Headline News

21, July 2021

Football: Eto’o excited about Qatar World Cup ⁰

Qatar Legacy Ambassador, Samuel Eto’o, looked forward to the Tokyo Olympics and the first FIFA World Cup to be held in the Middle East and Arab world.

“I have no doubt that it will be the most beautiful World Cup ever organised. And I have one wish – to witness a final featuring Cameroon v Qatar for a once in a lifetime experience,” said the former Cameroon international.

Eto’o, who was part of a Gold medal-winning Cameroon side at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000, was also excited about the upcoming Olympic in Tokyo.

“Anyone who is passionate about sport will naturally follow the Olympic Games, it is a major sporting competition and those who love sport will not miss it,” he added.

The Cameroonian legend has been a regular visitor of Qatar and is not the only high-profile footballer to hold a role as a Qatar 2022 Legacy Ambassador with the Al Sadd head coach Xavi, Brazil legend Cafu and Australia’s Tim Cahill also in the same role.

Source: Africa News

21, July 2021

Hundreds of Ugandans given fake Covid jabs ⁰

At least 800 people in Uganda were given fake coronavirus vaccines — some injected with water — in a scam that involved “unscrupulous” doctors and health workers, government officials said Wednesday.

The counterfeit jabs were administered over May and June during a deadly surge of the coronavirus in the East African nation, when new infections soared to record highs of about 1,700 cases per day.

The fraudsters targeted people looking to pay for immunisation, including corporate employees, at a time when vaccines were in short supply, said Dr Warren Naamara, the director of a health services monitoring unit under the presidency.

“Some unscrupulous individuals with intentions of making money, duped members of the public into a fake Covid-19 vaccine exercise,” Dr Naamara told AFP.

“We have arrested two medical workers in the scam, and one medical doctor is on the run.”

He said those conned into getting a fake vaccine — around 800 people — should not be alarmed as tests indicated the vials contained nothing dangerous.

“Some had water in them,” he added.

The scammers charged recipients between 80,000 and 500,000 Ugandan shillings (around $25-$120 / 20-100 euros) for a fake shot, officials said.

The health ministry said Wednesday that the government was providing free and approved Covid-19 jabs at designated vaccination sites.

On June 18, as coronavirus cases and deaths in Uganda surged to record highs, President Yoweri Museveni announced a freeze on all public and private transport for 42 days, and imposed a strict dusk-to-dawn curfew to try and drive numbers down.

The veteran president warned that hospitals were full and not coping with the outbreak.

Since then, infection numbers have dipped, with 252 cases reported on Wednesday.

Uganda has overall recorded 91,162 infections, of which 2,425 have been fatal, since the pandemic began, according to the health ministry’s latest tally Wednesday.

Source: AFP

21, July 2021

Mali opens probe into attempted assassination of interim president ⁰

Mali on Wednesday said it had opened a probe into an attempt to assassinate military strongman Assimi Goita, the figure behind two coups in less than a year in one of Africa’s most troubled countries.

“An ill-intentioned individual tried to physically harm” Goita after prayers for Eid al-Adha at Bamako’s Grand Mosque, prosecutor Bourama Kariba Konate said in a statement.

The act “comes under the categories of harming state security and attempted murder,” he said.

An inquiry has been opened “to shed light on this event.”

Goita was whisked away after a man armed with a knife lunged at him, an AFP reporter at the scene saw.

The leader later appeared on state TV to say he was doing “very well” and downplayed the significance of the assault.

“That’s part of being a leader, there are always malcontents,” he said. “There are people who at any time may want to try things to cause instability.”

A suspect who was taken away from the mosque remained in custody on Wednesday while police interviewed witnesses, commissioner Sadio Tomoda told AFP.

His identity was not revealed, but Tomoda said late Tuesday that he was a teacher, without elaborating.

Bamako was calm after the assault, according to AFP journalists. Wednesday was a public holiday to mark the Eid Muslim festival.

– Political turmoil –

The attack capped months of political turmoil in a country that has rarely enjoyed stability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

Goita, a special forces colonel in his late thirties, headed a putsch last August that ousted elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after weeks of protests over graft and a bloody jihadist insurgency.

The junta, in the face of international condemnation, handed power to a civilian-led transitional government which promised to restore civilian rule in February 2022.

But in late May, Goita, who was vice president under the transitional government, ousted the president, Bah Ndaw, and premier Moctar Ouane, saying they had sought to “sabotage” the handover.

In June, with Goita as interim president, a new government was unveiled, with military figures in key roles.

As the African Union and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS piled on pressure, Goita vowed the government would “uphold all its commitments” and pledged to stage “credible, fair and transparent elections.”

Mali’s neighbours and allies have been viewing the crisis with disquiet, fearing the impact on efforts to stem a jihadist insurgency that is unfurling across the Sahel.

The bloody campaign erupted in the north of Mali in 2012, and has since spread to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

France, the mainstay of the anti-jihadist operation, has been especially critical of the military takeover in Mali.

It suspended military cooperation after the second coup and then announced a major drawdown of its 5,100-man Barkhane mission.

Source: AFP

21, July 2021

Muslims plead for an end to Ambazonia crisis ⁰

Muslims in Cameroon have marked the Eid al-Adha, Festival of the Sacrifice, by praying for an end to the country’s separatist conflict, which has killed more than 3,000 people since 2017. Muslim leaders also called on Cameroon’s vaccine skeptics to be inoculated against COVID-19, which has infected more than 80,000 people and killed at least 1,300.

Muslim cleric Bouba Goi Goi officiating Eid al-Adha prayers at the Islamic Complex in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé, said in his sermon that all Muslims should live lives of complete submission to God to enjoy eternal life, both physical on earth and spiritual in heaven with Allah.

Souley Mane is spokesman of Cameroon’s National Moon Crescent Commission that is responsible for announcing the day of Muslim feasts.

He said Bouba asked Cameroonians of all religious denominations to educate civilians on the need for stability in the central African state.

“It is an opportunity for every Muslim to have a spiritual project to pray for peace, security, unity, health and living together in our country. A good Muslim should be an ambassador of his religion, somebody who tries to work harder for his family, for his community and for his country,” he said.

Mane said that the 1,500 people at the prayer complex include Christians.

The Council of Imams and Muslim Dignitaries of Cameroon organized the prayer for peace.

The council’s coordinator, Moussa Oumarou, said Muslims who are separatist fighters should drop their weapons and encourage their peers of other religions to stop fighting.

Cameroon estimates that there are at least 2,000 separatist fighters in its English-speaking western regions. The government said the number of fighters who are Muslims is unknown since the rebels hide as civilians.

Souleyman Mefire Ngoucheme is imam of the Nkoazoa Mosque located 10 kilometers west of Yaounde. He said besides promoting peace, Muslim cleric in Cameroon also cautioned faithful on the dangers of COVID-19.

He said he is asking all Muslims in Cameroon to respect COVID-19 barrier measures like regular washing of hands with soap and water, putting on face masks in public and keeping a physical distance of at least a meter from other people. Ngoucheme said Muslims should not hesitate to take COVID-19 vaccine because the jab can save their lives and help to stop the coronavirus spread that has killed so many people.

Cameroon said fewer than 150,000 people have been vaccinated since April, when the government received 700,000 doses to inoculate civilians against COVID-19.

Last year during Eid al-Adha, Cameroon restricted prayers and festivities that brought together more than 10 people. Thousands of Muslims in the capital Yaoundé defied the restrictions, ordered as part of measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. This year, many came with face masks but did not respect the at least one meter distance from each person as instructed by the government.

Source: VOA

21, July 2021

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Is Minister Ngoh Ngoh losing his influence? ⁰

The position of the Minister-Secretary General at the presidency, who enjoys the support of first lady Chantal Biya, seems to be under threat. Until now, he has always managed to save his skin.

Africa Intelligence reported that all pro Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh aides who regularly accompany President Biya as a VIP guest at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva were not included in the recent delegation that travelled to Switzerland with the president.

Ngoh Ngoh was also involved in the controversial management of the Ebo forest that fanned the flames of an unending clan warfare that is tearing the Biya regime apart.

Fingers are also pointing at Minister Ngoh Ngoh following the sudden flaring up in less than a fortnight of the latent security crisis in Southern Cameroons together with tensions generated by the Franck Biya succession palaver.

Source: Africa Intelligence

21, July 2021

Biya should give up this hopeless and dangerous Beti Ewondo crusade to hold on to power ⁰

Saturday July 17 is now among the President Biya’s darkest days. Not since the April 6 coup in 1984 has the Cameroonian presidency been laid so low.

While Cameroonians did the right thing on that April 6 1984 by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their president, the same Biya on Saturday July 17 2021 was hiding inside the InterContinental Hotel in Geneva now seen as Cameroon’s eleventh region in his desperate attempt to cling to an office Cameroonians have denied him several times.

Some pro Biya militants had dubiously chanted praises to the man who has misruled Cameroon for 38 years in front of the same Geneva hotel. But the Swiss police took interest in the massive demo organized by the BAS majority following that stormed past armed police officers and into the InterContinental Hotel, where the 88-year-old dictator was preparing to drive to Cannes in France with his wife Chantal Biya to enjoy the Cannes Film Festival.

The fault lies entirely with Biya and his criminal gang. Their rhetoric on state radio and television has been very inciteful against Southern Cameroonians and the Bamilekes of French Cameroun and each day they are marketing false narratives that Cameroonians clamouring for reforms simply want political power. Now, the nation is exploding.

Biya’s performance in Geneva was befitting his presidency, which has been crude, undisciplined and self-serving. Biya has always placed his own interest and that of his tribe’s men ahead of the nation’s.

In the days of the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cameroon governor, an SDO let alone the head of state traveling abroad and making a hotel his home away from home.

Why go back to the same hotel in Geneva?

What is so special in the InterContinental Hotel in Geneva? Only the 88-year-old Biya, Cameroon’s crudest and least dignified president can tell.

Biya has devoted his presidency to denigrating Cameroonian institutions and citizens who refused to play along with his irrational denial of reality. Of course, you can do whatever you want as head of state if you keep the people frightened enough.

The Francophone leader has bullied everyone deep within his ruling CPDM crime syndicate and even beyond but he is now very surprise at seeing young French Cameroonians in the diaspora getting on his way as patriotism is in very short supply at Etoudi.

In 1982, Biya swore to uphold the Constitution but has spent more than three decades encouraging his loyalists to ignore the document and do whatever it takes to illegally keep him in power.

The late Ahmadou Ahidjo and his top aides gave Biya a rare and treasured honour — the privilege of serving the United Republic of Cameroon as president and entrusting Biya with the care of this precious homeland. Biya has abused that trust over and over.

The time has come for Biya to do the right thing by stepping aside. He and his gang must recognize the danger of continuing to hold on to power at 88 in a nation that is already disintegrating.

Dion Ngute, Maigari Bello Bouba, Laurent Esso and Philemon Yang must break into the youthful tribal clique around Biya and make him see the escalation of the chaos and violence his hanging on to power is creating in Southern Cameroons, the Far North and also in the East.

It will be a very serious matter if the military should send him packing out of the so-called Unity Palace. The Biya generation should organize a peaceful transition of power to a new administration and Biya and his kinsmen in Yaoundé have an obligation to ensure that the transfer is indeed peaceful.

Biya and his men must stop agitating their supporters, stop the war in Southern Cameroons, condemn police and army violence, free all Southern Cameroons detainees; free all political opponents, accept that mistakes have been made and give up this hopeless and dangerous Beti Ewondo crusade to hold on to power.

A stitch in time saves nine

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

20, July 2021

Mali: Interim president Goïta ‘safe and sound’ after assassination attempt at Bamako mosque ⁰

Mali’s interim president Colonel Assimi Goita was “safe and sound”, his office said, after an assassination attempt by two men, one wielding a knife, during prayers at a mosque in Bamako on Tuesday.

An AFP journalist who witnessed the attack said the assailants lunged at Goita, who was quickly whisked away by security.

The journalist also said he saw blood at the scene, though it was not clear who had been wounded.

An official in the president’s office later said Goita was “safe and sound”, after what was labelled an assassination attempt.

Goita arrived at the military camp of Kati, outside the capital, “where security has been reinforced”, the official added.

Security had subdued one attacker, and “investigations are ongoing”, the presidency added in a statement.

The incident occurred after prayers for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha in the great mosque of Bamako.

Assailants went for the president as an imam was directing worshippers outside the mosque for a ritual animal sacrifice.

Religious Affairs Minister Mamadou Kone, who was at the mosque, told AFP that a man had “tried to kill the president with a knife” but was apprehended.

The mosque’s director, Latus Toure, said an attacker had lunged at the president but wounded someone else.

Later, a security official who requested anonymity said that two people had been arrested and were now in detention.

Political turmoil

The shocking attack follows months of political turmoil in Mali, which is also battling a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Goita was sworn into power in June, after leading the country’s second coup in less than a year.

The colonel had already led a putsch last August, when he and other army officers ousted elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after weeks of mass protests over corruption and the long-running jihadist conflict.

The second coup in nine months sparked diplomatic uproar, prompting the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to suspend Mali, calling for the appointment of a civilian prime minister.

Jihadist insurgency

France, which has thousands of troops stationed in the war-torn country, also suspended military cooperation with Mali.

The former colonial power followed by announcing that it would wind down its 5,100-strong Barkhane force that has battled jihadists in the Sahel since 2013.

The military junta handed power to a civilian-led transitional government, which promised to restore civilian rule in February 2022.

In June it unveiled its new government, appointing military figures in key roles.

Goita vowed at the time that the government would “uphold all its commitments”, pledging to stage “credible, fair and transparent elections”.

A large majority of the 15-nation UN’s Security Council later called for free and fair elections to go ahead in the country without the participation of its current leaders.

Mali also faces unrest outside the political arena.

It has been struggling to contain an jihadist insurgency that first emerged in the north of the country in 2012, and has since spread to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

The conflict has also been mirrored by political instability in the capital.

Source: AFP

20, July 2021

Ambazonia: The 88-year-old paedophile has made it harder for bare necessities to enter Southern Cameroons ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima says all fellow Ambazonian restoration groups do not rule out using any option to force the Biya French Cameroun regime to end its war and occupation of the Southern Cameroons homeland.

VP Dabney Yerima made the remarks on Monday, addressing Yaoundé’s refusal to enable the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to move ahead with reconstruction and development as Africa’s newest nation.

Thousands of Southern Cameroonians, including scores of children and dozens of women have been killed since the war started four years ago. A report recent sent to the European Union by the Cameroon Concord News Group put the damage on infrastructure at about $800 million.

“Southern Cameroonians in Ground 1, Ghana and in the West will never wait for long. The occupying regime is on its way out” Yerima said

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government and its affiliated groups have been defending the Ambazonia homeland in the face of incessant French Cameroun aggression.

Yerima warned that the enemy regime in French Cameroun continued procrastination in withdrawing its troops and acting on calls for a ceasefire would lead to a shameful collapse of the Francophone dictator in Yaoundé.

The 88-year-old French Cameroun paedophile has made it harder for bare necessities to enter Southern Cameroons and has also held up aid offered by international agencies.

By Chi Prudence Asong in London

20, July 2021

South Africa: Zuma’s corruption trial to resume August 10 ⁰

Jacob Zuma’s long-running corruption trial will resume on August 10, a South African judge ruled on Tuesday after the ex-president sought to have the case postponed because of the pandemic and recent unrest.

“The trial is adjourned to 10 to 13 August,” Judge Piet Koen said.

Zuma on Monday appeared in court via a video link from his prison, where he is serving a jail term for contempt of court on an unrelated matter.

His lawyers had applied to have the case postponed by up to three weeks because of the unrest and the Covid pandemic to allow time for the trial to resume physically.

The 79-year-old faces 16 charges of fraud, graft and racketeering related to the 1999 purchase of fighter jets, patrol boats and equipment from five European arms firms when he was deputy president.

He is accused of taking bribes from one of the firms, French defence giant Thales, which has been charged with corruption and money laundering.

Both Zuma and Thales have entered pleas of not guilty.

His foundation immediately lauded the decision, tweeting: “The Constitution has prevailed at last!”

“There can be NO virtual criminal proceedings in the absence of an accused person who is unable to consult with his lawyers,” it said.

Zuma, once dubbed the “Teflon president”, began serving a 15-month jail sentence for contempt on July 8.

He was arrested for disobeying a Constitutional Court order to testify before a panel probing the plunder of state coffers during his nine-year presidency

Source: AFP

20, July 2021

Biya and the IMF are playing different ⁰

Despite promises to the IMF, Biya continues to back his perennial company directors from his Beti Ewondo extractions.

The CPDM crime syndicate headed by 88-year-old President Paul Biya has negotiated several measures to reform the management of Cameroon’s public companies with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

However, Biya has kept his loyalists at the head of the main parastatals, some of whom have been in place for more than twenty years.

Source: Africa Intelligence