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12, August 2020

French Cameroun had 58 years for unity with Ambazonia, but opted to make costly mistakes ⁰

The Ambazonia Interim Government says Biya and his French Cameroun political elites had more than four decades to initiate their so-called one and indivisible concept with the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, but successive French Cameroun regimes failed to take advantage and instead directed Biya to make the worst of mistakes in declaring war against Southern Cameroonians.

Vice President Dabney Yerima made the remarks on Wednesday in response to recent report on French Cameroun media houses blaming the killing of a woman in Muyuka in the Fako County on Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader said Ambazonia Intelligence Services have evidence that Atanga Nji Boys with strong ties to the family of the Muyuka woman’s husband carried out the killing.

The Ambazonian official also dismissed French Cameroun’s claims as a mere ploy to divert attention from the brutal murder of Engineer Tangem Thomas in the Yaoundé Central Hospital adding that Biya and French Cameroun will not achieve their military goals in Southern Cameroons.

“Both Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya had more than four decades to initiate a policy that would have guaranteed unity by choosing the right and legal path agreed in Foumban in 1961. Not only they failed to do so, but Biya also made the worst mistakes of French Cameroun in decades to declare war against the people of Southern Cameroons” Yerima told the Ambazonia war cabinet on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, the Communication and Media Chairman for the defense team of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and other Southern Cameroonian detainees has appointed Barrister Pekum Emmanuel as their Special envoy to Nkambe to represent the Interim Government on the occasion of the burial of Nganyu Thomas Tangem martyred in French Cameroun on August 05, 2020.

Barrister Pekum Emmanuel is bearer of a sealed message from President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe to the people of Nkambe and to the family of the late Thomas Tangem, the emblematic martyr of the struggle for the restoration of the independence of the statehood of the former British trust territory- the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia.

By Chi Prudence Asong

12, August 2020

Grading Nigeria’s Response to the Conflict in the Republic of Cameroon ⁰

Nigeria’s indifference to the separatist conflict in Cameroon—in which its minority English-speaking people (Anglophones) are seeking for a homeland they call Ambazonia —calls for a searing indictment. Apparently because of Boko Haram’s menace, Nigeria, which was once the destination for persons fleeing political persecution all over the African continent, has become inhospitable in recent years.

In 2018, in an extraordinary rendition scheme—since condemned by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and other countries—Nigeria arrested on its home territory, and subsequently deported to Cameroon, 47 Ambazonian activists, including former Ambazonia interim leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, who is presently serving a life sentence in Cameroon’s prison.

If Nigeria’s revulsion at the current Cameroon’s Anglophones’ aspiration for independence stems from the horrors of its 1967-1970 civil war—in which more than one million of its citizens died after Biafra, the short-lived republic, declared itself independent from Nigeria—then that argument is short-sighted for one reason: Timing.

Biafra’s secession, which was declared just seven years after Nigeria obtained independence from Great Britain, lacked the traction for success, because it was out of tune with the mood at that moment, which was for Nigeria’s ethnic and linguistic groups—as it was for other African countries emerging from years under colonial rule with similar characteristics —to merge and form the new republic.

It helps explain why General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s military head of state at the time, was able to marshal every available asset, including the United States’ “One Nigeria” policy under President Lyndon Johnson, to crush the Biafra secession. (A similar fate befell Katanga and South Kasai, two breakaway provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), where, just weeks into its independence in June 1960, they also declared themselves “independent” from DRC, sparking a raging civil war that led to an end to their secessionist status.)

But if Biafra’s bid for independence collapsed —to validate my argument that the circumstances differ from the current conflict in Cameroon—because of its inauspicious timing, Anglophones’ yearning for nationhood (roused almost sixty years after failed attempts at creating an egalitarian federalism between them and Francophone-Cameroon) comes on the heels of other pro-independence movements in Africa and elsewhere in the world—South Sudan, Eritrea, East Timor, Macedonia—that have mostly been successful.

Nigeria’s frontline state status and its historical ties to Anglophones—up until October 1961 Anglophones were part of Nigeria—call for the former to bring on its diplomatic juggernaut to bear (as its previously done over other hotspots around Africa) on the current conflict, paving a way for a negotiated settlement. Its less inspiring commitment to this role further raises another question, which is whether Nigeria no longer acts—as it once did—as the massive rampart against French influence in West Africa.

Keeping the French at bay in this region has historically been one of Nigeria’s foreign policy objectives. And at the heart of this conflict lies French influence, which dates back to 1972, when “Total”, a French oil company, began operations in the Anglophone region.

That same year— over concerns that without a strong unitary system of government in place, its oil interests in the Anglophone region lacked the needed protection—France coerced Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s head of state at the time, into abolishing the federal system of government then existing between Anglophones and Francophone-Cameroon, a decision that Anglophones felt was a betrayal, and whose consequences loom over the current conflict.

When Jaja Wachuku, Nigeria’s first Foreign Minister, spoke at the United Nations in October 1961 about his country being “independent in everything but neutral in nothing that affects the destiny of Africa”, and Yakubu Gowon (speaking at an OAU Conference in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1974) about “the inalienable right to self-determination; the necessity for decent life; and the unquestionable demand for human dignity”, they were apparently making references to these French machinations that have, to an extent, contributed to this conflict in Cameroon.

But at their hour of peril, when they needed Nigeria for guidance, Nigeria, it seems, deserted the Anglophones.

By Joseph M. Ndifor

12, August 2020

Exposed: How CPDM rivalries hamper peace talks ⁰

Peace talks involving the government of Cameroon and Anglophone separatists are at a standstill due to a power struggle playing out between prime minister Joseph Dion Ngute and secretary general of the presidency Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

On 2 July, the jailed secessionist leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe announced on social media that he had taken part in discussions with Cameroon’s government regarding a ceasefire agreement under the auspices of the United Nations.

Subsequently, on the orders of secretary general of the presidency Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, communications minister René Emmanuel Sadi said in a statement that this information was not “accurate”. Since then, the two parties have not been in further contact with one another.

Church provides neutral grounds

However, according to sources, a delegation made up of about 10 secessionist leaders led by Ayuk Tabe did in fact meet on 2 July with Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, head of the Direction Générale de la Recherche Extérieure, Cameroon’s counter-intelligence agency.

Given that the conditions set forth by the Ambazonians included that the meeting take place in a “neutral” setting, the government asked the Catholic Church to allow it to hold the talks at the Episcopal Centre of Mvolyé. Located in Cameroon’s capital, the church was ultimately selected as the site of the negotiations, which were attended by six other government representatives.

At the third such meeting arranged by the government, the duo formed by Dion Ngute and Eko Eko led the administration’s negotiation. A traditional dignitary in the South-West region, the prime minister has a network of local monarchy connections who provides him with a way to engage with separatist rebels.

Eko Eko, a police superintendent and speaker of French and English, was the negotiator who successfully secured the 2008 release of oil workers taken hostage aboard the French vessel Bourbon Sagitta by the Bakassi Freedom Fighters, a rebel group from the Bakassi Peninsula, which Nigeria and Cameroon had disputed.

Secret negotiations

Prior to that, the first meeting with Anglophone leaders had taken place in Ghana, where Eko Eko met with secessionist figures from the diaspora community such as Ebenezer Akwanga and Herbert Boh. The second meeting was held on 13 April in Mvolyé (Yaoundé) and brought together Ayuk Tabe and his allies.

At the end of these talks, some progress was made, as the separatists said they were prepared to abandon their most radical demand, i.e., the departure of Cameroon’s army from the North-West and South-West regions. However, their acceptance of the continued presence of these troops came with the condition that they remain in their barracks since, in their view, the police and gendarmerie forces should be the sole personnel permitted to be deployed on the ground.

Dion Nguté and Eko Eko excluded the rest of the administration from secret negotiations which nevertheless had the blessing of President Paul Biya. Even Ngoh Ngoh was not involved in the discussions, despite the fact that he had been the Swiss government’s primary contact since June 2019.

Yaoundé officially mandated the Swiss government to facilitate talks between the warring sides. Working with the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), the Swiss mediators invited several secessionist leaders to participate in a discreet preparatory meeting from 25 to 27 June in Saint-Luc, a small village in the canton of Valais. However, at the end of 2019, the HD-led mediation process ended in failure due to distrust from certain factions of the secessionist movement.

New round of Swiss mediation

After Ngoh Ngoh released a statement by way of Sadi denying that talks had taken place, the Swiss negotiators initiated a new mediation process. On 2 August, a delegation led by Günther Bächler arrived in Yaoundé. The 67-year-old diplomat and former Swiss ambassador to Georgia served as a mediator in conflicts in Darfur, Nepal and in the South Caucasus on behalf of the Swiss Foreign Ministry.

As soon as he arrived in Cameroon, Bächler got in touch with a number of people, not just separatists but also supporters of federalism and proponents of decentralisation. On 4 August, he met with Cardinal Christian Tumi. On 6 August in Buea, the capital of the South-West region, the delegation planned to meet with the lawyer Felix Agbor Balla as well as with other local Anglophone figures.

Culled from Africa Intelligence

11, August 2020

US: Biden picks Kamala Harris as VP nominee ⁰

Former US Vice President Joe Biden has selected Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate, elevating a charismatic blue-state senator, former prosecutor and onetime 2020 primary rival who has built a reputation as an unyielding antagonist of the Trump administration.

Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, was the wire-to-wire frontrunner for Biden’s No. 2 job. Her experience as a battle-tested presidential contender, her efforts leading major law enforcement offices and her political track record of three election wins in California helped her overcome a crowded list of contenders.

Source: Politico

11, August 2020

Mali: Protesters regroup to demand the resignation of President Keita ⁰

Malians took to the streets in the capital Bamako on Tuesday, despite rainfall and pleas from mediators to stay home, to demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Protesters numbering in the low thousands assembled in a central square, an AFP journalist saw, blowing plastic vuvuzela horns and carrying placards bearing anti-government slogans.

“We want real change in Mali, IBK get out,” read one placard, using the acronym by which Keita is known.

Other people carried umbrellas against the rain, and toted signs asking the prime minister to resign too.

After the crowd sung the national anthem, prominent opposition leader Choguel Maiga told them: “We will continue our fight until the end of IBK and of his regime.”

The gathering marks the first time the June 5 Movement has staged a protest since July 21, when the opposition group declared a temporary truce in a months-long push to topple Keita.

It staged the demonstration despite a call to stay home from Nigeria’s ex-president, Goodluck Jonathan, a mediator for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Mali’s crisis.

“Demonstrations do not solve problems per se,” Jonathan told a news conference on Monday evening, adding that opposition figures needed to enter dialogue.

His appeal came after the June 5 Movement repeatedly spurned compromise proposals put forward by ECOWAS, as it has continued to insist on Keita’s resignation.

Mali’s political impasse has struck fear into the poor Sahel state’s neighbours and allies, who are keen to avoid it sliding into chaos.

Mediation flop

The June 5 Movement — so called after the date of its first protest — has been channelling deep anger over a dire economy, perceived government corruption and Mali’s eight-year jihadist conflict.

But tensions snowballed in crisis last month, when 11 people died over three days of unrest following an anti-Keita protest, in the worst political strife the country has seen in years.

The 15-nation ECOWAS bloc stepped in to mediate. On July 27, the bloc’s heads of government suggested the formation of a new unity government, among other measures, while sticking by Keita.

The June 5 Movement has rejected the proposals, however.

Nigeria’s ex-president Jonathan, who had already led a mediation mission to Mali in mid-July, made a surprise return to Bamako on Monday, where he met the president and opposition figures.

Still, there is little indication of breaking the impasse as anti-Keita protests have gone ahead despite his admonitions.

Constitutional Court

Keita, who first came to power in 2013, has meanwhile attempted to follow the ECOWAS recommendations.

He swore in nine new judges to the Constitutional Court on Monday, which formed part of an ECOWAS plant to resolve an election dispute that has contributed to the crisis.

Much of Mali’s current tension was sparked in April, when the Constitutional Court tossed out 30 results from long-delayed parliamentary elections — a move that benefited Keita’s party, but triggered protests.

ECOWAS had recommended appointing new judges to the court, and holding new elections in the 30 disputed parliamentary seats.

The MPs occupying those seats, however, have refused to step down. They are drawn from both Keita’s party and opposition parties.

Source: AFP

11, August 2020

Nigeria: Deadly communal violence hits central region ⁰

Gunmen have killed 13 people in an attack on a farming community in central Nigeria in the latest deadly violence to rip through the region, police said today.

A further 10 people were injured in the shooting in the village of Gbajimba yesterday morning, which Benue state police spokesman Daniel Ezeala blamed on Hausa-speaking Fulani herdsmen.

“The residents of the community, who are mainly Tiv farmers, tried to repel the attack,” he told AFP.

“Thirteen people lost their lives, while 10 were injured and several houses were burnt by the attackers.”

Violence over grazing rights is common in Nigeria and particularly in the so-called Central Belt, where the mainly Christian south meets the largely Muslim north. The Tiv are Christian and Fulani are Muslim.

At least 100 people were killed in Kaduna state earlier this month when assailants armed with guns and machetes stormed local villages.

Fulani leaders have for years complained about the loss of grazing land which is crucial to their livelihood, with resentment between the herdsmen and their agrarian neighbors rising over the past decade.

Two weeks ago, the Benue state governor, Gabriel Suswam, narrowly escaped death during a visit to a camp for victims of violence when his convoy was ambushed by suspected Fulani gunmen.

Tit-for-tat communal violence between herdsmen and farmers is thought to have claimed tens of thousands of lives in the region since the early 1990s, according to international rights groups.

(Source: AFP)

11, August 2020

Biya regime suspending Pay for 100 Southern Cameroons workers ⁰

The French Cameroun governor of the Northern Zone of Southern Cameroons said on August 5 2020 that Yaoundé has suspended the salaries of one hundred Southern Cameroons civil servants in his area of jurisdiction. Mr. Adolphe Lele Lafrique Tchoffo made the revelation during a meeting to evaluate the security situation in Bamenda, the chief city in the Northern Zone.

Speaking in French, the French Cameroun administrative officer noted that those affected by the decision were workers who have abandoned the place of work. The governor added that the administration took the decision to force “deserters” to return to service.

Since the outbreak of the crisis in Southern Cameroons nearly four years ago, several public servants have deserted their positions because of insecurity. Some of them have often been kidnapped and others killed by soldiers loyal to the regime in Yaounde or armed militia backed by the Cameroon government military.

Ambazonia Restoration Forces have also committed crimes including the murder of the sub-prefect of Batibo, Diteng Namata, who was kidnapped on February 11, 2018 and executed some days later.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

11, August 2020

World Covid-19 cases exceed 20 million ⁰

The coronavirus pandemic chalked up another horrific milestone Monday as the world surpassed 20 million recorded cases of infection from the tiny killer that has upended life just about everywhere.

The number as of 2215 GMT was 20,002,577 cases, with 733,842 deaths recorded, according to an AFP tally of official sources.

In yet another staggering landmark, the death toll is expected to surpass 750,000 in a matter of days as the global health crisis that began late last year in China rages on.

As more things once unthinkable became harsh reality — having to wear a facemask in touristy spots in Paris, or reserve a spot on Copacabana beach in Rio via an app and then social distance on the sand — the World Health Organization urged people not to despair.

“Behind these statistics is a great deal of pain and suffering… But I want to be clear: there are green shoots of hope,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“It’s never too late to turn the outbreak around,” he said.

He gave examples of countries that had successfully clamped down on Covid-19, such as Rwanda and New Zealand, which said Monday it plans to open a virus-free “travel bubble” with the Cook Islands.

With much of the world caught in a cycle of dispiriting outbreaks and economically crushing lockdowns, all eyes are on the race for a vaccine.

A WHO overview said 165 candidate vaccines are being worked on around the world, with six reaching Phase 3 of clinical evaluation.

But the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan warned that a vaccine was “only part of the answer,” pointing to polio and measles as diseases with vaccines that have not been fully eradicated.

“You’ve got to be able to deliver that vaccine to a population that want and demand to have that vaccine,” he said.

Europe feels the heat

Infections have been rising ominously in Western Europe, which has also been sweltering through a heatwave, with temperatures soaring above 35 degrees Celsius (95 F).

The blistering heat sent crowds flocking to beaches at the weekend despite health warnings about the risk of infection.

In the Paris region, people aged 11 and over are now required to wear masks in crowded areas and tourist hotspots.

These include the banks of the Seine River and more than 100 streets in the French capital.

Marion, a 24-year-old in central Paris, said the masks are “restrictive” but necessary “if we want to avoid a second wave.”

“Anything except a second lockdown,” she added.

Several French towns and cities have already introduced similar measures, as well as parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain.

In Berlin, thousands of children returned to school on Monday after the summer break, sporting masks, which are compulsory in common areas like school courtyards.

Greece meanwhile announced a night curfew for restaurants and bars in some of its top tourist destinations after its number of new cases increased.

In Italy, the coronavirus spikes of its neighbours caused alarm.

“France, Spain and the Balkans… Italy is surrounded by contagions,” Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza lamented.

It was a different story in Pakistan, which allowed all restaurants and parks to reopen on Monday, after the country saw a drop in new cases over several weeks.

Grim US, Brazil milestones

As of Monday evening, the United States — the world’s worst-hit country — had recorded 163,370 deaths and 5,085,821 cases of infection, according to the tracker at Johns Hopkins University.

As the caseload shot past five million on Sunday, President Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent in the presidential election, Joe Biden, tweeted that the number “boggles the mind and breaks the heart.”

The figure came as Trump was accused of flouting the constitution by unilaterally extending a virus relief package.

The package — announced by Trump on Saturday after talks between Republican and Democrat lawmakers hit a wall — was “absurdly unconstitutional,” senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi told CNN.

But with the world’s largest economy still struggling to dig itself out of an enormous hole, Democrats appeared skittish about any legal challenge to a relief package they see as seriously inadequate.

After the US, Brazil has the most cases, and over the weekend it became the second country to pass 100,000 fatalities.

President Jair Bolsonaro has downplayed the coronavirus threat, and after Brazil’s latest milestone, the country’s most widely viewed TV network Globo asked: “Has the president of the republic done his duty?”

Source: AFP

11, August 2020

French Cameroonian with multiple passports arrested in Nigeria ⁰

The NIS Border Patrol Officers at Yala Border Patrol base in Cross River State arrested a Camerounian while carrying out routine check to forestall Irregular migration across the border in view of the closure of borders by the Federal Government to curb further spread of Covid-19.

While briefing the Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service Muhammad Babandede MFR, the Comptroller of Cross River Command Okey Ezugwu, stated that the Camerounian by name Kouaha Dieudonne, Male, 42yrs old was apprehended with multiple passports of different countries which are not his own, two(2) passports a Camerounian and Guinea-Bissau passports bearing his name and other five(5) Nigerian passports belonging to other persons were found in his possession.

The Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service Muhammad Babandede MFR has ordered for thorough investigation and report on the arrest, while commending the Comptroller of the Cross River Command and the Officers at Yala Border Patrol for a job welldone and display of professionalism, shunning inducement to effect the arrest. The arrested migrant will be prosecuted after necessary charges are established for his prosecution in line with Immigration law.

Source: prnigeria.com

11, August 2020

Killing of a Humanitarian Aid Worker in Southern Cameroons ⁰

On Friday 7 August, a humanitarian aid worker was murdered in the North West Region of Cameroon after reportedly being abducted from his home. He was working for a local humanitarian organisation providing food assistance for affected and displaced persons.

This incident followed the killing of a MSF community volunteer in the South West region of Cameroon in early July. In the crisis-affected North West South West Regions of Cameroon, over 680,000 internally displaced persons are in need of emergency assistance.