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

For decades, Cameroon has distinguished itself in more ways than one. The country was once considered a rising footballing nation in 1990s following its stellar performance at the 1990 World Cup.

But for some time now, the world has been helplessly watching the country’s footballing performance take a nosedive, with small countries like Cape Verde, the Comoros and Burundi demonstrating that the once ferocious indomitable lions are today toothless bulldogs.

Politically, the country has made massive giant strides backwards. Way back in the early 1990s, Cameroonians told the world that their version of democracy was advanced democracy even when in 1992, many experts agreed that the country’s president, Paul Biya, had lost the 1992 election by a wide margin but refused to yield the floor to the opposition leader, John Fru Ndi.

Mr. Fru Ndi had claimed victory and many reports, including that of the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, had demonstrated that the election results had been tampered with to give the incumbent a victory he did not deserve. And to punish Mr. Fru Ndi for drawing negative attention to the unpopular president, a three-month state of emergency was declared in the Northwest region where Mr. Fru Ndi was living at that time.

After the 1992 presidential election, Mr. Biya and his party have claimed many election victories which have been questioned by many monitoring bodies around the world and opposition political parties in the country.

Cameroon’s advanced democracy has been tested on many occasions and it has not been up to the billing. Corruption, supported by a flawed electoral code, has become the major determinant of election victory in the country.

Today, the country’s ruling party, the Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement (CPDM), has clearly demonstrated that democracy as practiced in Western countries is not in its political ecosystem. Corruption is in the political party’s DNA and it is obvious that with the current electoral code, only the incumbent and his party can win an election.

The country’s senate is today a purely CPDM affair with children replacing their dead parents. Even those who are still alive are unable to walk because of age and retiring or resigning is not something that can be put in the same sentence with the CPDM.

The country’s president, Paul Biya, is 90 years old, the senate president, Marcel Niat Njipenji, is 89 years old and the Speaker of the House, Cavaye Yegue Djibril, is well over 85 years and has been a parliamentarian for 53 years.

Today, there is no opposition in Cameroon. Opposition politicians are being hunted like game in Cameroon and many are in jail on trumped up charges.

Many journalists have been killed for expressing views which are not music to the ears of the members of the ruling party. Samuel Wazizi, a prominent journalist, was tortured and killed by government-trained forces and his body has never been returned to his family.

Recently, Martinez Zogo, a whistleblower and firebrand who had assigned to himself, the duty of exposing the regime’s moral decadence was killed with the help of the country’s intelligence community. He was kidnapped, tortured, killed and dumped like trash on a dirt road as a message for others who may nurse the idea of criticizing the government or members of the ruling party.

Cameroon’s advanced democracy has simply morphed into advanced dictorship wherein the country’s president is treated like a demi-god and every decision, including the appointment of night watch men, must be signed by the president.

However, the most baffling thing is the way the country’s legal system operates. Cameroon is unique in the world and nothing in the country works for the taxpayer. Nobody understands how the country works, including the president who rules by decree. Democracy has been replaced with kleptocracy, gerontocracy and kakistocracy.

The president’s age and diseases have reduced him to a pawn in the hands of the members of his inner circle and these members are using their new found power to settle scores and to eliminate those whose political views are at variance with theirs. The country’s judiciary has been emasculated and most court decisions are dictated by those who are holding the ailing and old president as a captive.

In other countries where the judiciary is independent, crimes are investigated by the police and if there is probable cause, the matter is sent to the courts for a fair trial of the suspects.

In Cameroon, it is the president who must order the investigation into a crime like the case of Martinez Zogo. Without the president’s intervention, the matter would have been swept under the carpet, especially as the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Finance were cited as possible suspects in the death of the whistleblower.

Despite such irregularities, the supporters of the moribund government still insist that the country’s judiciary is still independent. How independent can the courts be when appointments and promotions in the judiciary are the president’s prerogative?

Politics trumps everything in Cameroon. A few days ago, a young lady was robbed of her baby in a Douala hospital. The matter had gathered momentum and social media was giving Laquintini, the hospital wherein the incident took place, a very bad name.

It was alleged that two nurses in the health facility were involved in the trading of newborn babies, a situation which should have brought in the police.

Strangely, it was the governor of the Littoral Region who set up a commission of inquiry and the next day, the country’s Health Minister travelled to the crime scene. After a discussion with the victim’s lawyers and family members, the lady who had declared on social media that her pregnancy was over eight months, had to change her story, accepting that her pregnancy was only five months old and that there was a fetus and not a baby.

Childbearing has not started today in Cameroon. Every hospital has laid down procedures, especially in the maternity wards. Those procedures were put in place to ensure transparency and confidence. How come the minister’s arrival in Douala had to result in the victim’s change of heart? If there was a fetus, where was it buried? And since when did hospital staff start to bury fetuses and placentas without the presence of family members of a woman who was pregnant?

Cameroon is sick. It is an Augean Stable which needs to be cleansed by a new team. Those who are governing the country have made corruption a way of life. Nothing works in the country without money changing hands and poverty has made Cameroonians who are the primary victims of the system to lose their sense of decorum and principle.

The country’s legal system like its political system is nothing but a farce. In Cameroon, losing a life is the easiest thing. Without social media, the government will never take any action to address all the ills which have become normal in Cameroon.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Nothing has changed ever since the awful death of a third year law student in the University of Yaoundé II, Soa last year. So, the men who rape, harm and kill women are multiplying and consolidating their gains all over the national territory.

President Biya, his government, the police force, the gendarmerie and the judiciary are maintaining their observer status as seven women were recently abducted, raped, murdered and in the words of their beloved mothers, “bodies disposed of as if they were rubbish”.

In all the seven killings, Cameroon Concord News Group is aware that the suspects are all men. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group know this but not the Biya government and not the Delegate General for National Security. To be sure, the seven women will have died in terror and pain, just like the third year law student in Soa. All of them leave behind grieving families and friends for whom their loss will last a lifetime.

Cameroonian men’s violence against women is growing at catastrophic rapidity throughout the national territory and cuts across all sections of society, Francophone, Anglophone, across ages, class and ethnicity. But like with the media in Cameroon, it is almost always the young, conventionally attractive, middle-class Francophone girl killed by a stranger that makes headline news in Yaoundé. We of the Concord Group want every woman’s death to be a reason for soul-searching and a very productive national discourse.

Southern Cameroons women are disproportionately victimised, yet more likely to receive a sub-standard response from the security apparatus of the state dominated in all towns and cities in Southern Cameroons by Francophones.

Nothing indeed has changed ever since the third year law student in Soa was abducted, raped and murdered.  There is completely nothing on the government table on how to tackle violence against women in Cameroon. The women are partly to blame for Biya’s regime’s deliberate silence!!

We of the Concord Group think it is time to set an ambitious program to end men’s violence against women.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Prominent businessman Amougou Belinga was charged on Saturday with complicity in the torture of a journalist who was murdered in a high-profile case that has rocked the country, his lawyer told AFP.

Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, reputedly close to ministers and senior officials, was arrested on February 6 and brought before a military court in the capital Yaounde on Friday before being remanded, his lawyer said.

A source at the court confirmed the report to AFP on condition of anonymity. The authorities did not respond to requests for comment on the charges Amougou Belinga faces.

Radio journalist Martinez Zogo, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in January, was outspoken against graft and financial sleaze and had often faced threats over his work.

Amougou Belinga, owner of L’Anecdote media group, “was arrested… at dawn” last month, the company said.

The tycoon has holdings in banking, finance, insurance and property, as well as L’Anecdote, which owns a daily newspaper of that name and several pro-government TV and radio stations.

Belinga’s lawyer said his client was “not charged with the murder of Martinez Zogo”, adding: “It is only an indictment, the judicial investigation has only just begun”.

Belinga “was placed under a detention order… at the main prison in Kondengi” after being “presented before an investigating judge at the military court,” a media group he owns said in a statement.

– Suspects –

Several people suspected of involvement in the case were also brought before the military court on Friday evening, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

Leopold Maxime Eko Eko, head of the General Directorate for External Investigations (DGRE) and its director of operations, Justin Danwe, are among those suspected, a communication ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity, alongside other official sources who also requested confidentiality.

Denis Omgba Bomba, head of the National Media Observatory, a unit attached to the communications ministry, previously confirmed the arrest and said the tycoon had been “named a suspect in the killing of Martinez Zogo”.

Zogo, 50, was the manager of the privately-owned radio station Amplitude FM and host of a daily show called Embouteillage (Traffic Jam).

He had frequently named Amougou Belinga in his corruption accusations.

Zogo was abducted on January 17 outside a police station in the suburbs of the capital Yaounde, and his mutilated corpse was found five days later.

Just days before he was killed, he had told listeners about threats he faced.

The murder sparked outcry, including a protest by 20 leading Cameroonians over the government’s “long tradition of trivialising impunity and accepting atrocities.”

RSF’s Press Freedom Index ranks Cameroon a lowly 118th out of 180 countries.

The government has insisted Cameroon is “a state of law, where liberty is guaranteed, including the freedom of the press”.

Reported by AFP

Brought before the military court in Yaoundé on 14 February, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga was not formally charged and prosecuted, with the court requesting an additional investigation into the matter of journalist Martinez Zogo’s kidnapping and assassination.

Is Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga going to be officially charged by the Yaoundé military court? The answer, long-awaited by those following the case, has finally come: the government commissioner has chosen to wait and request an additional investigation to better establish responsibilities relating to the assassination of journalist Martinez Zogo on 22 January.

Belinga and the other suspects had been removed from their cells at the secrétariat d’État à la défense (SED, in charge of the investigation) and brought before the military court at the end of the morning, where they waited all day, accompanied by legal representation as they speculated about their fate.

After hesitating for a long time, the government commissioner decided on the immediate imposition of charges, opting instead for the time being to request the SED to look into certain elements of the case. The accused were then returned to SED custody in the evening.

The boss of the L’Anecdote group was arrested on 6 February, when he was directly implicated by Lieutenant-Colonel Justin Danwe. This executive of the Direction générale de la recherche extérieure (DGRE), who admitted to the investigators about having carried out the operation targeting Zogo, claimed to have acted on Belinga’s behalf.

According to Danwe, the latter was even present during the kidnapping and when the Amplitude FM journalist was tortured.

If Belinga denied these allegations during his police custody, several elements of the investigation, in particular wiretaps and data from the analysis of the telephones of the protagonists, would come to corroborate this version of the facts.

Several relatives also suspected

Several of Belinga’s relatives were also presented before the military court. Etoundi Nsoe, his father-in-law and head of security, former commander of the presidential guard, is suspected of having contributed to the establishment of Danwe’s commando, as is Bruno Bidjang, the man’s right-hand man.

The two men are said to have been responsible for the money transfers that made it possible to recruit the lieutenant colonel of the DGRE and his men.

Three other individuals caught the SED’s attention and were therefore also brought to justice: Jean-Claude Fouda Abega, a close associate of Belinga’s, Yannick Nkili, the latter’s aide-de-camp, and a man known simply as  “Jacob”, an aide-de-camp of the tycoon’s wife, Melissa.

On the side of the DGRE, Justin Danwe was also brought before the same military tribunal, as was the director of external research, Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, placed in police custody at the same time as his subordinate. If the latter denies having been aware of the operation, he is suspected of having, at the very least, given his approval.

A turning point for the Zogo case?

Will this request for further investigation allow the case to take on a new dimension, almost a month after Zogo kidnapping and murder? Already closely followed in Yaoundé, especially in Etoudi by the secretary general of the presidency Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, it could take an even more political turn. While in police custody, Danwe reportedly cited the name of the Minister of Justice, Laurent Esso.

As a heavyweight of the government and former secretary general of the presidency, he would have been in communication with Belinga on the night of January 17 and 18, when Danwe’s team had just carried out the journalist’s kidnapping. Neither the Keeper of the Seals nor the government spokesman René-Emmanuel Sadi has spoken on the case.

Culled from Africa Report

After celebrating 40 years at the helm of Cameroon, the patriarch Paul Biya is celebrating his 90th birthday with only a few discordant voices.

Celebrations follow on from one another within the Cameroonian presidency’s entourage.

On 6 November, several thousand of Paul Biya’s supporters celebrated his 40 years as head of the country. Biya is Africa’s second longest reigning monarch, just behind the 43 years that Equatorial Guinea’s head of state has spent on the throne. However, the clan is hosting a more private affair this 13 February to celebrate the 90th birthday of the self-proclaimed “Lion Man”.

Apart from crowned heads who do not have to go back to the drawing board 100 times, nonagenarians are rarely found at the top of leadership institutions, like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who resigned at the age of 93, and Tunisia’s Béji Caïd Essebi, who died in office at 92. Biya is currently the oldest sitting head of state.

Is Biya’s birthday “private”? The event is making headlines in Cameroon, newspapers and social media echo the lavish festivities in Mvomeka’a, the patriarch’s birthplace, some 250km from Yaounde. After the festivities, it will be interesting to note which privileged person has been invited around the cake to be included in the photo. Beyond blood ties, the political family is having a field day. A member of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), Justine Diffo salutes the birthday of the man who mentored her with his ‘institutional aura’ and ‘spiritual halo’.

Even beyond the labelled “biyaists”, each one has his own zeal, more or less constrained by the weight of the presidential institution. On 7 February, the University of Yaounde 1’s rector sent a letter to the heads of departments inviting them to “make arrangements in advance (…) to mobilise students” to the ceremony scheduled for this Monday at the Yaounde Sports Palace.

In Cameroon, where life expectancy at birth is around 59 years, old age is an indisputable reason for respect. Although Biya’s birthday should be the occasion for a 24-hour political truce, the impressive number of years he has lived inevitably gives rise to debates on the succession.

Will the 64-year-old Finance Minister Louis-Paul Motaze win the jackpot when the time comes, or will Biya’s fading from the political scene trigger a clan war? As usual, the current head of state wants to weigh all possible options. Last July, during a press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron, “Popaul” reminded everyone that his term ends in 2025, adding: “When this mandate expires, you will be informed of whether I have decided to stay or go to the village.” This seems to suggest that he has not ruled out formally running for president in 2025.

Culled from The Africa Report by Nelly Epupa (Cameroon Intelligence Report)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) can reveal that the contents of mobile phones and interrogations have yielded new, very incriminating evidence in the investigation into journalist Martinez Zogo’s murder in Cameroon. Businessman Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga is more deeply implicated than ever and the net is closing on justice minister Laurent Esso, one of the pillars of the Cameroonian government.

The joint gendarmerie-police investigation is moving ahead quickly and, at this rate, is liable to eclipse President Paul Biya’s 90th birthday on 13 February. It is Biya, Cameroon’s president since 1982, who ordered the investigation into Martinez Zogo’s abduction, beating and murder by intelligence officers on the evening of 17 January. But he must surely realize to what extent the case is liable to cast a heavy shadow over the final period of his presidency and perhaps remove one of its most loyal allies.

As RSF already revealed, the initial arrests of around 20 members of Cameroon’s General Directorate for External Investigations (DGRE), including its boss, the feared Maxime Eko Eko, and its special operations director, Justin Danwe, led to the arrest on 6 February of Belinga, a prominent businessman, who owns the newspaper L’Anecdote and the TV channel Vision 4.

RSF has been told in confidence that evidence of Belinga’s role as the leading instigator of Zogo’s murder has continued to grow. The statements provided by the six members of the unit who abducted and killed Radio Amplitude FM’s director – and who were mainly recruited from outside Yaoundé, the capital, as RSF has now learned – have corroborated the staggering statement made by Danwe, which RSF already reported.

Their statements and other evidence have also confirmed Belinga’s presence at the scene of the murder. And examination of the phones of the suspects has confirmed that calls were made between Belinga and Danwe, and between Belinga and justice minister Laurent Esso, on the evening of the murder. In view of the growing volume of evidence, a reconstruction of the murder – envisaged in recent days – no longer seems to be a priority for the investigators, RSF has learned.

He “wanted to finish with him”

Sources very close to the investigation report the discovery of damning new evidence of a payment of 35 million CFA francs (about 53,000 euros) from Belinga to Danwe. This money allegedly passed through the account of Retired Colonel Etoundi Nsoé, the former presidential guard commander who is Belinga’s father-in-law and unofficial head of his security. Nsoé was arrested on 6 February, as was Bruno Bidjang, the head of the Belinga’s media group, who is reportedly cooperating with the investigators. A face-to-face confrontation between these two men was scheduled to take place today.

Finally, RSF has interviewed two people in the past two days who say Zogo had been threatened by Belinga or people close to him. And RSF has heard a recording in which Zogo voiced concern on 9 January – eight days before his murder – about the fact that he had been contacted by a man “very close to [Belinga].” This man had told Zogo that Belinga “wanted to finish with him” and with at least eight other Cameroonian journalists.

When contacted by RSF, Belinga’s lawyer, former bar association president Charles Tchoungang, claimed that no legal procedure had been respected since the start of what he called a “unilateral investigation.” He insisted that “warrantless searches” had been carried out, that the prosecution case was “empty,” and that it had the subject of a “manipulation unacceptable to public opinion.”

Sights now turned on Laurent Esso

The investigators are now focusing on the role that Esso, the justice minister, may have played. “We have proof that he was deeply involved,” said one of the investigators, refusing to elaborate. A government minister in six successive administrations since 1996 and one of President Biya’s oldest political allies, Esso has been under close surveillance in the past few days. Gendarmes were posted close to his home although there was no question of any threat to his security.

Belinga, who is being held in a cell at the defence ministry, has asked several times to call Esso, but his request has not been granted. RSF has meanwhile learned from a very reliable source that Belinga spent more than an hour in Esso’s office on 3 February, several days after first falling under heaving suspicions.

Despite several attempts, RSF has not been able to reach Esso.

 Purveyors of disinformation identified

The evidence against Eko, the DGRE’s boss – who is being held in a cell near Belinga’s – also seems to be damning. He is the owner of the Prado SUV used to abduct Zogo. “It’s hard to imagine his men borrowing it without telling him,” one of RSF’s sources said. He also “had his share,” the source added, alluding to the sums of money paid to the participants in the operation.

The military justice system and the Government Commissioner are now in charge of the case. The 31 suspects already in provisional custody should be charged and placed in pre-trial detention, probably in Yaoundé’s main prison, by the end of the week. Who will join them? How high does the level of complicity go? The investigation is continuing and around 100 people are now regarded as “persons of interest” in the case.

Those who have been taking turns to spread disinformation since the start of the case – and who have targeted RSF, among others – could also be questioned. The investigators say they have found evidence of payments – ranging from a few hundred to several thousand euros –made by Belinga associates with the aim of discrediting reports unfavourable to him, rehabilitating him or creating diversions in order to influence the investigation or public opinion. At least 18 persons had been identified by yesterday evening.

Culled from RSF