Headline News

21, April 2021

Chad: Mahamat Idriss Deby, son of slain president, emerges as new strongman ⁰

The youthful general Mahamat Idriss Deby, who stood watch over his late father as head of the presidential guard, is set to take over as Chad’s new head of state, according to a charter released Wednesday by the presidency.

The presidency moved swiftly to put the reins of power in the hands of the 37-year-old general and tear up Chad’s constitution, establishing a “Transition Charter” that lays out a new basic law for the desert country of 16 million people.

The new charter issued Wednesday proclaimed that Mahamat, a career soldier like his father, will “occupy the functions of the president of the republic” and also serve as head of the armed forces.

Mahamat had already been named the head of a military council on Tuesday soon after the announcement of Deby’s death in combat, a move that sidelined other political institutions in Chad and has been branded a coup d’etat by opposition groups.

The four-star general was not on any list of heirs to the throne drawn up by experts, who said they believed the veteran warlord and president had not chosen a successor and seemed to worry little about it.

But Mahamat immediately took charge of a transitional military council and appointed 14 of the most trusted generals to a junta to run Chad until “free and democratic” elections in 18-months time.

Commander in chief of the all-powerful red-bereted presidential guard or DGSSIE security service for state institutions, he carries the nickname Mahamat “Kaka” or grandmother in Chadian Arabic, after his father’s mother who raised him.

“The man in black glasses”, as he is known in military circles, is said to be a discreet, quiet officer who looks after his men.

A career soldier, just like his father, he is from the Zaghawa ethnic group which can boast of numerous top officers in an army seen as one of the finest in the region.

“He has always been at his father’s side. He also led the DGSSIE. The army has gone for continuity in the system,” Kelma Manatouma, a Chadian political science researcher at Paris-Nanterre university, told AFP.

However over recent months the unity of the Zaghawas has fractured and the president has removed several suspect officers, sources close to the palace said.

Born to a mother from the Sharan Goran ethnic group, he also married a Goran, Dahabaye Oumar Souny, a journalist at the presidential press service. She is the daughter of a senior official who was close to former president Hissene Habre, ousted by Idriss Deby in 1990.

The Zaghawa community thus look with some suspicion on Mahamat, some regional experts say.

Challenges ahead

“He is far too young and not especially liked by other officers,” said Roland Marchal, from the International Research Centre at Sciences Po university in Paris.

“There is bound to be a night of the long knives,” Marchal predicted in an interview with AFP.

The rebel forces who have been blamed for Deby’s death have also vowed to press on with their offensive, categorically rejecting the transition of power.

“Chad is not a monarchy,” said a statement from the group known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad. “There can be no dynastic devolution of power in our country.”

Brought up by his paternal grandmother in N’Djamena, Mahamat was sent to a military lycee in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, but stayed only a few months.

Back home in Chad, he returned to training at the military group school in the capital and joined the presidential guard.

He rose quickly through the command structure from an armoured group to head of security at the presidential palace before taking over the whole DGSSIE structure.

Mahamat was acclaimed for his efforts at the final victory in 2009 at Am-Dam against the forces of nephew Timan Erdimi’s forces. Those forces had launched a rebellion in the east and had reached the gates of the presidential palace a year earlier, before being pushed back after French intervention.

He finally moved out of the shadow of his brother Abdelkerim Idriss Deby, deputy director of the presidential office, when he was appointed deputy chief of the Chadian armed force deployed to Mali in 2013.

That brought Mahamat to work closely with French troops in operation Serval against the jihadists in 2013-14.

“It is hard to imagine France allowing the country to slip into chaos and not supporting Deby’s successor,” regional specialist Vincent Hugueux told FRANCE 24, stressing Chad’s crucial role as France’s main ally in the fight against jihadist insurgents in the wider region.

The French presidency has announced that President Emmanuel Macron will attend Deby’s state funeral on Friday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

21, April 2021

Emilia Lifaka: A victim of her own super spreader event ⁰

When the Member of Parliament for Fako in the Southwest region, Emilia Lifaka Monjowa, organised a birthday party to celebrate her 62th birthday, little did she know that her birthday party would double as a farewell party.

As a parliamentarian, she was supposed to have known that it was preposterous to organize parties as such parties only turn out to be COVID-19 super spreader events.

The party was mostly attended by women of size, most of them very rich in butts and stomachs that could contain large quantities of food and drinks.

Lifaka and her admirers wanted to defy COVID-19 which has been the real lawmaker for close to two years.

Its rules are clear. No large crowds and no parties. But Lifaka thought COVID-19 was a respecter of persons and her poor judgement has sent her to an early grave.

COVID-19 is just a finisher. Lifaka was a huge woman and she had become a colony of diseases over the years.

From people like her and Prof. Mendo Ze, it is very easy to figure out that government money can turn a slim person into a mammoth.

Lifaka had allowed multiple diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes and asthma to converge on her body, transforming it into a modern conference centre for illnesses that have no pity for people who are reckless and careless.

While her supporters are seeking to hide the real cause of her sudden death, hospital sources have intimated that she was a victim of COVID-19. Diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma had outsourced the final phase of their project to COVID-19 and it did a professional job. In this case, COVID-19 seemed to have been a student of the Rapid Results College. It brought the MP down so fast that many people are worried.

It is being speculated that she might have picked up the South African variant that is very violent and hates fat people.

Her death has triggered a wave of fear and all those who attended her super spreader event are all over Cameroon looking for ways to save their lives.

In Fako Division, garlic, lemon and ginger are all in short supply as these ingredients have become the tea of choice for those who defied COVID-19 rules just to attend the party.

For most of them, attending a party organized by the Deputy Speaker of the House was indeed a status symbol, but many of them are trembling in their pants, especially those who have diabetes and cardiovascular disorders.

The deputy speaker should have known better and she should have been anti-covid-19 advocate, but she insisted on organizing a party that did not have any raison d’être. Many of those who attended the party are now cursing her for dragging them into that “party of death.”

A lady from Limbe who has elected anonymity and who attended the party because of her connection to Ms. Lifaka has lost sleep ever since she heard that COVID-19 was to blame for the quick disappearance of a speaker who will no longer be speaking, as there is no Cameroon-type parliament wherever she is gone to.

“I hate myself for attending that party. I went there reluctantly because I do respect the Deputy Speaker of the House. I live with eight people in my house and we are all trembling. We will be going to the hospital to get the COVID-19 test just to be on the safe side,” the desperate reveler told the Cameroon Concord News Group correspondent in Fako.

“We are no longer at ease. COVID-19 is an uncomfortable inconvenience, but the death of the Member of Parliament has left us in the most unsettling situation. Until, we receive our test results in a few days time, we will not be happy. I am a real wreck for now. I am scared. I feel I might die and leave my children helpless. A few hours of pleasure are today spreading pain and suffering in Fako,” she regretted.

The colonial Southwest regional governor, Okalia Bilai, is well aware of the tragic death of the Deputy Speaker. He was duly briefed by the Buea Regional hospital director, Dr. Matin Mokake, who advised him that Ms. Lifaka was a victim of COVID-19, adding that she was a perfect candidate for such death because she was immuno-compromised and obese.

Arrangements are underway to give her a befitting burial but there is panic across the country given that she has been brought down by the insidious and uncompromising Coronavirus.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

20, April 2021

Chad coup d’état: President Idris Deby’s wife escapes to Yaoundé ⁰

Chad’s former first lady Hinda Deby Itno is no longer standing by her man and has fled the war-torn country with her children to Yaoundé.

The wife of President Idris Deby assassinated following a coup in N’djamena crossed the Chad-Cameroun border incognito and has accepted guarantees of protection and financial security from the 88 year-old President Biya.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Yaoundé gave her the opportunity to leave N’djamena with the help of French secret service officers operating in Chad.

Our Yaoundé city reporter also hinted that the Biya decision was made in the best interest of the late President Idris Deby children.

Chadian rebels that launched the offensive against the Idris Deby regime have rejected the transition government led by one of Deby’s sons, four Star General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno and have vowed to pursue the offensive. A state funeral for Deby will be held on Friday, the presidency said.

As Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, exits the political scene in uncertain circumstances, many in the world have begun thinking that Chad might be talking to Cameroon.

The Chadian president had won a landslide victory in a predetermined presidential election like his Cameroonian counterpart, Paul Biya.

The beleaguered Chadian leader was dealing with an insurgency just like his Cameroonian counterpart and had vowed to crush it.

But can the Chadian situation be a lesson to Cameroonian authorities?

By Isong Asu with files

20, April 2021

Southern Cameroons CPDM MP dies in Buea after falling ill ⁰

A pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons politician has died en route to hospital in Buea after she became unwell. She has been named as Hon. Emilia Monjowa Lifaka, a member of President Biya’s ruling CPDM party.

Emilia Lifaka was reportedly with some family members when she suddenly fell ill on Tuesday evening. It is understood she suffered a possible “cardiac incident”. But Cameroon Concord News sources hinted that she contracted Covid-19 after celebrating her birthday recently.

Hon. Emilia Monjowa Lifaka entered Parliament in 2002. She has enjoyed the confidence of her electorates three times in very highly contested elections in the Fako constituency and in 2007 she was designated Deputy Majority Group Leader by the CPDM where she also moonlights as a Substantive Member of the Central Committee.

She was later elected Deputy Speaker of the house in 2009 and has served the Francophone dominated National Assembly in different sub Committees such as; Committee of Finance and the Budget, Constitutional Laws Committee, Member of the Executive Committee of Good Governance of the National Assembly and also a Member of the National Commission of Human Rights and Freedom. She represented the National Assembly in the National Decentralization Council from 2007-2014.

Hon. Emilia Monjowa Lifaka is a single mother with two adult boys. She holds a Diploma in Secretarial and Business Studies from Crown Secretarial.

She is also a holder of three National distinctions:

• Knight of the Cameroon National Order of Merit

• Officer of the Cameroon National Order of Merit

• Knight of the National Order of Valor

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files

20, April 2021

Chad: Expect things to get messy as rebels vow to keep fighting ⁰

The rebels that launched the offensive against the Idris Deby regime have rejected the transition government led by one of Deby’s sons, four Star General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno and have vowed to pursue the offensive.

“We categorically reject the transition,” said Kingabe Ogouzeimi de Tapol, spokesman for the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) on Tuesday. “We intend to pursue the offensive.”

A state funeral for Deby will be held on Friday, the presidency said.

The stunning announcement about the president’s death came just hours after electoral officials had declared Deby, 68, the winner of the April 11 presidential election, paving the way for him to stay in power for six more years.

Deby “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.

The army said a military council led by the late president’s 37-year-old son Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, a four-star general, would replace him.

Deby’s campaign said on Monday that he was headed to the frontlines to join troops battling “terrorists”.

Four Star General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, 37, son of the slain Chadian President Idriss Déby, will replace his father as head of a military council, the army announced on April 20, 2021.

The circumstances of Deby’s death could not immediately be independently confirmed due to the remote location. It was not known why the president would have visited the area or participated in ongoing clashes with the rebels who opposed his rule.

Rebels based across the northern frontier in Libya attacked a border post on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south across the desert.

‘A courageous friend’, says France

France on Tuesday paid tribute to Deby as a “courageous friend” and “great soldier”, while urging stability and a peaceful transition in the African country after his shock death.

“Chad is losing a great soldier and a president who has worked tirelessly for the security of the country and the stability of the region for three decades,” the office of President Emmanuel Macron said in statement, hailing Deby as a “courageous friend” of France.

The statement also emphasised France’s insistence on the “stability and territorial integrity” of Chad as it faces a push by rebel forces towards its capital, N’Djamena.

Defence Minister Florence Parly praised Deby as an “essential ally in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel” while emphasising that the fight against jihadist insurgents “will not stop”.

One of Africa’s longest-serving leaders

Deby came to power in a rebellion in 1990 and is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.

Although ruling Chad with an iron fist, he was a key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign in the troubled Sahel region.

On Monday, the army had claimed a “great victory” in its battle against the rebels from neighbouring Libya, saying it had killed 300 fighters, with the loss of five soldiers in its own ranks during eight days of combat.

Deby was a herder’s son from the Zaghawa ethnic group who took the classic path to power through the army, and relished the military culture.

His latest election victory – with almost 80 percent of the vote – had never been in doubt, with a divided opposition, boycott calls, and a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed.

Deby had campaigned on a promise of bringing peace and security to the region, but his pledges were undermined by the rebel incursion.

The government had sought Monday to assure concerned residents that the offensive was over.

There had been panic in some areas of N’Djamena on Monday after tanks were deployed along the city’s main roads, an AFP journalist reported.

The tanks were later withdrawn apart from a perimeter around the president’s office, which is under heavy security during normal times.

“The establishment of a security deployment in certain areas of the capital seems to have been misunderstood,” government spokesman Cherif Mahamat Zene had said on Twitter on Monday.

“There is no particular threat to fear.”

However, the US embassy in N’Djamena had on Saturday ordered non-essential personnel to leave the country, warning of possible violence in the capital. Britain also urged its nationals to leave.

France’s embassy said in an advisory to its nationals in Chad that the deployment was a precaution and there was no specific threat to the capital.

‘After Deby, the flood’

‘Expect things to get messy’

Douglas Yates, a professor in African Studies at the American Graduate School in Paris, told FRANCE 24 that Deby’s death had come as a total surprise.

“Two days ago news had come out from the US embassy that they were evacuating personnel because there were rebels marching on the capital, and frankly the thought was ‘(Deby) will defeat them’, because he has systematically defeated every attempted coup before now.”

Yates said that although Deby was hardly known to be a great democrat, “he was a real soldier and in some ways, this was a worthy death for him. To die involved in the battle was better for him I think than to die in his bed from Covid.”

The professor said much of Chad’s unrest stems from Deby’s own people in the east with discontent rising over Deby not distributing enough oil wealth to them.

“Frankly, there’s probably not enough oil wealth to go around to everyone, but basically there were people who were unhappy, who felt like they were not getting their share and that’s been a repeated pattern in attempted coups.”

On the issue of Deby’s replacement, Yates said: “Expect things to get messy during the transition.”

“He had been in power so long, and eliminating any rivals and imprisoning his democratic opposition. What you have [now] is a large number of people who would like to be the president of Chad rather than one unified opposition leader.”

“Like Napoleon had said: ‘After me, the flood.’ And certainly after Idriss Deby, the flood.”

“One thing is certain, France has just lost one of its key allies in the region.”

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and REUTERS)

20, April 2021

Idriss Deby’s Death: Is Chad talking to Cameroon? ⁰

As Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, exits the political scene in uncertain circumstances, many in the world have begun thinking that Chad might be talking to Cameroon.

The Chadian president had won a landslide victory in a predetermined presidential election like his Cameroonian counterpart, Paul Biya.

The beleaguered Chadian leader was dealing with an insurgency just like his Cameroonian counterpart and had vowed to crush it.

But can the Chadian situation be a lesson to Cameroonian authorities? This will be the subject of the next editorial as things play out in Chad.

Cameroon has been touted as an oasis of peace in a desert of chaos for many decades, but for some time now, the country has gradually been ranking itself among the most dangerous, corrupt and chaotic countries to live in as descent and frustration spread across the country like wildfire.

Four years ago, the country’s president, Paul Biya, erroneously declared war on the country’s English-speaking minority which was simply demonstrating to bring its sorry plight to the attention of the government and the international community and what Mr. Biya and his collaborators thought would be wrapped up in a week has now lasted four years with more than 7,000 young Cameroonians already sent to an early grave in a war that has no raison d’etre.

As the government and militia have transformed the country into an open air killing field, the country’s economy has taken a nosedive, with millions of Cameroonians seeking employment and thousands losing their jobs in the country’s two English-speaking regions where the killings are going on unabated.

The number of internally displaced person has continued to swell, while millions have fled to neighboring Nigeria where they are living rough and waiting for the fighting to end for them to return to their country, though their homes have been razed by government soldiers who are wont to inflicting collective punishment on the population each time an army soldier is killed.

But it is not only Southern Cameroons that is going through such an apocalypse. The northern part of the country has been the theater of violent confrontations between government troops and Boko Haram fighters who have bombed many civilians into an early grave.

While the government has been active in the North hoping that it could roll back Boko Haram fighters who are believed to come from Nigeria, government forces have succeeded to alienate Northerner due to massive and bloody killings and abuse of the civilian population which now sympathizes with Boko Haram fighters who are sometimes viewed as liberators.

Noted for its corruption, the government has never really sought to address those issues that are really threatening national unity and integration. The North, like many parts of the country, has been neglected, with very little development projects being implemented in that part of the country.

Tribalism and nepotism are really tearing the country apart as most senior government positions are only occupied by the president’s tribesmen and those loyal to him and his ruling crime syndicate known as the CPDM.

However, it is not the government’s nepotism that is the issue but the results it has posted over the last four decades. Cameroonians would not be bothered if those occupying those strategic positions were really delivering desired results.

While across the country the unemployment rate is high, it is a lot higher in the northern region of the country where there are no companies, no roads, no hospitals and no social services and financial assistance that can even cushion the impact of the economic hardship.

The frustrations in the North are legion and the pain is excruciating. The North has lost almost everything it had during the Amadou Ahidjo days and this is really painful.

Northerners have grudges and they want to get their pound of flesh sooner rather than later. The Biya regime had killed thousands of Northerners, especially senior northern military officials, following a coup d’état in 1984 that led to the country’s first president, Amadou Ahidjo, fleeing to Senegal where he died and is currently lying in an unmarked grave.

This bitterness and the corruption which have robbed the northern population of many services has pushed the frustrated northern population to set up a militia which is now armed and willing to fight the Yaounde government that has never incorporated dialogue into its national development and integration strategy.

The new militia is enjoying huge support from muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates which surely have a hidden agenda that may result in the long term destabilization of the country.

Cameroon is falling apart and the way things are shaping up, if care is not taken, it might end up like Zaire, currently the Democratic Republic of Congo, where since its brutal dictator, Mobutu Seseseko, fell in 1994, the country has been unstable and the number of militia has grown by leaps and bounds and the country has become the epitome of political chaos.

The international community must stop looking the other way as Cameroon continues its unfortunate but sure descent to the bottom of the abyss of chaos and corruption.

With new armed groups cropping up on a daily basis, it is obvious that the country which is now on life support may one day implode and the consequences could linger for a very long time.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

20, April 2021

Fans slam creation of European Super League ⁰

Supporters of the six Premier League clubs leading the breakaway European Super League have slammed the controversial plan, branding it the “ultimate betrayal”.

Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham are all involved in the new competition, alongside Spanish trio Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Italian clubs Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan.

The founding sides will share 3.5 billion euros ($4 billion, £3 billion) for infrastructure investment and to offset coronavirus pandemic costs.

They are expected to receive a further 10 billion euros in “solidarity payments” over the life of the initial commitment, convincing them to turn their backs on the Champions League in favour of the new invite-only competition.

Reaction to the incendiary scheme has been furious, with football’s governing bodies FIFA and UEFA, as well as all the leading domestic leagues condemning the “cynical” plan.

While their clubs would gain financially from the move, supporters of the Premier League teams involved were united in their contempt for such a nakedly greed-motivated project.

Source: AFP

20, April 2021

Battle For N’djamena: Chad President Idriss Deby has died ⁰

Chad’s newly re-elected President Idriss Deby has died of injuries suffered on the frontline while fighting rebels in the north of the Sahel country, an army spokesman said on Tuesday. But there are conflicting reports on what actually led to his demise with some political commentators saying it was an inside job.

Deby, 68, “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.

The news came a day after Deby won a sixth term, as per provisional election results released on Monday. Deby, who came to power in a rebellion in 1990, took 79.3 percent of the vote in the April 11 presidential election, the results showed.

This item is still developing

20, April 2021

Cameroon’s former First Lady Germaine Ahidjo dies in Senegal hospital aged 89 ⁰

The wife of the first president of the Republic of Cameroon, Ahmadou Ahidjo has reportedly passed away in the main hospital in Dakar (Senegal), at the age of 89. First Lady of Cameroon from 1960 to 1982, Germaine Habiba Ahidjo was born in Mokolo in 1932. In 1942, she obtained her school certificate in Yaoundé and then joined the Douala Girls’ College, now the New-Bell High School.

In 1947, through Louis Paul Aujoulat, the Territorial Assembly granted her a scholarship to France where she obtained a state nursing diploma in 1952 and specialised in tropical diseases at the Pasteur Institute in 1953. She married a Lebanese man named Touffic, with whom she had a son, Daniel Boubakari, who settled in Bafoussam. She divorced him before returning to Cameroon.

In 1955, she met Ahmadou Ahidjo, who officially married her on 17 August 1957. She was then a nurse specialised in tropical diseases. With Ahmadou Ahidjo, she had three daughters: Babette, Aissatou and Aminatou (CEO of the Yaoundé Conference Centre).

After her husband resigned in November 1982, and was sentenced to death in absentia for his involvement in the failed coup of 1984, she could not return to the country with him and moved to Dakar (Senegal), where she still lived. Her husband died there on 30 November 1989 and was buried. Since then, she has been campaigning for his official rehabilitation and above all, for the repatriation of his remains to Cameroon. She was a reserved person who put her advice at the service of her husband.

By Chi Prudence Asong

20, April 2021

Biya regime dispute with Seedorf and Kluivert rages on ⁰

A salary row dating back several years involving two former coaches of the national team, Clarence Seedorf and Patrick Kluivert, could end up being extremely costly for the Cameroonian Football Federation.

In a case of abusive breach of contract, world football governing body FIFA has ordered the Francophone dominated Football federation FECAFOOT to pay 316,000 Euros (207283360 FCFA) to Clarence Seedorf, the former coach of the Indomitable Lions, whose dismissal it considered unfounded.

FIFA stated that the Cameroon Football Federation should pay the applicant within 30 days from the notification of the decision, the said sum of 316,000 Euros as compensation for breach of contract, plus 5% interest from 29 May 2020 until the date of actual payment.

The 45 year-old Clarence Seedorf as well as his deputy Patrick Kluivert, were dismissed from their positions as Cameroon coaches on 16 July 2016, after the Africa Cup of Nations fiasco in Egypt.

The ruling CPDM criminals running Cameroon Football Federation blamed Seedorf and his staff for what they painted as a “premature exit” from the Africa Cup of Nations after the Indomitable Lions were eliminated from the competition by Nigeria.

In August 2019, the Dutch technicians had filed a complaint with FIFA for “unfair dismissal” and were claiming 1.3 billion FCFA from FECAFOOT.

This is not the first time that the consortium of crime syndicates in Yaoundé has been ordered to pay compensation to a technician after an “abusive dismissal”. The corrupt football men and women in French Cameroun have a well established reputation of separating from those they hire abroad through fraudulent contracts and kickbacks to compensating them afterwards.

By Cameroon Concord News and Africa Intelligence