Cho Ayaba, AGC leader was quick to spin the news. First, he denied knowledge of his own meeting, and then shifted responsibility, blaming the Interim Government for the arrests at the meeting. But the meeting in question that saw the abduction of eight Southern Cameroons refugees in Calabar was actually organized by Dr. Ayaba.

Cameroon Intelligence Report has confirmed that Cho Ayaba used a third party who was among the arrested, to plan the meeting. The so-called Ambazonian freedom fighter was to address the meeting through a conference call. The meeting was meant to persuade attendees, most of whom were his acolytes, not to attend or participate in the joint self-defense initiative that was being organized by the Interim Government.

The event, aimed at gathering as many self-defense proponents to the Calabar meeting as possible. Ayaba was going to sway them from participating in any IG joint self defense initiative. At the end of his address, Ayaba’s (lady) representative who has lived in Calabar for years runs a hotel business and trades in petrol had solely put the meeting together on Ayaba’s behalf, would distribute as support from the AGC, cash from Dr. Ayaba. It was a stipend they would use to pay their transportation back to Ikom.

But the plan wasn’t going very well. The refugees smelled danger with increasing pressure from the lady as the day of the meeting drew closer, coupled with the fact that she won’t reveal to anyone, the venue of the meeting in Calabar. Some officials of nonprofit groups in the camp heard of the meeting and the secrecy involved and passed out announcement in the camp warning refugees not to attend the meeting. We also gathered that some camp officials of the IG passed out an alarm owing to the very secrecy under which the meeting was being organized.

This lady, one Emerald Johnson, it should be recalled, had hosted Dr. Ayaba in her motel while he visited Dadi on November 2017, to tour the camp his ADF boys were being trained. She didn’t only host Ayaba, she accompanied Ayaba, sitting in the back seat in the car with him to Dadi. It wasn’t a coincidence that Ayaba chose her and her hotel facilities to host the meeting in Calabar that saw the arrest of innocent needy refugees who had gone there hoping they did get some money after Ayaba addresses them.

Unfortunately for those who ignored the warnings and went to the meeting, they were picked up right at their hotel locations before the meeting even started. News began to filter out immediately after the arrest from the police station in Calabar as one of them had succeeded to sneak his phone into the cell. From behind bars, he began sending text messages to others who had stayed back in Ikom. He said what happened in Abuja has happened to them, that they have all been abducted.

When things took the wrong turn, Cho Ayaba spun the news, denying knowledge and responsibility for the meeting entirely. First, he accused the IG of calling the meeting, actually naming Acting President, Dr. Sako and Homeland Security Secretary, John Egywang as the ones who called for the meeting. He said that the Acting President set up the meeting purposefully to get his supporters abducted like in the Abuja case. To some other people, he said that the IG had called for the meeting to persuade his ADF members to defect him and join the joint initiative that was being put together by the IG for self-defense.

When contacted, both the Acting President and Homeland security chief denied ever knowing about the meeting. The IG self-defense meeting was to come up on the weekend of Saturday March 10. But before the meeting, Ayaba and his surrogates let the cart, accepting he actually called the meeting before going viral with attacks on Chris Anu, Secretary of State for Communications for revealing the identity of Emerald Johnson, the lady who hosted the meeting. Ayaba and his gang have said that by revealing the name of the lady, Anu put the lives and security of refugees at stake.

Cameroon Intelligence Report talked to Anu, hitherto, Editor of the Southern Cameroons Journal, asking him why he put the name of the lady out knowing that she was a Southern Cameroonian and he stated; “I had no clue who the lady was, not until news came to me afterward that the same lady was the one who accompanied Cho Ayaba to Dadi,” he said.

Anu pointed out that; “I received a WhatsApp post from Alex Mbianda in Boston that said Atam Milan had conspired to get some woman in Ikom to collect names of refugees 11 years and above and send to him.” Anu said “the post came across as legit, and I was like, this concerns refugees. If I do nothing and something happens, people may blame me for not following up on Mbianda’s lead.” He said he called a number of people in the refugee camp, including George Tando who was accompanying the two women from London and Germany to find out what precisely their assignment was. He said he called about four different workers in the camp to find out who was it Milan was conspiring with to illegally sneak refugees to South Africa. He said he was given two phone numbers of a woman who was supposed to be that of Milan’s accomplice, all belonging to the Johnson lady.

“When I called her,” Anu said, “I told her my name is Ashu Martin. You see, in my head, I was like if I should say I’m Chris Anu, and she has anything conspiratorial, she won’t want to talk to me. So I gave her a different name to get her open up and talk to me. But she began immediately yelling at her lungs saying that people should stop calling her, that she knows nothing about the Southern Cameroons crisis other than what she sees on Facebook. She even threatened to sue, saying that since morning, so many people have been calling her number and that she didn’t know why. And then she dropped the call.” Anu explained.

Anu said that since nobody was, initially, – not the IG, nor any other group was accepting responsibility for the meeting that the lady had put together, his immediate conclusion was that Emerald Johnson must have been an agent of the Nigerian Gov’t used to set-up the arrest of the eight refugees. “Remember, she had told me earlier in the phone call that she’s Nigerian, and that she knows nothing about the Southern Cameroons crisis. So later on, when news of the arrests came out and it happened that she was the one who organized it, and coupled with the fact that neither Ayaba nor the IG would take responsibility, I took her for an agent, thinking the meeting was solely her making. In my heart, I was like if she actually plotted the arrest, then she should be exposed, people should know. I had no idea, not until I mentioned the name publicly, that the AGC now claimed that Emerald Johnson was their supporter and a close friend of Dr. Cho Ayaba whom he had used to convene the meeting.

“I was taken aback by AGC attacks on me. I thought by revealing the name of the woman, I was indeed helping our people know who the agent behind their arrests was.” Anu stated. “Of course, if I had known that comrade Ayaba organized the meeting, or let me put it this way; If Ayaba had blown an alarm that he put a meeting together and his supporters got abducted; or think about it this way, if the lady had told me earlier in the phone call that she was Cameroonian and then later on I come to find out that she was at the Centre of the arrests, I probably would have treated the story in a different way. But here was I thinking we have a repeat of the Nera Hotel incident and the agent must be exposed” Anu explained. “I called the lady just once. And the call was only following up with Mbianda’s lead that some woman was about taking names of refugees to forward to Milan.

“Now, they are out there blaming me for blowing the cover of a lady they all knew supposed to, maybe have been protected instead of blaming themselves for initially trying to shift responsibility for the meeting, that isn’t leadership, Anu concluded.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Kingsley Betek in Calabar

The judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), sitting in a plenary session have elected Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji of Nigeria as President of the Court for a three-year term with immediate effect. Judge Robert Fremr from the Czech Republic was elected First Vice-President with Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut of France as Second Vice-President.

‘I am deeply honoured to have been elected by my peers as President of the International Criminal Court. As I take up my duties, I feel encouraged that I am able to rely on the wide experience of the two Vice-Presidents, Judge Robert Fremr and Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, both of whom I have closely worked with previously. I look forward to working together with them as well as with all the judges, all the Officials and the staff of the Court in a spirit of collegiality.

I also look forward to collaborating with the Assembly of States Parties, civil society and the international community at large, acting together to strengthen and reinforce the Rome Statute system, the 20th anniversary of the adoption of which we celebrate this year’, President Chile Eboe-Osuji stated following the election.

Justice Chile Eboe-Osuji was born in Anara in Imo State, Nigeria, on September 2, 1962. He obtained his bachelor of laws degree from the University of Calabar, Nigeria. He obtained his master of laws degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and doctor of laws degree from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1986 and practised briefly there. After achieving his Master’s degree from McGill in 1991, he worked as a barrister in Canada. From 1997 to 2005.
During his stay in Canada he worked as a barrister and law lecturer.

Judge Eboe-Osuji worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as prosecution counsel and senior legal officer to the judges of the tribunal. From 2005 to 2007.

Working for the Special Court for Sierra Leone as senior prosecution appeals counsel in 2007/08 and returning to the ICTR from 2008 to 2010 as Head of Chambers, he became the Legal Advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2010.

He has authored two books and numerous law journal articles in international law. On 16 December 2011, he was elected as a judge of the International Criminal Court. He won the office in the fifteenth ballot in the Assembly of States Parties with 102 votes.

The Nigerian born judge in 2014 recused himself as a member of the bench that tried the case involving Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta who was standing trial with his vice William Ruto for crimes against humanity following the Kenya’s post election violence in 2007.

The work of the ICC Presidency:

The Presidency – consisting of the President and the two Vice-Presidents – plays a key role in providing strategic leadership to the ICC as a whole.

The Presidency coordinates with the other organs and seeks the concurrence of the Prosecutor on matters of mutual concern.

In accordance with the Rome Statute, the ICC’s governing treaty, the Presidency is responsible for the proper administration of the Court, with the exception of the Office of the Prosecutor.

The Presidency oversees the activities of the Registry and provides input into a broad range of administrative policies affecting the Court’s overall functioning.

Furthermore it conducts judicial review of certain decisions of the Registrar and concludes Court-wide cooperation agreements with States and international organizations.

Culled from Africa News

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a hijacked passenger plane reported to be targeting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi to be shot down.

“I was told: a plane en route from Ukraine to Istanbul was seized, captors demand landing in Sochi,” the Russian president said in a documentary titled “Putin” aired on Sunday.

In the documentary, Putin tells a reporter Andrey Kondrashov that he received a telephone call from security officers responsible for the Sochi Olympics on February 7, 2014, a few hours before its opening ceremony.

Kondrashov reports that the pilots of a Turkish Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 flying from Kharkiv to Istanbul claimed that one of the passengers was carrying an explosive device and was demanding that the plane change course to Sochi where 40,000 people had gathered to watch the opening ceremony.

Putin said that his security advisors told him that the emergency plan for such a situation was for the flight to be downed.

“I told them: act according to the plan,” Putin said, adding that after several minutes he received a call in which he was informed it incident had been a false alarm and that the said passenger had been inebriated.

When asked by Kondrashov what he experienced between the two phone calls, Putin said that “this is something I would prefer not to talk about.”

The remarks made in the documentary have been confirmed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Source: Presstv

Nigerian activists on Sunday called on the African Union to suspend Cameroon over the alleged torture of political prisoners.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) said it had already sent an open letter to the African Union Chairperson and President of Rwanda Paul Kagame.

The organization urged him to “urgently call an Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU) to suspend the rights of membership of Cameroon from the AU to put pressure on the government to end alleged torture and ill-treatment of 47 political activists forcibly returned to Cameroon by the Nigerian authorities, enforced disappearances, politically motivated trials, and gross and systematic violations of citizens’ human rights in the country.”

Why it matters: Political turmoil in Cameroon over the past one year has left countless people dead in the Northwest and Southwest regions where activists have been demanding independence. The secessionists have also killed many law enforcement officers and burned down many public schools. And with the long serving President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, preparing to run for another term of seven years after 36 years in power, things make get even worse.

SERAP also urged the AU to “maintain targeted travel sanctions and asset freezes against the authorities until they meet specific human rights and good governance benchmarks.”

In the letter dated 9 March 2018 and signed by SERAP deputy director, Timothy Adewale, the organization said: “Despite the massive violations of citizens’ human rights, and the continued absence of accountability in Cameroon, the AU has largely remained on the side-lines. Failure to act in the face of the gross and systematic violations by the authorities would seriously undermine the credibility of the AU and the legitimacy of its Constitutive Act, including its commitment to fight impunity as expressed in Articles 4(h) and (o) of the Act.”

The organization said, “The AU Constitutive Act identifies respect for human rights, and the rule of law as universal values and requires all member states to promote and adhere to them. By taking punitive action against the government of Cameroon for disregarding the fundamental principles of the AU, African leaders will be helping to achieve a positive resolution of the lingering human rights and humanitarian crisis in that country.”

According to the organization, “The AU now must recognize and openly acknowledge that the situation in Cameroon threatens the entire region. AU leaders cannot continue to ignore the violations of human rights inflicted on the people of Cameroon by their own government, and now must take serious steps to help alleviate their suffering and end continuing abuses.

The letter read in part: “SERAP urges the AU to intervene effectively to end Cameroon’s long-standing human rights and humanitarian crisis. Only strong and concerted pressure on the government can end the country’s human rights and humanitarian emergency.”

“The government’s longstanding assault on political freedoms and human rights lies at the heart of Cameroon’s political crisis. Enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture of political detainees have continued for many years, as the authorities routinely arrest and harass political activists, and violently break up peaceful protests.”

“According to our information, 47 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly leaders of the people of Southern Cameroon and who were recently forcibly returned to Cameroon have continued to face torture, ill-treatment, politically motivated trial and other human rights abuses by the government.”

“The AU should publicly condemn ongoing torture and ill-treatment of the 47 political activists facing persecution and abuses by authorities and call for their immediate and unconditional release.”

“The situation in Cameroon is characterized by widespread and massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law with growing numbers of victims lacking access to an effective remedy. The authorities continue to use state institutions such as the police and the justice system as a weapon against political activists, opposition leaders, civil society activists, and human rights defenders.”

“Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and unlawful detentions, as well as reports of torture and abuse by the Cameroon authorities violate Cameroon’s regional and international human rights obligations and commitments including under the AU Constitutive Act and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.”

SERAP therefore urged the AU to:

1. In accordance with the AU Constitutive Act, hold an Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the AU to suspend the government of Cameroon from the organization if-within a specific timeframe-it does not release the 47 political activists, end politically motivated trials of opposition leaders and civil society activists, end enforced disappearances and torture, and meet specific human rights and good governance principles set by the AU;
2. Urge full accountability for the perpetrators of human rights abuses, including prosecutions of all persons responsible in accordance with international due process standards, as well as appropriate remedies for victims of abuses;
3. Collaborate with the United Nations and its agencies to maintain a coordinated global response to the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Cameroon

Source: TodaynewsAfrica

French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed regret over a decision by United States under President Donald Trump to pull out of a major international agreement on climate preservation.

While in India, Macron hailed activism by groups like “solar mamas” in protection of the environment despite Trump’s move last June to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Accords, which sets benchmarks for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent a further rise in global temperatures.

“They (solar mamas) started to act and to deliver concrete results. They didn’t wait and they didn’t stop because some countries decided just to leave the floor and leave the Paris agreement,” Macron said in clear reference to the US under Trump which reversed the course set by former President Barack Obama, a major contributor to climate campaigns, and decided to pull out of the Paris deal.

Macron was in New Delhi to attend a meeting of the International Solar Alliance, a treaty-based international organization launched on the sidelines of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference. The body led by India and France seeks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels by promoting efficient exploitation of solar energy.

The French leader said his presence in the meeting showed that countries like France were determined to implement the Paris agreement despite opposition by Washington.

“… and that’s why we are here, in order to act very concretely,” Macron said, adding that women in the “solar mamas”, who are trained as solar engineers, , brought about a “big change” by acting on the pressing issue of environment.

“Because they decided it was good for them, for their children, their grandchildren. They decided to act and keep acting,” he said, explicitly bashing the US administration for ignoring global concerns about climate change.

Trump argued during his presidential campaign last year that the Paris Accords was a deal that favored countries like China and India and could hurt US labor by imposing restrictions on coal-dependent industries.

Source: Presstv

Rescue efforts have saved several hundred asylum seekers who had risked possible death by trying to make the perilous journey from Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea in unseaworthy vessels.

The Libyan navy announced on Saturday that it had rescued 252 Europe-bound asylum seekers off the country’s western coast.

“We were alerted… to the position of a migrant boat” around 30 kilometers off Zawiya, west of Tripoli, Navy Captain Rami al-Hadi Ghomed said.

He said the 140 asylum seekers on board that boat, including 14 women and four children, were brought back to Tripoli’s naval base before being transferred to a detention center for refugees.

A second boat was turned back off Garabulli, east of Tripoli.

There were 112 refugees, including 30 women and three children, “aboard an inflatable boat,” said navy spokesman Ayoub Kacem.

The refugees, from African countries “were given medical care before being transferred to the Tajoura detention center” in Tripoli, Kacem said.

A third boat with 98 asylum seekers on board was intercepted off Abu Kamash, near Libya’s border with Tunisia.

In a separate operation, more than 100 asylum seekers were saved by charity groups. Reports said the Aquarius rescue ship, which is jointly run by SOS Méditerranée and Doctors without Borders, was preparing to transfer the asylum seekers to an Italian port.

Rescuers on board the Aquarius said the asylum seekers’ boat had been on the verge of completely sinking when they reached it. More than half of its passengers were Nigerians, others were from sub-Saharan African countries as well as Palestine.

“All but one of the five balloons holding the boat up was either completely deflated or deflating and there were still about 120 people inside the boat, so [it was] a very, very precarious condition,” said one of the rescuers, Max Avis.

Libya is the main departure point for asylum seekers attempting to reach Europe by sea. Many refugees have crossed the central Mediterranean to Italy over the past four years as human traffickers took advantage of a security vacuum in Libya after the toppling of its long-time ruler.

Thousands of other asylum seekers have perished at sea.

To stop the flow of the refugees headed for Europe, the Libyan coastguard has stepped up its interception operations. To carry out those operations, the Libyan coastguard has been funded, equipped, and trained by the European countries.

Culled from Presstv

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is on a mini tour of Africa cancelled his Saturday program in Nairobi because he is “not feeling well.” He is will resume his normal visit on Sunday, the U.S. delegation announced.

“The secretary does not feel well after two long days of working on important issues like North Korea and he cancelled his events of the day,” said Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein.

Tillerson was scheduled to attend an event as part of PEPFAR, the U.S. program to help AIDS patients in Africa.

He was also to take part in a 20th anniversary ceremony of the attacks on U. S. embassies in Kenya’s capital city and Dar es Salaam, the economic capital of Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured more than 5,000 on 7 August 1998.

In the middle of the afternoon, Steve Goldstein said that “the secretary feels better and will resume his normal program on Sunday.

Mr. Tillerson arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday. He visited Djibouti on Friday morning and arrived in Kenya late in the afternoon. He is scheduled to go to Chad on Monday and to Nigeria on Tuesday.

*AFP*

As the security and social crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone region rages, a former United States ambassador is advocating a return to federalism as the only viable solution. Herman Cohen, a former assistant Secretary of State for Africa says the government must go back for the original federal system that was in his view ‘illegally abolished’ during the tenure of the country’s first president Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Ahidjo the country’s first president governed with a federal system for the first twelve years of his presidency. But in 1972, the federal system was abolished for a United Republic of Cameroon directed from Yaounde. There has been a resurgence in the push by southern Cameroonians to secede from French-dominant Cameroon. A similar agitation started in the late 1990s. The recent one (October 2017 till date) started as peaceful protests against marginalization till the government cracked down on protesters.

It has now taken a violent turn as separatists elements have staged guerilla style attacks on security forces killing over twenty of them. The two Anglophone regions (North West and South West) have also been under curfew for the last few months.

Ahidjo stepped down as president in 1982 and Paul Biya took over the reigns. The current governance structure concentrates power in the presidency despite two chambers of the legislature – the 180-member National Assembly and the 100-member Senate.

The President is elected for a seven-year mandate. The presidency creates policy, administers government agencies, commands the armed forces, negotiates and ratifies treaties, and declares a state of emergency if need be.

The president appoints government officials at all levels, from the prime minister (considered the official head of government), to the provincial governors and divisional officers. President Biya is sure to run in polls scheduled for later this year.

Source: Africa News

The reconstitution of the Cameroonian government on March 2, many not be enough to calm tensions in some English-speaking regions of the country.

In Bamenda, the northwestern part of the country, for example, some residents have protested against the retention and appointment of certain English-speaking personalities.

Civil society groups say this realignment is not a solution to the crisis. ‘‘This subject is of no importance to me because I realized that the most important and urgent thing to do was not a reshuffle, nor a change of ministers. It is very important to see how this situation can be resolved by all means “, a member of the Anti-corruption and human rights council , Mambo Gabi told Africanews.

For Dr. Nick NGWANYAM, a Director of the Research Institute more is needed.

‘‘It’s as if we wanted 100% to solve a problem but we’re still in the 10% range. So there is 90% left, not only for English-speaking problems but also those affecting other citizens’‘.

Director at the Research Institute, Dr Nick Ngwanyam said the solution begins with solving social problems, particularly the education system.

‘‘Since 1960, the educational system in Cameroon has been wrong.It is not good at all . Education is supposed to enable young people to have problem-solving skills. But in our universities and educational system, we teach children just the theory. Some people don’t even know how to write their names, let alone make a bamboo chair. If you ask me, I will say that a new government will be on its way where more people with the bad spirit will be taken out and the right spirit will come on board. People who will add value to their system, those who will prevent us from eating Chinese rice, those who know how to help young people create jobs, things like that’‘, said Dr. Ngwanyam.

Dr. Ngwanyam is advocating for the establishment of a new leadership and a return to the negotiating table for an amicable solution to the unrest.

Culled from Africa News

More than two million children suffer from severe malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They are at risk of dying if they do not get the needed assistance. That is what the United Nations has warned.

In Geneva, Jens Laerke, a UN spokesman, said during a briefing on Friday that the UN’s humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock would meet donors next week in the violence-torn country.

“We have a great responsibility in the DRC… now is the time to stay the course,” he said.

Some 300,000 children of the two million children at risk of starvation are in Kasai, one of the country’s most troubled regions, said Bettina Luescher of the UN’s World Food Programme.

The United Nations said earlier this year it would seek more than $1.5 billion to respond to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, warning the country was at a “breaking point.”

The DRC is suffering from growing insecurity. New conflicts are erupting as President Joseph Kabila struggles to maintain his grip on power after his constitutional term in office expired in December 2016.

Armed groups are active in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, which border Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

Violence has also erupted in the central region of Kasai. There a tribal chieftain known as the Kamwina Nsapu, who rebelled against Kabila’s regime, was murdered in September 2016. Another conflict is flaring up in the country’s Ituri province between the Hema and Lendu communities.

Source: Presstv