The Cameroonian government ruled out the possibility of postponing general elections scheduled for February 2020, a government spokesperson said on Monday.

“The government condemns all maneuvers that amount to blackmail and one-upmanship, and denounces the various foreign attempts to interfere, which are in violation of our laws, and which are advocating further postponements, indefinite postponements, of announced legislative and municipal elections,” Cameroon’s government spokesperson Emmanuel Rene Sadi told a press conference late Monday.

Cameroon has already postponed the elections twice and the law prohibits further postponement, Sadi said.

Last week, Cameroon’s opposition leader Maurice Kamto said his party Cameroon Renaissance Movement would boycott the polls, citing insecurity in the English-speaking regions and “biased” electoral code.

Another major opposition party Social Democratic Front has also threatened to boycott the elections if “peace and security” is not restored in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions before the elections.

Sadi said the government reassures that “all security conditions and all measures to ensure the reliability of the electoral process will be taken.”

Elections for members of National Assembly and municipal councillors will take place on February 9, 2020, in Cameroon.

Separatists have vowed to disrupt the elections in the Anglophone regions where they are seeking to create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia.”

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the majority French-speaking nation.

Source: Xinhuanet

Two leading opposition parties in Cameroon have declared they will boycott the February 2020 municipal and legislative elections to protest the government’s failure to end the conflict in the western region and to effect political reforms.

The Social Democratic Front, which boycotted the opening of parliament over the conflict earlier this month, said on Thursday it would not take part in the polls if peace was not achieved before the elections.

“If peace does not return to the NWSW by February 2020, the SDF will withdraw from the twin elections,” SDF vice chairman Joshua Osih said.

SDF’s threat comes only days after Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) party leader Maurice Kamto called for the boycott of the February 9 elections over weak electoral laws and the anglophone crisis.

“Given the current electoral system, it is impossible to contest the result of the February 9, 2020 elections. If someone rigs or someone who could not even have been a candidate wins, you cannot contest the result and win,” Prof Kamto said.

Authorities have warned that anyone propagating hate speech and defies authority in the run up to the elections will face the full force of the law, with Territorial Administration minister Paul Atanga Nji, saying party officials would be held accountable for “disruption of public order during political rallies.”

Prof Kamto was arrested and jailed in January for leading what the government described as ‘unauthorised protests against the results of the October 2018 presidential poll, which he claimed he won. The protests by his supporters were violently suppressed by security forces leaving at least six people with bullet wounds. He was released in October amid intense foreign pressure as government displayed commitment to the peace talks dubbed Major National dialogue on the anglophone question.

Mr Atanga Nji warned such belligerence would not be condoned this time round. “We lived through horrible scenes after the October 2018 presidential election where a candidate proclaimed himself winner, flouting the laws of the land. Such irresponsible behaviour should never repeat itself. Believe me, such behaviours will face bitter times,” Mr Atanga Nji warned.

The conflict in the English speaking South West and North West regions of the country has since 2017 been the key threat to stability in the country, especially after incursion by separatists and jihadists took advantage of it leading to more than 3,000 deaths and 500,000 displaced.

The International Community, however, fears that massive boycott of the parliamentary and municipal elections would, besides denying the ruling CPDM of legitimacy, foment chaos.

Diplomats have since the major national dialogue at the end of September been meeting President Paul Biya and opposition groups at home and abroad to encourage implementation of its recommendations. The proposals include giving the anglophone region special status with regard to resource allocation and security. A Bill to operationalise that is among the business expected to be brought before parliament.

However, politicians in the region want autonomy under a federal structure and a rotational presidency, which President Biya has said is not subject to discussion. Last week three geopolitical groups — the AU Commission, the Commonwealth and the International Organisation of the francophone — pledged their support to efforts in addressing the conflict.

Source: The East African

The controversial Southern Cameroons lawyer, Barrister John Nsoh provoked a storm recently by saying that the Ambazonia leader, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is enjoying support from La Republique du Cameroun.

John Nsoh was immediately accused of using the leader as scapegoat for his own failures. His remarks were aimed at supporters of the Ambazonia Interim Government on whose donations via the Amba Bonds Project, Vice President Dabney Yerima and his team are depending in the Southern Cameroons revolution.

But our chief political man, Soter Agbaw-Ebai said it was a huge political miscalculation for a man of law who once pledged to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and to create an Ambazonia nation at ease with itself.

To be very accurate, Barrister John Fru Nsoh and his gang including the disgraced Ikome Sako and Chris Anu are trying to turn on another group of Southern Cameroonians as scapegoats to try to deflect responsibility from the poor management of My Trip To Buea funds. It is the action of a desperate man who sees his acolytes in the USA in desperate trouble and his own position under threat.

Every Ambazonian except Sako Ikome, Chris Anu and Kometa have said Barrister John Fru Nsoh was wrong to suggest that President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has a laptop and a mobile phone provided by the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé.

Mr John Fru Nsoh launched his attack in an interview with the former Southern Cameroons Communications Secretary, Chris Anu. During the said conversation, John Fru Nsoh appeared like a man in desperately straitened circumstances badly in need of a US social security safety net. Fru Nsoh was indeed begging!! The sight of Barrister John Fru Nsoh as a beggar on ABC TV was an eyesore which drove many Chris Anu viewers away.

All through recorded history, desperate political elites have always uttered and promoted inflammatory and deceptive rhetoric. Barrister John Fru Nsoh, a late arrival in the Ambazonia political amphitheatre is a quick learner in the dark art. He has learned the art of political dishonesty as fast as anyone ever known in Ambazonia history mindful of the fact that he was unknown to most Southern Cameroonians.

He was hired in good faith by the Interim Government of Ambazonia to represent the NERA10 after auditioning by giving a few interviews on Equinox TV in Douala. The leaders of the struggle failed again in hiring someone to a high position without proper background checks. A simple scrutiny would have revealed that John Fru Nsoh was unprofessional, erratic and careless in conduct and experiencing severe financial paucity.

Cameroon Concord News Group reporter in Douala wrote in April this year that John Fru Nsoh was boasting in an off-licence in Douala that his proceeds from the IG for working on the NERA10 case would help him complete the building of his house in Douala. Many saw it as witch hunt!! Today, the Barrister Nsoh builders have since stopped construction due to lack of resources.

Sako Ikome with his political bedfellow, Chris Anu, saw a financially despairing and morally bankrupt John Fru Nsoh as the perfect tool to achieve their goals. He was hired to assassinate the character and integrity of the Ambazonia President, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. Pa Fru has ever since made ludicrous and unproven allegations that the Ambazonia leader is compromised-a position Ambazonians never bought into till date.

Barrister Fru has constantly repeated the unsubstantiated allegations and promised to provide his evidence when we get to Buea. Ambazonia public opinion has swung immensely in favour of Comrade Dabney Yerima, the Ambazonia Vice President appointed to pilot the revolution in the absence of the leader detained unlawfully in Yaoundé.

This week, Comrade Yerima launched the Ambabond project and announced the creation of The Bank of Ambazonia. A momentous decision that has raised eyebrows in political corridors around the world! Disgraced former Acting President Sako’s attempt to recapture the issue by assassinating the character of President Ayuk Tabe has been unproductive.

To be sure, Ambazonians have deserted him in their numbers since Cameroon Concord News Group uncovered and published irrefutable evidence that he was a professional 419 scammer who loomed large in Limbe before migrating to the USA. He is wanted in Limbe at the local Gendarmerie for his connections with the establishment of a credit union bank that swindled millions of CFA from small traders and farmers. These funds, paid for his trip to the USA. He has used the same approach to successfully ruin the career of John Fru Nsoh as he did to many of his victims in Southern Cameroons and like many who have been under the spell of a scammer before, the barrister is finding it impossible to break free.

In a recent fundraiser in California, the former barrister who is now a round-the-clock Ambazonia activist was paraded as a refugee. The audience was asked to donate for his welfare. Interestingly, Field Marshall of Lebialem, a fine Ambazonian fighter who is tenaciously and irresponsibly being dragged into frontline politics by some intellectually reckless and morally insolvent Ambazonian leaders reportedly pledged$150 to The Barrister John Fru Nsoh Fund.

Watching the video, a sense of sadness descended upon me. A once prominent and respected Southern Cameroons lawyer has been reduced to a public beggar in the USA.It reminded me of what a wretched combination greed and dishonesty represent.

John Fru Nsoh is in possession of a green card. Correspondingly, his claim to be a refugee in the United States is therefore bogus. He is desperate to elbow the leader of the Ambazonian revolution, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, to grab the headlines and some few dollars more.

Barrister Nsoh’s shameful demise is a lesson to every Southern Cameroons political elite that they should be mindful of greed and dishonesty. Nsoh John Fru has lost it all. He now follows his political bedfellows from one fundraiser to another with a begging bowl.

All the respect and reverence he enjoyed in Cameroon, Ambazonia and the diaspora has disappeared making him irrelevant in Ambazonia politics. Consequently, he is willing to embark on any toxic campaign against President Ayuk Tabe.

It is hard to take this pro Sako comedian seriously but it is also very difficult not to feel sorry for him to have fallen for Pastor Sako’s scam.

Asu Isong

London Bureau Chief