The notorious Buea City Council Mayor, Patrick Ekena, has died in a La Republique hospital, a source in his native Buea has reported.

Reports of his death have triggered huge and wild celebrations in certain neighborhoods like Great Soppo and Molyko, neighborhoods inhabited by non-natives of the city.

The arrogant, uncouth and tactless mayor was noted for his clumsy ways of seeking the attention of the Yaounde political class.

Ekema, who had been found out as an academic crook, used the ruling CPDM to hide his crimes. He knew the ruling party was a crime syndicate and he made the most of it to feather his nest.

It was alleged that he had faked certificates from the University of Buea and those degrees actually helped him to rise to the prestigious position of Buea City Mayor.

Ekema has been a thorn in the side of Buea traders, given that they obeyed orders from separatists for the effective implementation of ghost town operations.

Ekema had been seeking higher political positions and he strongly held that the ideal way for him to achieve his goal was for him to frustrate the separatists whose ghost town operations had helped to cripple the city’s economy.

Confirming Ekema’s death from a native of the Southwest region, we were told that he had attended the funeral of a certain cleaner at the University of Buea and later went to BOVA, a town some five miles from Buea, for personal business.

The source added that it was being rumoured that he had been poisoned there. These are not tested allegations and without a conclusive autopsy, the rumor will continue to spread like wild fire.

However, it must be pointed out that his size was more than a lethal poison. His love of food and drinks had transformed him into “an elephant” and strokes, just like heart attacks, love those who pay little or no attention to their bulging waistlines.

Also, Ekema has been having numerous sleepless nights due to his desire to climb the political ladder at supersonic speed. His unwise involvement in the Southern Cameroons crisis was part of his strategy and this has surely cost him his life.

He saw the crisis as an opportunity for him to prove that loyalty to the ruling party pays off. From every indication, the stress of seeking social recognition and political appointment was, indeed, worse than the worst Russian biological weapon in existence.

Mayor Ekema bows out of the political scene young and bruised. He was embroiled in many scandals and these scandals went a long way in diminishing his reputation and chances at making giant strides in the political arena.

Buea has been offered another chance by nature. Ekema was an ill wind. He did not care about the city, but about his own political aggrandizement. The new city mayor will do himself a world of good by walking away from the path that Ekema had designed for the city. We hope he will find peace wherever he is today.

By Dr. Joachim Arrey

The Ambazonia Intelligence Chief has hinted that the government of President Biya was directly linked to the killing of Mayor Ekema Patrick. The Buea council chief executive was reportedly poisoned by known French Cameroun plain cloth police officers assigned to protect the controversial youthful politician.

The office of Vice President Dabney Yerima has not commented on the demise of the CPDM mayor but our sources deep within the Interim Government pointed out that the findings of the Southern Cameroons Intelligence services give credibility to longstanding allegations that the autocratic French Cameroun regime led by President Biya has been carrying out state-sponsored killings at home and abroad.

Mayor Ekema left a funeral service in Buea to his hotel room in Douala flanked by a sea of bodyguards predominantly French speaking officers and complained of food poisoning.  He was rushed to a Douala Hospital where he was confirmed dead.

Friends of the late mayor on Sunday have claimed that he was killed by a group of Southern Cameroonian businessmen in Buea who were against the late mayor’s anti business stance during ghost town operations.

Mayor Ekema shut down many Southern Cameroons businesses in Buea and openly appealed to the regime in Yaoundé to hand over the death penalty to the jailed Ambazonian leaders.  There are conflicting reports coming from both Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun with some saying a bloodied towel was removed from his hotel room and his neck was swollen.

A close family friend who spoke to our undercover reporter revealed that the Ekema family has requested the Cameroon government to conduct an autopsy. Some within the family believe Mr Ekema’s drink was spiked and he was strangled.

We understand the late mayor was at daggers-drawn positions with former Prime Minister Peter Mafany Musonge, a gang of CPDM warlords who were planning to replace him including the current Prime Minister and Head of Government, Dr Dion Ngute.

By Sama Ernest in Douala with additional reporting from Kingsley Betek in Buea

Patrick Ekema, the controversial CPDM mayor of Buea, who climbed out of hardscrabble poverty to the Fako County’s highest office only to spend most of his last years killing his own people and making a mockery of Anglo-Saxon values at the University of Buea  died Sunday, the 27^th of October.

The city and the Francophone regime in Yaoundé have both not commented on the man described as an academic fraud and an intellectual gate crasher. The mayor reportedly died in a Buea hospital surrounded by family.

Cameroon Concord News Group had predicted that Ekema was going to die in 2020. Patrick Ekema had dozens of criminal charges ranging from bribery, fraud to criminal conspiracy after a corruption probe at the admission board of the University of Buea.

He received more than 500 million FCFA from the Biya regime to help sponsor armed militias in Buea and Muea and was described as a man full of contradictions.

Ekema’s sudden disappearance has provided Ambazonians with the momentum to buy freedom bonds launched recently by Vice President Dabney Yerima.

By Rita Akana

Camerooon’s military freed a group of people this week who had been taken hostage by rebels from the Central African Republic.   

The rebels took 22 locals hostage two weeks ago and held them for ransom. But the military’s raid Thursday night on Garoua Boulai freed 13 Central Africans and Cameroonians. 

Residents in the Cameroon villages of Mbaimbum, Tchabal and Bigao were still discussing the raid days later.  

Cattle rancher Muhamady Issa was one of those abducted. He said the kidnappers had killed some of the hostages. 
 
Issa said that while in captivity in the mountains on the border with CAR, he decided to escape to the surrounding bushes and hills instead of being slaughtered, as had happened to seven fellow captives within 10 days. 
 
Issa fled and was found in the hills by the Cameroon military.  At least two of the people kidnapped were still missing. 

Five kidnappers killed
 
Cameroonian army Colonel Dominique Njonkan, commander of the troops who carried out the raid, said his men killed five of the abductors. He said that with the public’s help, the army was trying to determine which armed gang the men belonged to. 
 
“The results are satisfactory and the population is collaborating more and more,” Njonkan said.  “They must have confidence, make sure that they go ahead with their activities without fear, to make sure that economic activities are revamped to the maximum.” 
 
Cameroon shares a boundary of over 1,000 kilometers with CAR. Since conflicts in the neighboring state erupted in 2013, many armed gangs have established bases in eastern Cameroon.  

Cameroon deployed its elite corps, the Rapid Intervention Batallion, to fight the rebels. 
 
George Kombo, spokesman for youths of Kadei district on the border, said that despite the heavy presence of troops, armed gangs continued to attack them regularly. 
 
He said hardly a week goes by in the Kadei district without armed groups crossing over from CAR to steal, kill or capture people for ransom. He said the last incident occurred Thursday when an armed gang killed six people in the border village of Bombe, which is also home to hundreds of CAR refugees. 
 
The government and local authorities have not confirmed the attacks, but they say the military presence has been increased in villages in the Kadei district. 

1 million-plus displaced
 
Violence erupted in CAR in 2013 after longtime leader Francois Bozize was overthrown by a predominantly Muslim rebel alliance called the Seleka.  The conflict has displaced more than 1 million people, according to the U.N. 
 
This week, close to 400 CAR refugees in Cameroon agreed to voluntarily repatriate.  But the vast majority of the 274,000 refugees are reluctant to go home because of continuing violence. 

Source: VOA

A Cameroonian journalist who was denied a visa for Australia because the government believed she might not leave has questioned if they made assumptions about her because she is African.

Mimi Mefo, an award-winning journalist who is currently based in Berlin and working for Deutsche Welle, was booked to appear at the Integrity 20 conference in Brisbane on Friday.

Mefo was due to speak about press freedom and her experiences reporting on the Cameroon conflict, in a speech entitled “Without fear or favour”.

However, applications for a visa were refused because Australian immigration authorities “were not satisfied that the applicant’s employment and financial situation provide an incentive to return following [her] stay in Australia or to abide by the conditions to which the visa would be subject”.

Mefo dismissed suggestions she would seek asylum in Australia, noting she had a two-year contract and a home in Berlin, and was booked to fly on from Brisbane to speak at another conference in South Africa, alongside Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E Stiglitz.

“I’ve been to so many countries in the world where I could seek asylum,” told Guardian Australia. “There is no way I would come and be in Australia when I have a job in Germany.

“I think they took that position based on stereotyped assumptions on Africans and that is totally wrong.”

Mefo’s case has prompted widespread criticism of the Australian government, which has made international headlines over its encroachments on the press, including raids on journalists’ homes and offices.

The visa refusal occurred in the same week that Australian media launched a coordinated campaign for press freedom.

“Australia seems to be a country struggling in that direction and they might have thought we would bring some of these issues into the limelight,” Mefo said. “They possibly saw the invitation [to Integrity 20] and saw that it was on press freedom and was organised by a prestigious university in Australia.”

Mefo was rejected twice for her visa to Australia. Not long after her first application was rejected – for the same reason – her contract at Deutsche Welle and her visa for Germany were extended.

“So we appealed with the help of an immigration expert in Australia,” she said. “We knew we had everything right this time. But it was denied again with the same words [and] very strong terms: we are not considering this visa application anymore.

“I knew this time around it was way beyond my visa status, because there is no way I’d disappoint hundreds of people in South Africa to stay in Australia, and give up my job, after Deutsche Welle has gone out of its way… to make sure I’m really comfortable in Germany.

“I don’t know what they think I would do in Australia.”

Last year Mefo was briefly jailed in Cameroon for her reporting but she said Australian authorities did not question her about that.

“I was arrested not because I committed a crime but because I reported that soldiers in Cameroon killed an American missionary,” she said. “After four days, when the government couldn’t bear the international pressure, I was released and the charges were dropped.

“I don’t have a problem with the Cameroon government. That’s not even why I left Cameroon. I left because I was given the fellowship program with Pen in London.”

The Australian government said it did not comment on individual cases.

Source: The Guardian

The Cameroon marine authority said Friday it has rescued over 200 passengers from their capsizing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.

The rescued passengers mainly of African nationalities were rescued and brought at Cameroon air force base in Douala, Cameroon’s commercial capital.

Cameroon marine was still investigating what caused the vessel to capsize but passengers told reporters it likely ran out of fuel at sea in Cameroon territorial waters and was rescued after several hours by the marine and fishermen.

Witnesses said some passengers dove into the sea in an attempt to swim to safety and were rescued by local fishermen.

No deaths were reported but marine officials said they were still searching for “any missing passengers”.

Women and babies were among the rescued passengers on board the vessel that was heading to neighbouring Gabon according to Marine officials.

Source: Xinhuanet

Last week as Mexico’s national guard continues to block migration into their country, at least two people from Southern Cameroons drowned off the coast of Puerto Arista in Chiapas, Mexico.

The dead bodies washed up to shore after a small boat capsized on Oct. 11 that left two dead and two others missing.

The rest of the migrants (six men and one woman) were rescued, AZcentral.com reports. All migrants were from “a country that has seen a growing exodus of refugees amid an increasingly violent conflict between its French- and English-speaking communities.

Southern Cameroons Security Chief reportedly travelled incognito to Bamenda, the chief city in the Northern Zone days before the attack on Governor Lele Afrique and his convoy of invading French Cameroun soldiers.

Vice President Dabney Yerima has been quoted as saying that the Interim Government (IG) consented to the unannounced visit by the Security Chief to Ekok, Mamfe, Bali and Bamenda and is expected to provide a proper situation report on the happenings in Ground Zero this Friday.

More than 34 Ambazonia Restoration Forces attacked a convoy of cars that was transporting the Francophone governor.  Yaoundé has ordered another massive deployment hoping to get the deteriorating situation under control.

Speaking in Manchester recently, Comrade Dabney Yerima said he plans to hold talks with other Southern Cameroons groups regarding the state of the revolution and to encourage other front line leaders to sign into the Amba Bonds Project.

We also gathered from IG sources that the new approach developed by the Department for Homeland Security will not allow any French Cameroun soldier to stay on Southern Cameroons soil.

By Sama Ernest in Bamenda