustration that result from the increasing power of our resistance,” the Dabney Yerima statement said.

It added, “These acts of sabotage in Mile 16 Buea recently represents Yaounde’s calculated plan aimed at deceiving and diverting French Cameroun public opinion … and covering up inefficiency and corruption of the criminal politicians and officials of this regime who sponsored the killing of one theirs Martinez Zogo.”

“Southern Cameroonians will soon witness the collapse of the flimsy power of this shaky regime” noted the statement.

The statement also called on Southern Cameroonian thinkers, elites and all influential people in the diaspora to continue to support the liberation struggle.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Nelly Epupa

11, April 2023

Football: Madrid coach Ancelotti saddened by Chelsea slump ⁰

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said he was sad to see Chelsea’s slump this season, ahead of their Champions League quarter-final clash on Wednesday.

The Italian coach led the Blues between 2009-2011, winning a Premier League and FA Cup double in 2010.

Chelsea, 11th in the Premier League, sacked coach Graham Potter at the start of April and hired their former coach Frank Lampard on an interim basis.

“I am sad, yes,” Ancelotti told a news conference on Tuesday before the first leg clash at the Santiago Bernabeu.

“I have a fantastic memory of this club, of the people that are still working there.

“I’m a supporter of Chelsea, of course, because I spent two really nice years there.”

Ancelotti, who has a year left to run on his contract with Madrid, said he did not see himself returning to Stamford Bridge for a second stint in charge.

“Be back? No, I hope that Lampard is able to do a fantastic job with them,” added Ancelotti.

The Real Madrid coach did not think his extra years of experience compared to Lampard, whom he managed at Chelsea, would make the difference in the tie.

“He has 20 years less experience, but that will not change what will happen in the game,” continued Ancelotti.

“He was a fantastic player, extraordinary, he knows very well what can happen in these games but experience, in these matches, I don’t think counts for much.

“He arrived at the club a week ago, with a lot of players that he already knew, I think he’ll do well in the time that he’s at Chelsea.”

Madrid, who won the Champions League last season, are looking to lift the trophy for the sixth time in 10 seasons.

Ancelotti said midfielder Fede Valverde was training well, despite the storm brewing around him in recent days.

Spanish reports say he punched Villarreal midfielder Alex Baena after their La Liga clash on Saturday.

Baena said he had reported a Real Madrid player to police after being attacked following his team’s 3-2 win over the Spanish and European champions.

“He was motivated today, like the rest of them, he trained well, I know him very well,” said Ancelotti.

“He has a special human quality, extraordinary, and about what happened, I don’t want to speak about it, but I’m sure tomorrow he’ll give everything, as always.”

Real Madrid defender David Alaba also showed his backing for his team-mate.

“He’s (doing) very good, he’s got all the support from us for sure,” Alaba told reporters.

“He’s training well, he looks sharp and focused for the game tomorrow, but I can’t say more about those things that happened.”

Source: AFP

10, April 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Gunmen storm Mile 16 Buea, seven cars burnt ⁰

Armed Amba fighters have stormed Mile 16 in Buea today Monday, according to the Francophone dominated police force and local residents, the latest violence to hit Southern Cameroons.

Many Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces raided Mile 16 district, Cameroon Concord News cited the sources as saying on Monday.

The Amba fighters fired guns in the air, attacked the Mile 16 Motor Park and pursued others who fled to escape the assaults.

Cameroon Concord News correspondent said seven cars were burnt and added that policemen were deployed in the area following the attacks.

Local residents said Amba fighters attacked the occupants of the cars because they did not respect the ghost town order.

The Mile 16 district has been repeatedly raided by Ambazonia fighters.

The Southern Cameroons conflict has killed thousands and forced at least two million to flee their homes, creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in Cameroon.

Most of the burnt cars were used for public transport between Buea and Limbe or Buea and Douala, in the Littoral Region.

According to our information the Amba fighters disappeared into thin air after the attack, which left at least three people seriously injured among those in the burnt-out cars.

Since the outbreak of the crisis in Southern Cameroons, separatist fighters have so far imposed ghost town known as “Kontry Sunday” every Monday. This order has been scrupulously respected in some towns in the South West and North West Regions, notwithstanding the fact that, to encourage the population to go about their business, the authorities have deployed defense and security forces in sensitive areas.

By Rita Akana

10, April 2023

The Resurrection of Jesus: God’s Verb in the Grammar of Human Existence ⁰

When we studied English Grammar at St. Joseph’s Primary School in Mamfe, Cameroon several years ago, we were taught that a verb is a word that it used to describe an action, that is, the doing part of a sentence. A verb therefore connotes an occurrence. To say, therefore, that the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is God’s verb in the grammar of human existence implies that the Resurrection is the action of God that fully captures, unravels, shapes, defines, and orients the meaning of human existence, of who we are in terms ofsource, purpose and the destiny of human being. The French philosopher, Blondel, pointedly asked in his phenomenology of human action: yes or no, does life make sense and does life have a meaning? To understand the Resurrection as God’s verb, God’s action in the totality of human existence points to the person of Jesus as the interpretive key to human existence.

To understand the Resurrection of Jesus one might find a helpful framework in the philosophical consciousness that came about, thanks to the problem of injustice, pain, misery, in fact, evil in the world. Plato offers a fitting capture of this in the Apology, as Boethius does in the Consolation. The protagonists in both texts are unjustly imprisoned. And so, the question appears on the radar: What is the outcome for the innocent who wrongly suffer in this world? Does evil, pain, injustice and the finality of evil, death, have the last word? Greek philosophy responded with a resounding NO! It explained itself by pointing to the immortality of the human soul, which it understood would outlive the body. Pain, suffering and death affect only the body and not the soul. The immortality of the soul is therefore philosophy’s solution to the human problem of evil, injustice, and death. And that explains Plato’s conviction that evil cannot afflict the good person, because evil cannot afflict the soul. But the immortality of the soul does not correspond to the reality of what Christianity understands by Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead, for it speaks only about half of the human reality, the soul, leaving the body to rot. Philosophy or human reason alone, therefore, cannot establish or bring about the reality of the Resurrection. Human reason encounters an unsurmountable barrier in this regard.

The next step is the consciousness that developed in the inner experience of Israel’s faith. Judaism, when confronted by the question of evil, pain, and death, gradually arrived at the consciousness of the reality of the Resurrection. The high mark of this consciousness is found in Ezekiel, Maccabees, and Daniel. The most explicit articulation of Biblical Israel’s understanding of the Resurrection, however, is embodied in the response that Martha makes to Jesus before the tomb of his deceased brother, Lazarus: Yes, I know that he would rise again on the last day (John 11:24). The understanding of the Resurrection in Judaism was therefore tied to the eschaton, to the last day. To talk of a Resurrection within history was entirely foreign to the Jewish religious imagination, and as Ratzinger points out in Jesus of Nazareth, this fact explains the Jewish rejection of the Resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus did in fact rise from the dead, then history was supposed to have come to an end. The Resurrection of the just meant God rewarding the good and punishing the bad. The problem of pain and evil would only be finally resolved at the end of history. Once again, as with Greek philosophy, Judaism as a religious experience, does not capture the full import of what Christianity understands when it professes faith in the Resurrection of Jesus. By limiting Resurrection to eschatology, Judaism misses out on what is most essential about faith in the Resurrection.

And this brings us now to the question, what is the nature of Jesus’ Resurrection. Aquinas captures this succinctly: Jesus bodily died. Jesus is bodily risen. In this way, Aquinas avoids the two pitfalls that can eclipse the true meaning of the Resurrection, namely, Platonization and Judaization. We must not delve too deep into the metaphysics of both positions here. Summarily, we can say two things: Firstly, that the Resurrection of Jesus is not the immortality of the soul. And secondly, that the Resurrection of Jesus cannot be limited to eschatology or more precisely, that Resurrection faith should not be restricted to the end of human history. Overcoming these two limitations brings us to the central nexus of the matter, which is, what difference, then, does the Resurrection of Jesus make?

A fitting response to this invites us to understand the Resurrection, not as noun but as a verb. God has done something in Jesus of Nazareth that has implications for the world. By raising Jesus from the dead, God has shown that God is interested in doing something about evil, pain, injustice, and sin in the world. God is not sitting on a distant sofa in heaven with a glass of red wine in his hand, watching humans wallow in pain, suffering, evil, and misery. With the Resurrection, God has shown that he is not a passive spectator. God has made an irrevocable intervention in history, which is no longer a series of neutral, disinterested events, but above all, salvation history.

With the Resurrection of Jesus, the Christian enters into a different time zone, in which salvation history permeates world history. This explains why John Paul II declared and rightly so, that we are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song. It means that with the Resurrection, we have the power of God to shape history from within. God did not wait for history to end. God acted in history regarding injustice and evil. And so must we. And that is the challenge and invitation of living the life of the Resurrection today. And that is why the Resurrection is essentially a verb and not a noun. German Idealism understood the Resurrection from a somewhat nominalist perspective that failed to engage the reality of the Resurrection. Kant reduced it to the resilience and survival of the moral law in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Hegel completely ignored it in his Life of Jesus. Both of them could not move from the noun to the verb.

But with the Resurrection understood as verb, God’s energy enters history and breaks the barriers of physics as put forth by Newton and Einstein. With the Resurrection, we enter, to use a category of Teilhard de Chardin, an evolutionary leap that while being quantitative and qualitative, still transcends the former and the latter. Hence, we can live differently, in the here and now. We do not have to wait for the eschaton to right wrongs and to do something about evil. We have power from beyond to make a positive difference in the world of the here and now. We have power to transform our world into the image and likeness of God. That is the mission and mandate that the verb of the Resurrection bestows on believers. And so, yes, we are truly an Easter people, and alleluia is our song (St John Paul II), because in the power of the Risen Christ, we can do something about evil, pain, misery, and injustice in the world, by living the Easter life which is a life of a different time zone in the here and now, a life that allows salvation history to permeate and shape world history, so much so that history becomes His-story, the story of Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord

By Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

9, April 2023

Yaoundé to begin online visa application from April 30 ⁰

Lejeune Mbella, the foreign minister of Cameroon, said on Friday that starting on April 30, all applications for entrance visas to Cameroon must be submitted online.

The minister said that applications will be processed “exclusively” online using the website www.evisacam.cm, after which the applicant would be given an online authorisation for a visa.

Mbella said in a statement earlier on Thursday night that the applicant may next proceed to either a diplomatic mission or a border checkpoint to actually get the visa.

For applicants who live in remote locations or who are not serviced by diplomatic missions, Mbella said that “an online visa authorization, together with a QR code, shall round out the phase.”

The process will be finished within 72 hours of the pre-enrollment date, or within 24 hours for expedited visa applications, according to the ministry.

“The e-visa system is part of an effort to make the nation a more attractive destination, while also addressing some of the concerns of the nationals in diaspora and aligning our consular system with the highest international standard,” the government of Cameroon said.

Source: Chronicle.ng