Over 65,000 Cameroonian refugee men, women and children are registered in Akwa-Ibom, Benue, Cross River and Taraba States in Nigeria.

Over 4,000 new refugee arrivals were reported in Taraba State, forced to flee violence in Cameroon.

Urgent needs included food, sleeping mats, blankets, and health care.

Some 27,000 refugees received cash for food of their choice in Ikyogen, Adagom and Ukende Refugee Settlements in Benue and Cross River States this month.

Operational Highlights

Over 4,000 new refugees, mostly women and children arrived in Taraba State, following violent conflict in Nwa subdivision, North-West Region of Cameroon. UNHCR and the Nigerian government are registering them and providing proof of registration to facilitate ID card issuance, freedom of movement and access to basic social services. Critical needs include food, blankets, sleeping mats, health care and shelter. The new arrivals continued to trickle in as the affected areas in Cameroon remain insecure.

The UNHCR Representative to Nigeria handed over the newly built and equipped COVID-19 isolation center at the General Hospital in Adikpo to the Government of Benue State on 24 March.

The 10-bed center is expected to improve COVID-19 care for refugees and the local population.

UNHCR through the First Bank of Nigeria processed ATM cards for some Cameroonian refugee families in Benue and Cross River States. 500 refugee families received their cards to promote financial inclusion and facilitate transfer of cash assistance.

Source: UN

The late wife of Cameroon’s former President, Ahmadou Ahidjo is now resting beside her husband at the Yoff Muslem cemetery in Dakar, Senegal.

She was laid to rest on Wednesday April 21 following her demise recently after suffering from an undisclosed illness.

Germaine Ahidjo was buried beside her husband, the late president Ahmadou Ahidjo, who died 32 years ago in Senegal.

The former first lady battled for the husband’s remains to be brought back to Cameroon for a state burial but met with a stone wall.

She was of the opinion that the country had to organize the repatriation of the former Head of State’s remains pertaining to his image as ex President.

Paul Biya reportedly sent words of comfort to the family, indicating that the late Germaine was a lady with a great personality who together with her husband contributed in lifting up the face of the country.

Source: Journal du Cameroun

The treatment of black people, particularly by law enforcement, has become a principal point of protest in the western world. But little is said about the millions of black Africans mistreated by the ruthless security forces of authoritarian African regimes. If black lives matter regardless of where they are in the world, then it’s time to challenge the immensely privileged black African ruling elite that clings to power by persecuting its often-voiceless black African citizens.

The numbers tell the story. An estimated 5.4 million people or eight percent of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s population died in the 1997-2003 conflict at the hands of government security forces and non-state armed militia. DRC’s violence continues today, barely rating a paragraph in newspapers.

In Sudan, at least 12 percent of the population has died, mostly killed by the security forces of governments recognized and financially supported over the decades by wealthy nations (Two million in Sudan 1983-2005; 400,000 in Darfur; 382,000 in the South Sudan civil war). In Mozambique and Ethiopia, eight percent of the population at the time probably died in each country during the Cold War and its aftermath. In Uganda, Obote and Amin consigned seven percent of their people to a premature death. These are estimates because black African lives matter so little to those in charge, or the international community, that in most cases, no one is keeping count.

Now, it is the turn of Cameroon to be ignored. The Norwegian Refugee Council has described the devastation in this central African nation as the world’s most neglected displacement crisis for the second year running.

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. 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 percent of the population. The peaceful protests of Anglophones, proud of their Anglo-Saxon courts and schools, were crushed with what impartial human rights groups described as ‘disproportionate force’.

So many villages have been burned that the UN estimates 700,000 civilians (out of six million Anglophones) have fled to the bush and beyond. UNICEF says more than a million children are out of school. Local civil society groups believe 5,000 people have been killed, although the International Crisis Group, University of Toronto Database of Atrocities and other impartial sources have no accurate casualty numbers. Meanwhile, hundreds of opposition figures are imprisoned without due process.

After the brutal suppression of non-violent Anglophone demonstrations, armed militias emerged, demanding a sovereign country called ‘Ambazonia’. Rights monitors believe all sides behave with impunity, with unarmed civilians caught in the crossfire. The Biya regime held a meeting between the different sides in 2019, but it was dismissed by most Anglophones as a gesture to appease diplomats. This year, the Vatican offered to mediate peace talks, as has Switzerland’s Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, but Biya pursues a military strategy, at huge cost to civilians.

On January 1, the US Senate endorsed the need for targeted sanctions on those implicated in human rights abuses. Yet, the UK and France, Cameroon’s former colonial powers, offer toothless appeals to obey international humanitarian law.

The developed nations must not hold back from criticizing African leaders such as Biya. The tiny, privileged African elite has little concern for its citizens. There will be no justice while the rich world panders to repressive tyrants, giving aid and signing deals with leaders who persecute their populations, trapping people in injustice, poverty and fear. We can hardly be surprised if bright, ambitious Africans leave these countries, heading for opportunity in Europe.

If the death of George Floyd matters, then we must listen to brave black African civil society groups and enforce international human rights laws — such as the ‘responsibility to protect’, a legal doctrine endorsed by Cameroon and most of the international community.

The UK and France must work with partners like the US and Canada to apply diplomatic pressure on the Biya regime. The aim should be inclusive peace talks, mediated by a third party, such as the Swiss and the Vatican.

When my African friends suggest there is a global conspiracy allowing African rulers to commit human rights abuses, I offer a harsher truth; the global north just doesn’t care. Support for Black Lives Matter is meaningless if the wealthy white world averts its eyes from the suffering of persecuted black Africans like those in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and across the continent.

Source: Spectator.us

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

 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

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

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

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

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

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