About soter

Posts by :

9, March 2019

No one should ask why things are as they are: These questions will be answered at the right time ⁰

On August 31, 2006, my friend Bate Besong wrote a dedicated poem titled “Why we laugh at politicians and give them names”. That poem and its premonitory message impels me to struggle to find the underlying message behind the poem dedicated to me by a friend with whom I spent time discussing everything from literature to history, law, Marx, Osageyfo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Nwalimu Nyerere, CLR James, Marcus Garvey, politics generally, cultural issues, religion, maths, music etc. On occasion, he talked to me about many of his students whose potential intellectual bravery and literary ingenuity he admired. One of the names he mentioned was Dr Joyce Ashuntangtang.

Why do I bring up this name among others in this brief memorial statement? The name surely came up many times, but he first mentioned her name when we discussed the show of shame which is celebrated in Cameroun March 8, every year as the “Women Day”.

Bate Besong and I opposed the celebration of March 8, in ways that portrayed the African woman as hypnotised political tools. He opined that a celebration of the African woman should be in the systemic and societal recognition of women and their contribution toward human development. He hoped for a new generation of women intellectuals whom he believed will challenge the operating political, social and cultural order.

Bate Besong died on 8th of March 2007 the day set aside every year for showcasing the collective enslavement of women by the Cameroun systemic crime syndicate. This was not the intendment of the Peking Women Conference nor that of the international community that decided to use the ceremony every year to raise awareness on women related issues and women contributions as equal partners in efforts to protect and promote universal human values without discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality or any discriminatory basis whatsoever. The Cameroun ceremony is the opposite of what the international community intended.

At the time of his death, I was not aware of the poem he dedicated to me and the underlying message in the poem. Our revulsion for the treatment of women by the crime syndicate so-called new deal, and the sycophantic submission of the population and the bastardising of scholarship and faculty admission that we discussed and despised has not abated. I have watched the younger generation whom Bate Besong told me about and his predictions are true. So therefore, was Bate Besong a Prophet? In the context of present-day commercial religion and prophesy, BB would never accept this title. BB went into the originality of the grassroot authentic creativity of some pathfinders to support his prediction that the challenge to the pervasive influence of contemporary Africa status quo will come from the grassroots, his students and their contemporaries.

We both agreed that a musician of Kalabari origin in the Nigeria Delta called Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson fitted in this category. Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson challenged the highlife music status quo in his time, imposing respect and recognition from highlife musical giants like E.T, Mensah, Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya, Roy Chicago, EC Arinze, Chief Osita Osadebe. He died at the age of 32 after changing the face of highlife music and eternalising his musical genre for eternity. The religious and cultural messages conveyed through his music which he sang with passion at times made him cry on stage accompanied by his ever-increasing audience. Yet the music and the messages he delivered were the products of his work of art, some of which he composed on stage. While in Port Harcourt attending the conference of the African Bar Association, I requested and met Chief Tony Odili aged 93 and still and performing, the renowned percussionist of the Rex Lawson band. He confirmed in reasonable detail, what Bate Besong told me about Rex Lawson and his revolutionary change of the status quo in the Nigerian and West African highlife music. Nigerian gospel music is a derivative of the Rex Lawson highlife music revolution.

In the poem dedicated to me, Bate Besong in poetic form reminded me not to forsake the liberation struggle. He again raised our collective worries that years of enslavement and mental slavery had ruined generations of intellectuals and so-called elite on whom the people placed their hopes for liberation, freedom and independence. He like me believed that the peoples ‘moment would come when terror, fear and death will rather than scare the people, embolden them to take back their destiny, freedom and independence. As if to bid me and everyone goodbye, he in conclusion, enjoined us:

“No one should ask why things are as they are

These questions will be answered at the right time”

That right time is here for all to see and nothing will stop the wind of liberation and freedom which is blowing over the land. The relics of the old social order is fighting back through terror, treachery, corruption, criminality, distractions, confusions and all manner of sideshows. But Ground Zero and the generational liberators whom Bate Besong identified are out in arms fighting to win. And win they shall. Not the politicians whom Bate Besong came to distrust and made their treachery the subject of his premonitory poem to me. No not them. Their betrayal of the peoples’ aspirations has exposed them for what they have always been. This critical peoples’ moment when long deferred questions are finally been answered at the right time as BB predicted will consign them to ignominy and derision. This is also the moment to know “why we laugh at politicians and give them names” and for them to take stock of their treachery and the futility of their Iscariot politics of thirty silver and the unconscionable complicity in the extermination of their own people to satisfy the blood feeding of a vampiric dictator.

This memorial message should have been posted on March 8, 2019 but in honour of the greatest revolutionary and visionary seer of our times Dr Bate Besong, the judgment of the Abuja High Court exposing another international conspiracy and violations which like the McCleod Slave deal or bazaar aimed to stifle our march to freedom, it is but appropriate to place my considered opinion on the judgment in honour of Bate Besong the liberator, the Obasinjong warrior, the seer, and may I with his permission, call him the genuine prophet at the service of freedom and liberation of the sovereign people of the Southern Cameroons/ Ambazonia.

By Chief Charles A Taku

8, March 2019

‘Roma is in my DNA,’ says Ranieri as he returns to rescue hometown club ⁰

Claudio Ranieri urged Roma’s fans to get behind the team after returning as head coach of his hometown club on Friday looking to rescue their season and seal Champions League qualification.

Eusebio Di Francesco was sacked after the team’s last 16 Champions League elimination midweek, with the club’s Spanish sporting director Monchi following the coach to the exit on Friday.

Ranieri, who memorably guided outsiders Leicester City to the 2016 English Premier League title, returns to a club which he coach for 18 months from 2009 to 2011.

His contract runs until June 2019.

“Roma is in my DNA. My whole football life is tied to Roma,” said the 67-year-old former defender who began his senior playing career with Roma in 1973.

“I have always been a fan, I’ve been a player and a coach here,” he told Roma TV.

“I want to tell the fans, this is a special time. In 12 rounds, we are gambling with our future. We have the chance to get back into the Champions League.”

Ranieri arrived in the Italian capital on Friday from London having being sacked by Fulham last month after failing to ignite the English team’s revival after four months in charge.

“I talked to the team and asked for certain things,” he said after his first training session.

“The team is down, but you have to know how to react as men.

“I ask the fans to support them, encourage them even during the difficult moments, because at the end of the day, the ones who really suffer are us fans.”

The players are also reeling after crashing out of the Italian Cup 7-1 to Fiorentina last month and slumping 3-0 to city rivals Lazio last weekend in the Stadio Olimpico.

“The first aspect we have to work on is psychological, because after two defeats and a Champions League elimination, they’ll be wrecked,” said Ranieri of Roma who are fifth in Serie A, three points off the Champions League berths.

– ‘Safe hands’ –

AS Roma President Jim Pallotta said Ranieri had been chosen because he knows the team and the city.

“At this stage of the campaign, it was important to bring in a coach who knows the club, understands the environment, can speak the language and is able to motivate the players,” said the US businessman.

“Claudio ticks all of those boxes.”

Ranieri’s first match in charge will be an Italian league game at home against Empoli on Monday.

Club legend Francesco Totti, now on the board of directors, welcomed fellow Roman Ranieri. Captain Daniele De Rossi is also from the city.

“What we need now is a safe pair of hands to guide us back into the top four and ensure that we are playing Champions League football again next season,” said Totti.

Di Francesco led Roma to a third-place finish last season, and the Champions League semi-finals, but their last Serie A title was in 2001 and most recent trophy the 2008 Italian Cup.

Ranieri took over from Luciano Spalletti early in the 2009/10 season with Roma struggling and led them to runners-up finishes in Serie A and the Italian Cup.

He resigned in February of the following season after poor results. Seven coaches have sat on the Roma bench since his departure in 2011.

Ranieri’s coaching career has taken him to five different countries — Italy, Spain, England, France and Greece — often finishing second before his fairytale title success with Leicester only to be fired months later.

He then coached Nantes for a season before taking over at Fulham in November 2018, only to be sacked on February 28.

Ranieri led Fiorentina to the Italian Cup and Italian SuperCup trophies in 1996, and coached Valencia to the Copa del Rey in 1999 and UEFA Super Cup in 2005.

AFP

8, March 2019

Gabon dismisses rumors president is ‘cloned’ ⁰

The Gabonese presidency has dismissed rumours that the ailing president, Ali Bongo, has been replaced by a clone. Bongo, who is currently recovering in Morocco, has only returned to Gabon twice since he became ill in 2018 whiles on an official trip. On both ‘visits,’ he stayed briefly and flew back to Rabat.

Reports had been festering that the president had recruited a look alike to replace him for months while he received medical attention for a stroke in 2018.

Ike Ngouoni, presidential spokesman said: “The President of the Republic was (t) here in flesh, a number of people saw him. He went around the city. “Some of them were able to approach him, observe him, see him. It is totally a hoax. I admire the level of creativity, especially on the internet and their persistence in these rumours,” he told reporters.

The presidency initially said he had been hospitalized in Riyadh for fatigue. The vice-president admitted at a rally that the president had suffered a stroke weeks later. Since October last year, a section of Gabonese have expressed mixed concerns as to the health situation of their president as it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate rumours and the reality.

In January, a failed coup was attempted in Libreville to denounce the president’s absence and establish a “democratic transition.” Bongo is the second leader having to fight cloned rumours, the first being Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari.

Africa News

8, March 2019

WWF-funded forces in Cameroon have tortured and killed indigenous people ⁰

The World Wide Fund for Nature was warned years ago that its staff was complicit in “frightening” raids on indigenous villages by anti-poaching eco-guards, internal documents reveal. A BuzzFeed News investigation exposed on Monday how the beloved wildlife charity WWF has for years funded and equipped paramilitary forces that have tortured and killed villagers living near the national parks it supports. WWF responded by announcing an “independent review” of the evidence. “We see it as our urgent responsibility to get to the bottom of the allegations BuzzFeed has made, and we recognize the importance of such scrutiny,” the charity said in a statement.

BuzzFeed News has revealed that WWF-funded forces in Asia and Africa have tortured and killed indigenous people.

But this is not the first time WWF has launched an independent investigation of this kind. The charity commissioned a report in 2015, obtained by BuzzFeed News, which implicated WWF in violence against indigenous people in Cameroon. “Indigenous peoples and local communities bordering protected areas are victims of human rights abuses and violations by eco-guards,” the report found — noting the perpetrators were backed by “considerable technical, logistical and financial support” from WWF. But those findings were never made public, and WWF’s director general, Marco Lambertini, went on to dismiss concerns about the treatment of indigenous people as “matters for the government of Cameroon,” while the charity continued backing the park and its guards.

When asked about the 2015 findings by BuzzFeed News, WWF said that its new investigation would examine the way reports of abuse are handled by executives in Switzerland. “All allegations will be subject to our independent review, which will look at specific allegations, and governance,” a spokesperson said in a statement. The explosive 2015 report was prepared by an indigenous expert hired by WWF to review its operations in Cameroon, who found staff there were “gravely concerned” about the abuses they were witnessing.

According to the report, WWF Cameroon was participating in “coercive” nighttime raids of villages in which eco-guards employed by the government and backed by the charity “violate[d] the rights of communities” by looting houses and beating their occupants. The report found that the perpetrators went unpunished even when there was “evidence and testimony from the victims.”

“Indigenous peoples and local communities bordering protected areas are victims of human rights abuses and violations by eco-guards.”

After obtaining the report, BuzzFeed News contacted its author, Diel Mochire Mwenge. He said that the charity did not acknowledge the findings of his report publicly “because it incriminated them.” Mwenge told BuzzFeed News it was clear the charity was complicit in the abuse of indigenous people. “We understood that it was WWF that sent these eco-guards, it was WWF who paid, it was WWF who did everything,” Mwenge said. “And so we had to directly conclude that WWF was sufficiently implicated.”

WWF declined to answer detailed questions from BuzzFeed News about abuses in Cameroon. But in a January interview, the charity’s chief operating officer, Dominic O’Neill, said he had personally traveled to Cameroon to make clear to its partners that WWF “can’t tolerate any human rights abuses at all.” “We’ve had issues and we’ve dealt with those,” he said. “But not to the extent where we said this relationship is now broken.” BuzzFeed News can also reveal that WWF opened another investigation last summer into allegations including gang rape and murder by eco-guards at Salonga, a massive national park it comanages in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The charity confirmed after inquiries from BuzzFeed News that several rangers have been suspended or fired based on its findings. However, WWF declined to answer questions about its ongoing support for the park’s anti-poaching patrols. The German government’s development bank, a major backer of WWF, has confirmed to BuzzFeed News it has requested “statements and information” from the charity on the abuses and has said it will monitor the findings of its internal review.

The 2015 report warning of “frightening” raids on indigenous villages.

At Lobéké National Park, one of the Cameroonian parks highlighted in Mwenge’s report, allegations of ranger abuses — beatings, torture, torched huts, stolen goods — date back years. When the park opened in 1999 with the backing of WWF to protect the area’s forest elephants and lowland gorillas, local Baka people lost access to wide swaths of their ancestral forests.

WWF helped recruit Lobéké’s first forest rangers, who patrol the park for poachers. Known locally as “eco-guards,” the rangers are employees of the Cameroonian government run by the longtime dictator Paul Biya.

But secret budgeting documents show how closely WWF’s staff have worked with the government forces. The charity has helped train them, paid their salaries, and built them homes. It has bought them radios, satellite phones, TVs, 4x4s, and boats. And it has allocated a significant portion of the millions in donor money it spends at Lobéké to “enforcement” activities, including patrols and raids.

The park’s management plan says WWF will help organize raids, known as “coups de poing,” on local villages suspected of harboring poachers. In 2012, Sarah Strader, an American Fulbright researcher, witnessed eco-guards near Lobéké pull a man out of their 4×4. They beat him as he “moaned incomprehensibly,” Strader wrote in her diary, which she shared with BuzzFeed News.

“We torture them when they don’t want to tell the truth.”

Strader reported what she saw to a field office shared between the government and WWF. There, a forest ministry official told her the beating was a normal part of the fight against poaching. “We torture them when they don’t want to tell the truth,” the official said, according to Strader’s diary. Strader was stunned by this casual admission.

“Literally WWF is right there,” she told BuzzFeed News, “and he’s telling me that ‘we torture people.’ It was appalling to me that the WWF would stand for this juxtaposition.” Strader told a WWF senior manager, David Hoyle, about what happened. Hoyle, who has since died, complained to the Cameroonian government. He also reported the allegations back to WWF’s Swiss headquarters. Strader said she never heard from WWF about her complaint. The charity continued to work with the rangers.

Culled from BuzzFeed News

8, March 2019

Cameroon Holds Mass Wedding to Boost Women’s Legal Rights ⁰

In Cameroon, 82 couples have taken part in a mass wedding ceremony as part of efforts to better protect the legal rights of women. Only 10 percent of marriages in Cameroon are legalized, leaving wives with few rights. The mass wedding ceremony is part of activities to mark Friday’s International Women’s Day.

For the event, traditional Cameroonian dancers performed in the courtyard of the Maroua Town Council. There, they celebrated the official marriage of 82 couples, most of them Muslims.

Among the couples were 16-year-old Asta Ismaila and her 47-year-old husband.

Ismaila said she was forced to be the man’s third wife when she was barely 14 years old. After giving birth, she said, her husband did not take care of her or her baby.

Although the couple split last year, they agreed to legalize their marriage so Ismaila and their child would not be shunned by the community.

It also provides mother and child with important and rare legal protection.

Cameroon’s Institute of Statistics says only 10 percent of couples have legalized their marriages – relying instead on simple, traditional ceremonies.

If the husband dies, his family members often take the couple’s property and send the woman away with nothing.

The Cameroon Association of Lawyers’ Hamadou Hamajarou says with a legal marriage, the state protects the wife’s property rights.

He said Cameroon’s penal code punishes anyone who forces a widow out of her marital home with a prison term of three months to one year and a fine of $100 to $1,000. If the woman is pregnant or violence is used, the sentence can be from two to five years in prison.

In northern Cameroon’s polygamous Muslim communities, men often bring home an additional wife without consulting their current ones. Without a registered marriage, the wives have few legal options to challenge the man’s decisions.

Aissa Dumara, coordinator of the Association for the Fight Against Violence on Women and Girls, said women who defy their husband – legally or not — are often abused or kicked out of the house.

She said only 35 of the 351 abused women who sought the group’s help in 2018 were legally married. Dumara said they were forced at very young ages into the homes of men who promised to marry them but instead they were battered, forced to do difficult domestic work, or simply dismissed.

The group arranged the mass wedding to educate women of the importance of legalizing their marriages.

It’s no small challenge in Cameroon’s remote villages.

Ismaila tried to convince her husband’s two other wives to legalize their marriages as well. But they said their families were against it because the husband and his family had yet to pay them money or property for the marriage – known as a bride price.

The cost for the wives having no legal protection could prove to be much higher.

VOA

8, March 2019

Francophone Crisis: Yaounde High Court Refuses to Release Opposition Figures ⁰

High Court refused to release opposition leader Maurice Kamto, as well as six of his supporters, who were arrested in January on politically motivated charges.

The Mfoundi High Court, located in Cameroon’s political capital, Yaoundé, made this decision following a habeas corpus request filed by the detainees’ defence lawyers.

Kamto and his party, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), claim they won the country’s 2018 elections, although the official results say the current President Paul Biya – in power for 36 years – won the vote.

They were detained as a part of a massive government crackdown on demonstrations and political activities, including the arrest over 200 people on January 26. Since then, political activists have been regularly threatened and harassed.

Kamto and his six supporters are charged with a number of offenses linked to their rejection of the election results, including hostility against the homeland and threats to public order and rebellion.

These arrests highlight the tightening political space in Cameroon as well as the impunity with which police can disregard the law.

Kamto was arrested without a warrant on January, 28 in Douala and held for 15 days at the headquarters of the Special Operations Groups (Groupement spécial d’opérations, GSO), which is not gazetted as a detention facility for those awaiting trial.

Célestin Djamen, a member of Kamto’s party, was arrested at the hospital where he was recovering after police shot him in the leg during a January 26 demonstration. He was held for 15 days at the Secrétariat d’Etat à la Défense (SED) which also is not meant to hold people in police custody.

Lawyers for Kamto say that they were unable to access their client for two days, in violation of the Cameroonian law. A lawyer for Djamen said he did not see his client for 15 days.

Kamto and the other detainees were only presented before the prosecutor 15 days after their arrest, in violation of the Cameroon Criminal Procedure Code. Moreover, despite being civilians, they are being tried in a military court. This means there are real questions about the legality of the court itself.

These arrests appear to be a politically motivated move to curtail dissent, and what’s happened so far calls into questions Kamto’s ability to get a fair trial. Cameroonians – political opponents or not – should be able to expect that officials will uphold the law, not flagrantly violate it.

HRW.ORGNEWS

8, March 2019

Yaounde needs to address Southern Cameroons Crisis: US Top diplomat ⁰

The current crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions has raged since late 2016 with protests over perceived marginalisation by the Francophone majority morphing into almost daily clashes between security forces and armed separatists.

“There’s a very serious national crisis going on, but I believe the government needs to be more serious in how they address it,” said Nagy.

“I’m not sure, and I hope I’m wrong, that the government realises just what a serious problem it is,” added. “Even though there have been some policies announced by the government – in my view, they have been more symbolic than active.”

The US cut some military assistance to Cameroon in February over concerns about human rights violations allegedly committed by the Cameroonian military.

The country has been seen as a key security partner for the US and some 300 troops are based in the northern town of Garoua in an effort to fight hardline Islamists in the north of Cameroon.

“I think it could be settled relatively quickly,” said Nagy, in discussion of the Anglophone crisis. “A couple of positive steps would be if the people in the north west and south west could directly elect their governors.”

The American diplomat, referring to regional governors who are Francophone, said it would be unlikely that officials would be French speakers if Anglophones had more say over their own governance. Nagy also suggested that the security forces operating in the Anglophone regions “need to speak English”.

A conference bringing together all sides involved in the crisis would be “very positive”, according to Nagy. It would need to be “endorsed by the highest levels of government”.
RFI

8, March 2019

Southern Cameroons: Fear reigns in the capital city ⁰

In the capital of Southern Cameroons, people drily say the streets are so dangerous that even the dogs are too scared to go outside.

Buea has been stalked by violence for 18 months, after English-speaking separatists declared an independent state and took up arms against the French-speaking authorities.

In Buea, barely a day goes by without the “Amba Boys” attacking police stations, state-run enterprises and public buildings — anything that is a recognisable symbol of the state.

Gunfire is heard frequently, despite army patrols introduced as part of a wide-ranging crackdown, and kidnapping is rampant.

Last month, around 15 Ambazonia Restoration Fighters entered the city, firing into the air and burning cars. After they left, people found a decapitated head left on the pavement. The victim has so far not been identified.

A disturbing video being shared on social media shows a woman in her 30s being disfigured by separatists who accuse her of being an informant for the army.

On Tuesday, the EU issued a statement warning about Cameroon’s political and security situation, pointing especially to the two restive anglophone regions, where there were “persistent violence and violations of human rights”.

– Fear –

One civil servant, who asked not to be identified, told AFP he had been living in his office for five months out of fear of being attacked.

“I spend the night at the office to avoid the trip home,” he said. “Informants could see that I was disobeying the Amba Boys’ ban on working for the government.”

Nearby, his camp bed was folded in one corner, just beside his suitcase. Two jackets were hung up nearby while the remains of the previous day’s meal sat on a hotplate.

The town, once known as a peaceful haven nestled at the foot of Mount Cameroon, has been transformed by the conflict.

“Buea is suffering,” one local radio presenter recently lamented on air.

Some businesses say they are struggling to survive. Fearing reprisals, they do not dare defy the shutdowns regularly declared by the Ambazonian Restoration Forces.

The cost of living is mounting. One woman selling mangoes at a crossroads for 1,000 francs (about 1.8 euros, $2) apiece said the price of the fruit was rising “because there are few people to go and harvest them.”

– Exodus –

The authorities in the Cameroonian capital Yaounde have responded to the rebellion by stepping up the security presence in the region.

Troops and Ambazonia Forces alike have been accused of targeting civilians.

At least 500 civilians and more than 200 members of the security forces have died in clashes, attacks and a government crackdown, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank says.

At least 437,000 people have fled the two regions, according to UN estimates, with another 32,000 fleeing across the border to Nigeria.

Many people in Buea have fled to the port of Limbe, around 30 kilometres (19 miles) away. The road between the two towns is littered with the burnt-out remains of cars.

As night falls on Down Beach, the view over the bay comes with an incessant roar of armoured vehicles carrying troops.

In the local schools, teachers have got used to pupils turning up wearing uniforms from other establishments. “They come from nearby villages,” said a teacher at one secondary school. “We put up with it.”

– Colonial legacy –

Around a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 24 million are English speakers.

The roots of the conflict today date back a century, when post-World War I Germany surrendered Kamerun, its principal colony in West Africa, which was then taken over by Britain and France.

France was given the greater part of the territory, which became independent in 1960.

A year later, the British colony also gained independence.

Some of the English-speaking areas opted to join newly-formed Nigeria, while others chose to join the federation of Cameroon.

In 2017, anglophone resentment at perceived discrimination by the francophone majority came to a head, leading to the declaration of the ” Federal Republic of Ambazonia” in the two regions, named after the local Ambas Bay.

AFP with additional editing from CIR

7, March 2019

Eto’o to take ‘forced’ DNA test to determine paternity of ex-girlfriend’s son ⁰

Cameroon football legend Samuel Eto’o could soon undergo a paternity test against his wish in the culmination of a two-decade battle against his alleged love child.

According to media reports, the former Cameroon International – considered one of the best African football talents of all time – is battling accusations from one Adileusa do Rosario Neves, 39, that he is the biological father of her 19-year old son.

“He told me I was like all the w***es who go looking for footballers, that I was a b**ch and that if I didn’t have an abortion then I was going to have problems,” Adileusa is reported as saying.

DNA TEST

Adileusa’s lawyer Fernando Osuna confirmed on Tuesday that the hearing would take place at a Madrid court on April 24.

“He has so far agreed to a voluntary DNA test and I doubt at this stage that he will. At the moment our case is based on things like photographs and affidavits from witnesses but a refusal by Eto’o to agree to a voluntary DNA test would go in our favour,” he said.

PREGNANCY

The lawsuit presented by Cape Verde born Adileusa says she fell pregnant after a meeting with Eto’o – formerly at Barcelona and Chelsea, but now playing in Qatar – in a nightclub in the Spanish capital in 1997 when he was playing for Leganes on loan from Real Madrid.

The complainant also claims that Eto’o, 37, who has six legitimate children with four different women, including his wife Georgette, told her he would ‘act responsibly’ soon after she broke the news but then cut off all contact with her.

It is believed the outcome of the paternity test will determine whether mother and child can launch a legal battle against Eto’o.

NairobiNews

7, March 2019

Nigerian govt condemns ejection of refugees by Cameroon ⁰

The Nigerian government has condemned the ejection of her citizens who are taking refuge in Cameroon by the country’s authorities.

A statement issued by the Federal National Commissioner for the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, Sadiya Farouq, accused the Cameroonian government of flouting the United Nations Convention on Refugees and its 167 Protocol.

He said the Protocol forbids member nations from ejecting refugees under any circumstances.

According to the Commissioner, the ejected refugees are residents of Rann, Kala-Balge Local Government Area of Borno State, who fled their community to neighbouring Goura town in Cameroon due to incessant Boko Haram attacks in January.

The statement reads: “It is highly regrettable and sad to note that despite the passionate appeal made by the Nigerian Authorities to the Government of Cameroon not to chase out the victims of Boko Haram attacks from Rann Local Government of Borno State, this appeal has been ignored.

“Information reaching us is that the Cameroonian Government has thrown out the Displaced Persons from Rann who ran into Cameroun for safety in total disregard for the appeal and a clear breach of the United Nations Charter and Convention on the protection of Displaced Persons which both countries endorsed.

“The United Nations Convention on Refugees and its 167 Protocol states that , “no contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his or her life or freedom will be threatened on account of his or her race, religion or nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Mr Farouq, however, said Nigeria would not retaliate by ejecting Cameroonian refugees currently in Nigeria. He said; “You may recall that on January 14, 2019, persistent attacks in Rann compelled residents of the area to run into Cameroon territories for their safety, but from the onset, the Cameroon Government threatened to chase them out.

“The Nigerian Government had to remind its Cameroonian counterpart of its obligation to the displaced Nigerians, bearing in mind the UN Convention. Unfortunately, today Cameroon has made good its earlier threat by throwing the Nigerian Refugees back to the country in large number. In due course, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs will take appropriate steps on the matter.

“Meanwhile, it is worthy of mention to state that Nigeria is currently hosting many Cameroonian refugees located at Cross River, Benue, Akwa-Ibom, Taraba States and some of them in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja since October 2017 and we continue to provide them with relief, care and maintenance items. This is a clear demonstration of our commitment to international Conventions on humanitarian obligations and in the spirit of good neighbourliness.

“The National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) in line with its mandate will continue to provide care and maintenance to persons of concern including nationals of other countries without any form of discrimination. However, we demand that Nigerian citizens in a foreign land must not be subjected to any shabby treatment under any circumstance.”

Source: Premium Times