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Ireland: Apostolic Nuncio Jude Okolo says goodbye to Swords Centre African Chaplaincy

3, May 2022

Ireland: Apostolic Nuncio Jude Okolo says goodbye to Swords Centre African Chaplaincy 0

Driving towards 1 Castleknock Close, Laurel lodge in his very modest car on Saturday April 30, Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Jude Okolo reportedly reflected on his time in the Irish State. His work as the Vatican ambassador to Ireland is now over and the future of his accomplishments stand tall.

He met members of the Catholic Men Organization Swords Centre in the African Chaplaincy Archdiocese of Dublin who had gathered to listen to him for the last time.

The senior Roman Catholic cleric called on all the members of the Catholic Men Organization to continue to look up to St Joseph as their Patron Saint. But there was one small thing, small but great! Two elderly Irish women who heard that the Papal Nuncio was in their neighborhood came to see him.

 Archbishop Jude Okolo said a prayer for them and blessed the two women saying “Let the message of Divine Mercy always remain with you.”

Addressing the Papal Nuncio, the Chairman of the Catholic Men Organization Swords Centre Sir Dr Denis Chima said the Nuncio’s departure from Ireland is not a pit stop nor a comma but a continuation of his Christ mission in representing the Holy See.

The Holy Father Pope Francis on Sunday, May 1, appointed Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo the new Apostolic Nuncio to the Czech Republic.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in Dublin

Cho Ayaba Criminal Gang: Pro Yaoundé senator kidnapped in Bamenda

3, May 2022

Cho Ayaba Criminal Gang: Pro Yaoundé senator kidnapped in Bamenda 0

A senator from President Paul Biya’s ruling party has been kidnapped along with her driver in Cameroon’s troubled anglophone northwest, military and administrative sources said Monday.

“Elizabeth Regina Mundi was kidnapped late Saturday morning by terrorists in Bamenda,” capital of the northwest, a senior official with the region’s governor told AFP.

He said two wings of the separatist Ambazonian Defence Forces (ADF) had claimed responsibility for the abduction. Ambazonia is the republic the rebels would like to proclaim after independence.

One called for the release of some of its detainees, the other sought a ransom, he added, asking to remain anonymous.

“The senator was going from Bamenda to her village for a funeral, the separatists kidnapped her and her driver on the road” said a regional army official, confirming both demands.

A video on social media, dated Saturday and verified by the senior regional official, shows Regina Mundi clearly forced to read a statement in English calling for the independence of the Ambazonia republic.

She is from the northwest and is a member of the politburo of Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC).

The “Ambazonians” carry out frequent kidnappings, usually of civil servants, and some are killed. Church leaders and politicians have also been adducted, but mostly later freed.

In January, the bullet-riddled body of opposition senator and lawyer Henry Kemende was found in Bamenda.

The authorities accused the separatists of his murder but no one claimed responsibility.

Cameroon’s northwest and southwest are populated mainly by the anglophone minority in the predominantly French-speaking country.

The country has been ruled with an iron fist for nearly 40 years by 89-year-old Biya, who has cracked down on the rebellion.

In the past five years, after the repression of peaceful demonstrations accusing Yaounde of ostracising English speakers, armed separatists and the military have clashed repeatedly.

Civilians have suffered abuses committed by both sides, according to international NGOs and the UN.

The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced around a million, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank.

Source: AFP

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Archbishop Nkea says Cameroonians, not foreigners, causing country’s problems

3, May 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Archbishop Nkea says Cameroonians, not foreigners, causing country’s problems 0

Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda, the newly-elected president of the Bishops’ Conference of Cameroon, says Cameroonians must “look to themselves” when dealing with the various crises facing the country.

Cameroon is facing a separatist war in the west, Boko Haram attacks in the north, a refugee crisis in the east, as well as rising insecurity across all parts of the country.

Speaking on April 30 at the end of the bishops’ conference’s 47th plenary assembly, Nkea said the crises in Cameroon are not caused by some foreigners, but by Cameroonians. He invited his countrymen to own up to their responsibilities.

Nkea’s archdiocese is in the heart of the country’s English-speaking North West Region, where separatists are seeking independence, citing discrimination by a central government dominated by the French-speaking majority.

“We pray as hard as all depends on God, and we work as hard as all depends on us. Peace will come at God’s time. Our role is to pray and remain open to the will of God and to work doubly hard to make sure that peace reigns amongst us,’ Nkea told Crux.

“That is why I say that everyone is supposed to look at themselves personally, not to look at the community, not to look at others. Each person needs to ask himself/herself: What is my responsibility in fostering this crisis situation in our country, and how can I work doubly hard to restore peace? This is a matter of individual responsibility, and at the same time a collective responsibility. It’s not people from outside who have come to take away our peace. It is we who have taken away our own peace. We can bring that peace back to the peace,” he said.

The archbishop spoke to journalists alongside Bishop Philippe Alain Mbarga of Ebolowa, the newly elected vice president of the bishops’ conference.

“Our mandate is to work and seek peace in Cameroon,” Nkea said.

Mbarga emphasized the bishops’ commitment to service.

“We are just but humble servants to the Church and the people of God in Cameroon. We are at the disposal of the bishops of Cameroon and the population of our country,” the bishop said.

Although the country is facing several problems, the most challenging remains the separatist war in the North West and South West regions.

People from the two regions have long complained about decades of marginalization by the predominantly Francophone administration in Yaoundé.

The simmering tensions exploded in 2016 when teachers and lawyers in the two regions held protests over what they considered government efforts to assimilate the British-based education and common law systems practiced in the areas.

Government soldiers responded with lethal force, leading to an armed uprising. The fighting has dragged on now for six years, leaving over 4,000 people dead, and more than a million displaced.

In addition, thousands of children have gone without an education due to a schools boycott enforced by the separatists.

“If our children don’t go to school, then we don’t know the kind of future we are preparing for them,” said Susan Neh, a member of the Catholic Women’s Association.

“We can’t possibly stand by and watch the future of our children being mortgaged this way. We hope Mother Mary, to whom our country has been re-consecrated, will help restore peace to our country,” she told Crux.

Archbishop Jean Mbarga of Yaoundé said any sustainable solution to the problem hinges on a return to peace.

“Without peace, no solution can be found,” he told Crux.

“That is why the Church has decided to pray non-stop for peace to return to the North West and South West regions. The Church has been participating in dialogues to search for solutions, but only prayer can bring about sustainable peace,” the archbishop said.

Adolph Lele L’Afrique, a Catholic and governor of the North West region, told Crux all human endeavors without God’s blessing will come to naught.

“We are all turning to God our creator. It’s obvious that without Him, we labor in vain. Whatever we are doing, we are doing under His control, under His supervision. … We hope that a new page in the history of this country will be open, and as Christians, we must be endeavoring to be agents of peace wherever we go. Whatever God authorizes, is the way to solve the problem,” he said.

Culled from Crux

Football: Veteran Mueller extends Bayern Munich contract

3, May 2022

Football: Veteran Mueller extends Bayern Munich contract 0

Thomas Mueller has extended his contract with Bayern Munich until 2024, it was announced on Tuesday, with the Germany international set to spend his entire professional career at the Bundesliga champions, who he joined as a 10-year-old.

“The journey we have taken together since I joined the youth team in 2000 has been a fantastic success story so far,” said Mueller, 32, who won a record 11th league title with the Bavarians this season.

“So let’s continue it together,” added the 2014 World Cup winner, who has made 112 appearances for Germany since his international debut in 2010.

Mueller as well as top-scorer Robert Lewandowski, Bayern captain Manuel Neuer and winger Serge Gnabry, were due to be out of contract in 2023.

He is the first of the quartet to extend their deals amid speculation Lewandowski could leave at the end of the season with Barcelona reportedly a possible destination.

Bayern chief executive Oliver Kahn describes Mueller as “an identification figure who carries the emblem of our club in his heart.

“He’s someone who takes leadership, plus he’s an important character with his manner in the dressing room,” Kahn added.

Since turning pro with Bayern in 2008, Mueller has made 624 appearances, scoring 226 goals and creating 242 more.

He was also part of Bayern squads which won the Champions League title in both 2013 and 2020.

Source: AFP

Easter, A Program for the Present:  When God Hastens to Help Human Beings

2, May 2022

Easter, A Program for the Present:  When God Hastens to Help Human Beings 0

As the season of Easter continues, it might be helpful to engage a question that we do not often ask: why did the Jewish religious authorities reject the resurrection of Jesus? We read in Matthew 27:63 – 65: “Sir, they said, ‘we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So, give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.’ ‘Take a guard,’ Pilate answered. ‘God, make the tomb as secure as you know how.’

Why the anxiety about the possibility of the resurrection? To understand this question demands an understanding of what resurrection faith came to mean for Israel. Without delving into much of Old Testament theology on this question, it might suffice to state the following: Firstly, resurrection was not an early aspect of Israel’s faith. It took time and maturity before Israel came to the consciousness of what we retrospectively understand as resurrection faith. In fact, the question of evil and justice, particularly, moral evil, constituted an integral part of the maturation process: will there be some accountability for the suffering of the innocent in this world? In other words, if bodily death meant the end of human existence, wouldn’t that imply that people who did evil will go unpunished? And what does this say about the sense of justice that humans have always believed in? Hence, Israel’s faith in life beyond the tomb, as it grappled with the question of evil, (which is the absence of the good), and justice, found itself in a position that is similar to the concept of the immortality of the soul that was already present in Greek philosophy (Plato’s Republic, Plato’s Apology and Plotinus’ Enneads, for example). It was with the post-exilic writings particularly Second and Third Isaiah and Ezekiel, and that latter experience as contained in the Book of Maccabees and Daniel, that one encounters a mature development in Israel’s faith, about bodily resurrection.

But there was a specific element to Israel’s resurrection faith, which sheds light on the anxiety and eventual rejection of the resurrection of Jesus by the religious hierarchy: bodily resurrection (which is the faith of the New Testament), was supposed to mark the end of world history. In effect, though Israel had come to an understanding of the resurrection, their resurrection consciousness was very specific: when history ends, the dead will rise and be with God forever. Bodily resurrection thus meant that time (a creation by God) and space (another creation by God), would cease to be. And yet, here was this Carpenter’s Son making a claim to resurrection without a concomitant eschatological (end of time) dimension!

To put it simply for my mother to understand, if Jesus Christ rose on Easter Sunday, then there could not be an Easter Monday, talk less of an Easter Octave (the eight days following Easter Sunday). Easter Sunday would have marked the end of the world. But Jesus rose from the dead and history continues! This is the dilemma that the Jewish faith faces when confronting the resurrection of Jesus: How could Jesus of Nazareth be risen and the world not come to an end? What do we make of the understanding that resurrection was supposed to be the key to the resolution of the question of evil, suffering and justice? These questions, and more, should shed light on the hesitation of Judaism regarding the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In this light, the rejection of the resurrection of Jesus by Jediasm is consistent with Jewish logic of resurrection.

But it is precisely this dilemma that the full meaning and depth of the resurrection emerges, in that with the resurrection of Jesus, a new, utterly new dimension and meaning of evil, suffering and justice comes into being. The resurrection of Jesus teaches that God does not have to wait for history to come to an end before God does something about evil and suffering in the world. By raising Jesus from the dead, God has shown that God’s power is not limited by space and time (à la Kant). God can do something about human evil, suffering and pain. This is the sense in which the resurrection of Jesus becomes a programmatic experience for the present. In the resurrection of Jesus, therefore, the future is present. Augustine of Hippo was therefore right in his presentation of time in the Confessions: in God, the past is past of the present; the future is future of the present, for past and future are all present in God.

Easter, therefore, is about the present. Easter is a program for the present, a program which boils down to this consciousness: to allow the power of God to work in the here and now, to touch all the areas of my present life, to guide my present existence. Easter means that God’s power has rushed into human history. Easter means that God could not hold God’s self in the face of human suffering. Easter implies that God hastens, God could not wait for history to end to help human beings, because love has quick steps, love wants to do the good for the beloved, and to do so quickly. On this note, the reason for the rejection of the resurrection (that is had to wait till the end of history or the end of the world) becomes the central nexus for the proper hermeneutic of God: God is God because God hastens to help us in the present. Precisely in this way, the Sacred Name given to Moses (Exodus 3;14) – I shall be with you in the manner in which I shall be with you – (YHWH), finds its greatest realization with Easter: God is with us, not in the future, but now. And because God is with us now, Easter remains a program for the present-continuous tense of human existence.

By Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai

Battle for Ambazonia: Yerima says Biya cannot put a fake name on Southern Cameroons

2, May 2022

Battle for Ambazonia: Yerima says Biya cannot put a fake name on Southern Cameroons 0

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima has said that nobody in Yaoundé, not even the French Cameroun dictator Paul Biya can put a fake name on the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Speaking exclusively to Cameroon Concord News Group, Dabney Yerima said French Cameroun under Biya has been fighting for five years now to conquer our people but we remain the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and nobody in Yaoundé including Biya can put a fake name on our homeland.

“Southern Cameroons has been independent for ages and today on our East side we have La Republique du Cameroun” Yerima said.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader stated that the continued presence of French Cameroun troops in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia signals the need for the diaspora to increase support for the resistance.  “The onus is upon our Ambazonia fighters to duly defend and protect this valuable homeland left to us by our founding fathers that must be transferred on to future generations.”

Yerima insisted that Amba fighters can maintain security throughout Southern Cameroons with support from the diaspora, and that there is no need for the presence of French Cameroun gendarmes and corrupt police officers.

Dabney Yerima furthered that Southern Cameroons CPDM elites have no place in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, warning that any CPDM government minister attempting to target Ambazonia interests in the homeland will face dire consequences.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe aide slams over 63 years of French Cameroun occupation of Ambazonia

2, May 2022

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe aide slams over 63 years of French Cameroun occupation of Ambazonia 0

The continuation of French Cameroun military operations and occupation of Southern Cameroons for over 63 years is a full-fledged war crime, says the Ambazonia Interim Government, which also denounced Yaoundé’s incessant violation of the Ambazonian people’s rights.

The human suffering experienced by British Southern Cameroonians including innocent women and children who are presently exposed to vicious forms of targeting and violations on a daily basis and denied their most basic rights, has been caused by the French Cameroun regime of Mr. Paul Biya, the Ambazonia Interim Government said in a Saturday press release.

The Ambazonia Interim Government also denounced the attempts by the Biya French Cameroun regime to target Doctors Without Borders witnessing the crimes committed by Francophone army soldiers against the people of Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonia Interim Government further urged the UN and international human rights and humanitarian organizations to assume their responsibilities, emphasizing that they should work on exposing La Republique du Cameroun crimes against Southern Cameroons women and children.

The communiqué came after the Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs said troops loyal to the Francophone dominated government in Yaoundé were still carrying out attacks against Southern Cameroons women and children.

In a recent press release, the Ambazonia Department of Foreign Affairs said the Biya Francophone regime practices the worst forms of discrimination against the defenseless people of Southern Cameroons on a daily basis and before the eyes of the international community.

By Isong Asu

Archbishop Andrew Nkea elected new leader of the National Episcopal Conference

1, May 2022

Archbishop Andrew Nkea elected new leader of the National Episcopal Conference 0

The bishops of Cameroon met for their National Episcopal Conference meeting and elected the metropolitan Archbishop of the Bamenda Ecclesiastic Province, Archbishop Andrew Nkea to the helm of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon.

Cameroon Concord News understands the session lasted only one day and its participants abode by all the measures ordered by the Biya regime to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The main point of their meeting was the election of the new conference’s leadership.

By Rita Akana

La Republique du Cameroun: 14 kidnapped in Far North region

1, May 2022

La Republique du Cameroun: 14 kidnapped in Far North region 0

At least 14 people have been kidnapped by militants of terror group Boko Haram in Cameroon’s Far North region, local and security sources said on Saturday.

The hostages, including motorbike taxi drivers and their clients, were abducted on Friday as they drove through Bargaram locality, a stronghold of the terror group in the region.

Boko Haram fighters blamed them for using the road in defiance of a ban on movement which they impose in the area, a security officer said on condition of anonymity.

The army has launched a search and rescue mission of the hostages, according to officials.

Boko Haram has intensified attacks on civilians in the region in the last one week, killing at least five and looting property, according to security reports.

Source: Xinhuanet

4 Cameroon handball players have disappeared since Thursday during the World Cup in Spain

1, May 2022

4 Cameroon handball players have disappeared since Thursday during the World Cup in Spain 0

Four players from the Cameroon handball team disappeared in Spain. They are staying in Spain for the World Handball Championship. According to the delegation of the African country, the handball players have not appeared since Thursday.

The Spanish police launched an investigation into the disappearance of the four-man. “It appears that the women left of their own volition,” a spokeswoman said. The players took all their belongings with them from the players’ hotel in Valencia.

In the past, athletes often used international sporting events as an escape from the poor conditions in their home countries. For example, during the 2012 London Olympics, seven athletes from Cameroon suddenly disappeared.

Cameroon lost all their matches in the group stage of the World Cup.

Source: Commentary box news

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