Headline News

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Nigeria’s hospitality to Ambazonians is remarkable

18, April 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Nigeria’s hospitality to Ambazonians is remarkable 0

Two nonprofit organizations, Community Refugee Relief Initiative,CRRI and The Fomunyoh Foundation , TFF have asserted that Nigeria’s hospitality towards Cameroonians who were currently taking refuge in the country was remarkable and rare gesture.

Vanguard learned the Over 80,000 Cameroonian refugee were taking refuge in different states in the Country including Cross River, Taraba, Benue ,Akwa Ibom amongst others. Speaking separately to Vanguard weekend, shortly after the tour and distribution of food items including rice,noodles,fruit juice amongst others to refugees in various camps across the Country and Cross River in particular , Dr. Celestine Atangcho and Christopher Famoyouh ,Chairman ,BOD of CRRI and President /Founder TFF said they were impressed with the hospitality Nigeria and her people have given to Cameroonian Refugees now living in Nigeria .

Fomunyoh said : “We want to put in a word of appreciation and thanks, genuine, sincere gratitude to the people of Nigeria, to the ordinary citizens of Nigeria for what they are doing to the Cameroonian refugees, for having open their hearts and their minds and their houses and their neighborhoods to Cameroonian refugees. “We have been very touched by that and I see the love that Nigerians show towards these refugees. It’s remarkable, it’s truly brotherly love. “We want to thank the authorities of the states that are harboring the refugees, notably, Cross River state, Akwa Ibom state, Benue state, Taraba state and all of the other states in which there may be a couple of refugees, including the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja, there’s a refugee camp settlement in Abuja,” he said .

On his part Dr Atangcho lauded the Federal Government of Nigeria for the attention they’re paying to refugees during this period. “We really appreciate the government of Nigeria for their attention during this crisis and for the appeals they’ve continued to make for the international community’s to address the root causes of the conflict, to bring the conflict to an end so that these refugees can return to their homes. “It is a strong reminder that as Africans, we have to look out for each other because we’re each other’s keeper. I have been so touched by that and I want to use this opportunity to sincerely thank them for what they’re doing, it’s been noticed, it’s being appreciated at all levels and we remain very grateful and I think that people will always be grateful for that. Vanguard learned that the two organization visited and distributed food items to Refugee camps both in rural ,urban areas as well as major cities including Calabar ,Oban,,Akor ,Adagom I &III ,Okende ,Ajasor ,Basua all in Cross River ,Ikyogen in Benue and Abuja .

Source: vanguardngr.com

Cuba: Castro resigns from ruling party to hand power to younger generation

17, April 2021

Cuba: Castro resigns from ruling party to hand power to younger generation 0

Former Cuban President Raul Castro has announced his resignation as the head of the country’s ruling Communist Party, the most powerful position in the Caribbean island nation.

Castro made the announcement during a speech Friday on the first day of the party’s eighth congress, saying he is handing over power to a younger generation that is “full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit.”

“I believe fervently in the strength and exemplary nature and comprehension of my compatriots, and as long as I live, I will be ready with my foot in the stirrups to defend the fatherland, the revolution and socialism,” he told party delegates at the closed-door meeting at a convention center in Havana.

Castro underlined that he was retiring with the sense of having “fulfilled his mission and confident in the future of the fatherland.”

He is expected to formally step down on April 19, the last day of the congress, when the party’s new leadership will be elected.

The 89-year-old was elected to the top position in 2011, succeeding his older brother and ex-president Fidel Castro, who had held that position since the founding of Cuba’s Communist Party in 1965.

Raul Castro announced in 2018 that he expected incumbent President Miguel Diaz-Canel to replace him after his retirement in 2021. The 60-year-old represents a new generation and has been serving the first of two five-year terms as president.

Castro’s retirement comes as Cuba is facing multiple challenges exacerbated by US-led sanctions against the Caribbean island nation as well as the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuba’s economy shrank 11 percent last year due to the deadly viral pathogen and tightened US sanctions which have caused a decline in aid from its ally, Venezuela.

Moreover, the US returned Havana to its so-called list of “state sponsors of terrorism” just nine days before Republican President Donald Trump left office.

The then US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said Cuba was being blacklisted for “repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism,” and cited Cuba’s security support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Source: Presstv

Britain’s Prince Philip, the Queen’s ‘strength and stay’ for seven decades

17, April 2021

Britain’s Prince Philip, the Queen’s ‘strength and stay’ for seven decades 0

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, died peacefully at Windsor Castle on April 9 at the age of 99 after seven decades at the heart of public life as consort to Queen Elizabeth II.

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

A charismatic figure famed for his deep sense of public duty, Prince Philip was the longest-serving consort of any British monarch after his marriage to Her Majesty in 1947 and her accession to the throne in 1952.

Philip was seen as an embodiment of British culture. But as with many nineteenth- and twentieth-century British royals, his family origins were a largely continental mix.

He was born on the Greek island of Corfu on June 10, 1921 to Andrew, Prince of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenburg, a royal from the ancient German principality of Hesse and a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

A war hero of continental origins

Philip considered himself Danish first and foremost – but also showed pride in his Russian as well as German and Greek roots. As a descendant of the Romanov dynasty, Philip gave in 1993 a DNA sample that identified the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and five children in an unmarked Siberian grave – dispelling the legend that the young Grand Duchess Anastasia had escaped the Bolshevik firing squad in the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Philip’s family left Greece as a baby when the royal family was exiled in 1922, as his uncle King Constantine I was blamed for the country’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish War. He was then educated in France and Germany. “If you couldn’t think of a word in one language, you tended to go off in another,” he later told The Independent of his polyglot family life.

He was at boarding school in Germany when Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. The school’s Jewish headmaster fled to the UK, where he founded the boarding school Gordonstoun in Scotland. The young Philip went with him.

On the advice of his uncle, Greece’s King George II, Philip pursued his training in the Royal Navy upon leaving Gordonstoun in 1939, as the spectre of Nazism menaced Europe. He served with bravery throughout the Second World War – principally in the Mediterranean theatre, where he was commended for his role alongside Greek forces in the 1941 Battle of Crete.

But Philip’s greatest moment of the war came during the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, a year after he was made first lieutenant of HMS Wallace. A Luftwaffe bombing campaign mercilessly attacked the ship, determined to destroy it, until Philip hatched a plan to set off smoke flares, fooling the German bombers into thinking they had already sunken the boat. Without Philip’s actions, those aboard would have had “little chance of survival”, one veteran recounted sixty years later.

During the war Philip corresponded with the then Princess Elizabeth. They had met in 1939 when he escorted the future Queen and her sister Margaret during their father King George VI’s visit to the Royal Naval College, where Philip was training. The 13-year-old Elizabeth fell in love with 18-year-old Philip and decided she wanted to marry him.

They were married in Westminster Abbey in 1947, months after Philip renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles and became a British subject. On the morning of the wedding, George VI made him Duke of Edinburgh.

Philip continued his naval career, spending a year in charge of the frigate HMS Magpie – again in the Mediterranean, where much of the Royal Navy was stationed to deter the expansion of communism – until his career at sea ended in 1951. With George VI’s health failing, the Duke became a full-time consort to the future Queen.

‘Will you walk with me?’

On February 6, 1952, George VI died and Her Majesty ascended to the throne. Philip became renowned for his commitment to public service, completing more than 22,000 solo engagements over 65 years until retiring from public duty in 2017 at the age of 96.

The Duke was either president or patron of some 780 charities and organisations that promoted causes such as environmental conservation, science and technology and participation in sport.

He played an instrumental role in founding the World Wildlife Fund in 1961, serving as the first president of its UK branch, then serving as president of the global organisation from 1981 to 1996 – using the pomp and circumstance of British royalty to help make the WWF an influential environmentalist force across the globe.

Philip’s most famous charitable cause in the UK was the Duke of Edinburgh Award, a programme for young people he set up in Britain in 1956 before expanding to 144 countries. It remains popular: More than 400,000 young Britons are currently completing their DoE, as it is commonly known. The award develops people’s skills and boosts their well-being through requirements including rigorous training in sport or fitness, volunteering for charitable causes and – most famously – the planning and undertaking of a challenging expedition over natural terrain.

The Duke was also known for his gaffes. At his wife’s coronation with one of the Crown Jewels the year after her ascension to the throne, he asked Her Majesty: “Where did you get that hat?” To a group of young deaf people standing next to a very loud steel band in Cardiff in 1999, he said: “If you’re near there, no wonder you’re deaf.” In 2002, when Her Majesty asked a young army cadet blinded by an Irish nationalist bomb how much he could see, the Duke said: “Not a lot, judging by that tie.”

When a member of the public told Philip, “I’m sorry to hear you’re standing down” after his retirement was announced, the then 96-year-old responded: “Well, I can’t stand up for much longer.”

But Philip famously deployed his softer side in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death in 1997, one of the most difficult weeks of Her Majesty’s reign. The 15-year-old Prince William, who had grown very close to Philip during family holidays, was reluctant to walk behind the coffin at the state funeral, keen to mourn his mother as privately as possible. But the Duke persuaded him: “If you don’t walk, I think you’ll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?” he said.

A few months later, at an event to mark their Golden Wedding anniversary, the Queen paid tribute to Prince Philip: “He is someone who doesn’t take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years.” She echoed this upon her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, describing him as a source of “constant strength” throughout the course of their marriage.

Philip gave Her Majesty this support during her record-breaking reign as an immutable incarnation of the British nation – through dizzying change over an extraordinary timespan. Britons see her as their greatest ever monarch.

Given Prince Philip’s role in supporting their Queen over more than seven decades of marriage, his biographer Gyles Brandreth wrote, “the joint author of that success has been the Duke of Edinburgh”.

Source: France 24

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 2.7 million people face food insecurity in Cameroon

17, April 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 2.7 million people face food insecurity in Cameroon 0

Some 2.7 million people in Cameroon face food insecurity due to conflicts and poor production, according to a report published by the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Thursday.

Out of Cameroon’s 58 administrative divisions, 14 are facing food insecurity, 11 are in a minimal situation, and 31 are under pressure, said Maina Ahmadou, coordinator of the national food security monitoring and strengthening program.

“This is due to the problem of accessibility and availibity of production. Crises in certain localities in Cameroon have caused the displacement of population which has also aggravated the problem,” Ahmadou told journalists in the capital, Yaounde during a ceremony to officially present the report.

The government will adopt new policies and programs to alleviate the problem, officials said.

Source: Xinhuanet

Southern Cameroons Crisis: The world’s most neglected conflict

17, April 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: The world’s most neglected conflict 0

The central African nation of Cameroon is better known for football, but its bloody, under-reported conflict deserves our attention. The right of minorities to self-determination is at the heart of violence blighting the lives of millions of unarmed civilians.

The Vatican has been increasingly diplomatically engaged, encouraging the Cameroon government to participate in inclusive peace talks, mediated by a third party. A webinar, hosted by the Liberal Democrats, on 19 April 6.30 – 8pm explores these issues.

Cameroon has been ruled by President Paul Biya, age 88, since 1982. He continues to win elections that no international monitor considers free and fair, and his country is ranked among the world’s most corrupt and repressive by Transparency International and Freedom House, respectively.

In 2016, Biya’s Francophone-dominated regime tried to impose French-speaking judges and teachers on the English-speaking regions, representing 20% of the population. Peaceful Anglophone protests were crushed with what impartial human rights groups described as disproportionate force. The UN estimates 700,000 civilians (out of six million Anglophones) have fled to the bush and beyond. UNICEF says one million children are out of school. Local civil society groups believe 5,000 people have been killed. Meanwhile, hundreds of opposition figures are imprisoned without due process.

Armed militias have emerged, demanding a sovereign country called “The Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” and rights monitors believe all armed sides are behaving with impunity, with unarmed civilians caught in the middle. The former colonial powers, the UK and France, offer bland calls for the respect for international human rights law, but neither government will apply pressure on Cameroon to attend inclusive mediated peace talks offered by the Swiss and the Vatican. Cardinal Parolin, the Papal envoy, visited Cameroon in January, and rights monitors suggest that Pope Francis is the only world leader commanding the respect of President Biya.

The webinar will explore a cross section of views on the way forward. Speakers include Dr Chris Fomunyoh from the National Democratic Institute in Washington DC, and Juliette Paauwe of the Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect.

Source: Independent Catholic News

Yaoundé: ‘End of an era’ as Chief Dr Tabetah Ashu Tarkang James of Mbinjong village dies

16, April 2021

Yaoundé: ‘End of an era’ as Chief Dr Tabetah Ashu Tarkang James of Mbinjong village dies 0

The people of Mbinjong, Upper Bayang Sub Division in Manyu were yesterday mourning the death of legendary traditional ruler Chief Tabetah Ashu Tarkang who died at the extension of his palace in Yaounde on Thursday after a long battle with an undisclosed illness.

A family source hinted Cameroon Concord News that he died after visiting a private clinic in late afternoon yesterday. He was surrounded by his wife and some family members and he died very peacefully after a long illness that started last year.

His funeral is due to be held at his Mbinjong Village following directives from Minister Victor Mengot who also moonlights as senior elite from Mbinjong.

Cameroon Concord News Group Chairman Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai, who wrote so many stories about the late Chief on the pages of the Herald newspaper, was amongst the first to pay tribute to the Manyu academic.

“It’s a very sad day and the end of an era,” he said. “I’ve known His Royal Highness Chief Dr Tabetah since the 90s and we had great days in MECA Yaounde and so many great moments in SWELA. He was a great mentor and a marvellous person to work with. We’ll miss him.”

Chief Tabetah was best-known as a peace maker in MECA Yaoundé particularly when the Agbor Tabi brothers were at daggers-drawn-positions.  

The onetime Special Adviser to Prime Minister Peter Mafany Musonge, whose wealth was believed to run into hundreds of millions of FCFA, also enjoyed something of a playboy image. He dated a string of beautiful women and finally got married to Sophie Besong Tabetah.

Chief Tabetah was credited with changing the face of Manyu politics with his calm approach to every political situation.

He remained one of the most prominent sword less patriotic Manyu soldier right up to his death, even though he had adopted a considerably lower profile in recent years.

Dr Tabetah Ashu Tarkang James was born in Mbinjong and was one of the Manyu children that the late Dr AD Mengot gave the opportunity of conquering education home and abroad.

He came to the fore in the 90s as lecturer at the Higher Teachers Training College in Yaoundé and pushed for the CPDM government to adopt a considerably more political view of the admission process into the Higher Teachers Training College.

Chief Dr Tabetah Ashu Tarkang James was a chartered member of the ruling CPDM party and bon viveur.

By Isong Asu in London

Football: Arsenal, Man Utd, Roma and Villareal head to Europa League semifinals

16, April 2021

Football: Arsenal, Man Utd, Roma and Villareal head to Europa League semifinals 0

With their season on the line, Arsenal’s players produced a devastating first-half performance Thursday to beat Slavia Prague and reach the Europa League semifinals.

They’ll meet a familiar face there.

Arsenal’s 4-0 win in the Czech capital—secured courtesy of a three-goal burst in six minutes from the 18th—clinched a 5-1 aggregate victory and set up a last-four match against Villarreal, which is managed by Unai Emery.

The Spanish coach spent an underwhelming 18 months at Arsenal as Arsene Wenger’s replacement in 2018-19 and is rebuilding his managerial career at Villarreal, which beat Dinamo Zagreb 2-1 and advanced 3-1 on aggregate.

Manchester United and Roma complete the semifinal lineup.

United is back in the last four for a second straight season after beating Spanish team Granada 2-0 for a 4-0 aggregate win.

Roma drew 1-1 with Ajax to squeeze through 3-2 on aggregate.

Arsenal and Roma were under pressure to advance because the Europa League represents their only chance of winning a trophy this season and their only realistic route into next season’s Champions League, owing to their lowly current placing in their domestic leagues.

Arsenal is ninth in the Premier League and Roma seventh in Serie A.

The winner of the Europa League earns an automatic spot in the far more lucrative Champions League.

Sending a message

Arsenal sent a message before and during the win over Slavia.

The hosts learned the day before the game that their defender, Ondrej Kudela, had been banned for 10 games for racially abusing Rangers’ Glen Kamara during a round-of-16 game last month.

Before kickoff, as Slavia’s players stood in a line at the center circle, Arsenal’s players took a knee in a symbolic gesture in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, with Alexandre Lacazette doing so right in front of the Slavia team and staring at the players.

Arsenal responded to having an early goal by Emile Smith Rowe ruled out for offside by VAR by scoring three times in quick succession, first though Nicolas Pepe in the 18th and then Lacazette—from the penalty spot—and Bukayo Saka.

That meant Slavia, the runaway leader of the Czech league which hadn’t lost at home in nearly 18 months, needed to score four goals to qualify. By halftime, the hosts had essentially given up as they removed some of their key players to preserve their condition for the league.

Lacazette, continuing as striker with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang sidelined after contracting malaria, added a fourth in the 77th minute.

“The boys were really at it from the start,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said. “It is a really important win in a crucial moment. We won in a convincing way.”

Arsenal lost to Chelsea in the Europa League final in 2019.

Villarreal’s goals were scored by Paco Alcacer and Gerard Moreno at the end of the first half, with Zagreb — the last-16 conqueror of Tottenham — grabbing a consolation through Mislav Orsic.

Villarreal is in the semifinals of the Europa League for the first time since 2016.

Cavani milestone

Edinson Cavani scored his 50th goal in European competition to lead United to victory over Granada at Old Trafford.

The 34-year-old Uruguay striker met a flicked header back into the middle of the area by Paul Pogba with a left-foot volley into the bottom corner in the sixth minute.

A 90th-minute own-goal by Jesus Vallejo completed a second straight 2-0 win over Granada.

United lost in the semifinals to Sevilla last season and has been defeated at that stage three other times — twice in the English League Cup and again in the FA Cup — under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Roma will look to inflict another last-four loss on United after surviving a scare against Ajax, which took the lead through Brian Brobbey’s lobbed finish in the 49th to tie the score on aggregate at 2-2.

Edin Dzeko equalized in the 72nd and Ajax couldn’t find the goal that would have taken the match to extra time.

Solskjaer was part of the United side that beat Roma 7-1 at Old Trafford in the Champions League quarterfinals in 2007.

Source: AP

Cameroon: Professor Messanga Nyamding takes CPDM drama to the north

16, April 2021

Cameroon: Professor Messanga Nyamding takes CPDM drama to the north 0

Professor Messanga Nyamding, the former faculty member of the International Relations Institute of Cameroon (IRIC), who was recently transferred to Ngaoundere by the country’s higher education minister, Fame Ndongo, who also doubles as an indefatigable professional dancer, has finally arrived his new duty station.

Messanga Nyamding’s transfer, which is a disciplinary measure for his incisive criticism of his own party, the ruling CPDM, also known as the crime syndicate, is gradually transforming him into a clown and rock star at the same time.

Upon reaching his new duty station, the notorious professor, headed to a local restaurant where he ate a one-kilometer long loaf of bread with an entire pot of meat before heading to the university where he will be imparting knowledge to young Cameroonians.

The minister of higher education, Fame Ndongo, had said on national television that the frustrated professor of international relations would be received in his new obscure university as a hero.

He made this declaration while seeking to prove that Professor Messanga Nyamding’s brutal and sudden transfer was not politically motivated.

Professor Messanga Nyamding had criticized the secretary general at the Presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, on national TV, pointing out that the all powerful secretary general was fostering corruption in the civil service by promoting nepotism and mediocrity.

Cameroon has long been known for its legendary corruption and it has, on two occasions, won the world cup for corruption under the watchful eyes of Peter Mafany Musonge who was the country’s prime Minister at the time.

Messanga Nyamding who is cash strapped has accepted his humiliation and has grudgingly moved to Ngaoundere, but he wants to make political out of his misfortune.

As predicted by Fame Ndongo, Professor Messanga Nyamding was received with pump and pageantry by motorcycle riders of Ngaoundere. But the Chancellor of the Univerisy, Professor Chinje, was not willing to see Messanga Nyamding enjoy his rock star status. She did her best to rain on Messanga Nyamding’s parade.

Instead of being a beautiful event, the CPDM drama ended up being a COVID-19 super spreader event, with the boisterous and flamboyant Nyamding spraying the deadly virus across the entire city. What was supposed to have been a simple event to escort Professor Nyamding ended up being a super spreader event, with onlookers and participants ignoring all COVID-19 safety protocols and with Messanga Nyamding coughing and blowing his nose irresponsibly.

Professor Messanga Nyamding might not have had the joy and privilege of being escorted to his new duty station because of Prof. Chinje, but he did at least draw attention to himself.

His objective has always been to draw the attention of the country’s president, Paul Biya. He has been looking forward to a good appointment but his dream seems to be turning into a nightmare as his political comrades have resorted to persecuting him as a means of shutting him up for good.

Yesterday’s event in Ngaoundere is by no means the last we will be seeing from the frustrated and flamboyant Nyamding. He needs a political appointment and recognition and he will stop at nothing when it comes to achieving his objective.

Nyamding is hungry. He is cash strapped and while he has taken the humiliation from Professor Fame Ndongo and Mr. Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh lying down, he has not taken his eye off the ball. Cameroonians will be hearing from him soon as he remains a key member of the CPDM comedy cast.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Many women in poor nations can’t say, `No sex’

15, April 2021

Many women in poor nations can’t say, `No sex’ 0

Less than half the women in 57 developing countries are denied the right to say “no” to sex with their partners, to decide whether to use contraception, or to seek health care, a U.N. report said Wednesday.

The report by the U.N. Population Fund said the data covers only about one-quarter of the world’s countries, over half in Africa. But the findings “paint an alarming picture of the state of bodily autonomy for millions of women and girls” who don’t have the power to make choices about their bodies and their futures without fear or violence, it said.

The fund said only 55% of girls and women in the 57 countries are able to decide whether to have sex, whether to use contraception and when to seek health care such as sexual and reproductive health services.

“The denial of bodily autonomy is a violation of women and girls’ fundamental human rights that reinforces inequalities and perpetuates violence arising from gender discrimination,“ said the fund’s executive director, Dr. Natalia Kanem. “The fact that nearly half of women still cannot make their own decisions about whether or not to have sex, use contraception or seek health care should outrage us all.”

According to the report, “My Body Is My Own,” percentages vary across region.

While 76% of adolescent girls and women in east and southeast Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean can make decisions on sex, contraception and health care, less than 50% can in sub-Saharan Africa and central and south Asia, the report said.

There are also differences within regions. Citing one example, the report said that in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa — Mali, Niger and Senegal — less than 10% of adolescent girls and women control all three of those decisions.

Regional difference between countries on the three decisions are less pronounced elsewhere but still vary widely, ranging from 33% to 77% in central and south Asia, from 40% to 81% in east and southeast Asia, and from 59% to 87% in Latin America and the Caribbean, the report said.

The fund, which now calls itself the U.N.’s sexual and reproductive health agency, also cited inconsistencies within countries.

In Mali, for example, 77% of women take independent or joint decisions on contraception but just 22% are able to do the same when it comes to health care, the report said. In Ethiopia only 53% of women can say “no” to sex, while 94% can independently or jointly make decisions about contraception.

Kanem said in the forward to the report that many women are also denied the right to choose the person they marry, or the right time to have a child “because of race, sex, sexual orientation, age or ability.”

“Real, sustained progress largely depends on uprooting gender inequality and all forms of discrimination, and transforming the social and economic structures that maintain them,” she said. “In this, men must become allies.”

Source: Toronto Star

US: Cameroon Man Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for Defrauding Bourbonnais Bank, Others

15, April 2021

US: Cameroon Man Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for Defrauding Bourbonnais Bank, Others 0

A citizen of Cameroon, Lovette Namatinga, 34, has been sentenced to serve 48 months in federal prison for defrauding a Bourbonnais, Ill., bank of nearly $300,000. At the sentencing hearing, on April 13, 2021, Senior U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm further ordered that Namatinga pay restitution in the amount of $278,201 to the bank and numerous other individual and business victims of the defendant’s fraud scheme.

Namatinga, of Owings Mills, Md., has remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since he was arrested on Oct. 7, 2019, at Washington Dulles International Airport by FDIC Office of Inspector General agents.

On Sept. 21, 2020, immediately prior to jury selection before his trial, Namatinga pleaded guilty to all counts of the indictment, four counts each of bank and wire fraud, as charged, related to his  defrauding Municipal Trust and Savings Bank, Bourbonnais, Ill. Namatinga admitted that he carried out the fraud from about February to April 2019, by falsely representing to the bank that the secretary of one of the bank’s customers requested that cashier’s checks be sent to Namatinga’s fraudulent company known as Keiko San Products Alimenticious, LLC. Namatinga is the registered agent for Keiko, and the four checks were mailed to his home address. Once the checks were deposited into Keiko bank accounts, Namatinga then transferred money from those accounts to his personal account or withdrew cash from those accounts.

In addition to the fraud committed through Municipal Trust & Savings Bank, Namatinga used his fraudulent business and multiple associated bank accounts to deposit and launder fraud proceeds from various other victims throughout the United States. Namatinga’s scheme, known as a business e-mail compromise scam, was just one such scheme in 2019 that resulted in more than 23,000 victims nationally, with an average loss of $75,000 per complaint, according to FBI crime statistics.

The FDIC Office of Inspector General conducted the case investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene L. Miller represented the government in the prosecution.

Source: United States Department of Justice

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