Politics

13, September 2018

Nigeria’s 2019 polls: Buhari submits party forms, slams PDP’s 16 years ⁰

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has submitted party nomination forms seeking as he officially kick starts a bid to secure a second and final term in charge of Africa’s most-populous nation.

Buhari was at the Abuja headquarters of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to file his nomination papers. The party has yet to slate a date for the contest to become flag-bearer even though Buhari is expected to be retained unopposed.

The septuagenarian in 2015 became the first opposition candidate in Nigerian history to defeat a current president. Buhari beat the then incumbent Goodluck Jonathan in his fourth shot at the presidency.

He had on Tuesday received nomination forms which were bought for him by some benevolent Nigerians. He tasked the APC members to eschew complacency and do all it takes to retain power come February 2019.

“Today I put my name forward to my party, the All Progressives Congress, seeking nomination to contest the Presidential Elections next year. I assure party members and all Nigerians that, if nominated and if elected, I shall continue to serve you to the best of my ability.

“Let me today appeal to party members not to be complacent but to prepare, strategize and win in 2019 elections. We must not allow those who brought the country to its knees from 1999 to 2015 to come and take us back,” he wrote on Twitter.

Buhari was elected on a promise to defeat Boko Haram, resuscitate a slumping economy and fight corruption.

His scorecard remains mixed as security continues to be a headache especially against insurgent group Boko Haram. A mid-year spate of communal killings have also all but subsided.

A proportion of Nigerians still suffering from the repercussions of the 2015 economic recession remain disenchanted. His first term was also marked by a serious illness, not revealed to the general public, which forced him to spend months in London for treatment.

His opponents accuse him of having autocratic tendencies.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Senate Leader Bukola Saraki who both defected from the APC to the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have declared interest to unseat Buhari.

Source: Africa News

12, September 2018

Francophone media, political elites accuse France and the US of plot to kill Biya ⁰

Some pro Biya comedians passing for opinion leaders and a group of CPDM media houses have reported that there is too much Western interference and diabolic harsh ploy to destabilise Cameroon.

With less than a month to the presidential election scheduled for October 7 in French Cameroun, several Biya regime media houses have made public what they described as maneuvers by the United States government and the European Union for the destabilisation of Cameroon.

In some of the reports, the Cameroon government media gurus observed that the US State Department recently convened a meeting in Washington grouping some presidential candidates and gave the party leaders instructions on how to combat the 85 year-old dictator who has been in power since 1982.

Prominent journalists of the state owned CRTV have also hinted that the Washington forum was expected to chose a single opposition candidate and fund popular uprisings in case the opposition fails to win on October 7.

The US and EU conspiracy against Cameroon has also been evoked by some opinion leaders in the opposition, like Franck Hubert Ateba, co-founder of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC), who accused last April the European Union of financing the popular uprising in Cameroon. Franck Hubert revealed that he was approached several times by a colonel of the French police serving with the French diplomatic mission in Yaoundé. According to Franck Hubert, the French officer met him several times in order to participate in the destabilization of Cameroon and assassinate President Biya.

Like many French Cameroun corrupt media organizations owned by the CPDM crime syndicate, the state radio and television is an important tool of blackmail, misinformation and Paul Biya’s image laundering used by pro Biya comedians like Paul Atanga Nji.

CRTV like Cameroon Tribune are used to perpetrate crimes against Southern Cameroonians far worse than the genocide in Rwanda. They are instruments of mass mobilization through falsehood, corruption of the popular conscience and the deification of the 85 year old dictator who has finally destroyed the tribal tolerance miraculously put in place by the late President Ahidjo. CRTV was and is the conduit through which egregious violations and crimes of unimaginable magnitude are perpetrated against Southern Cameroonians.

CRTV is the conduit through which fraud is celebrated and the flames of the North West/ South West divide are fanned and Francophones soldiers are incited to take up arms against innocent Southern Cameroons civilians. These media organizations remain the voice of hate, sycophancy and intimidation. The question one may ask, is, who benefits from these crimes? The answer points to Paul Biya. This does not absolve Paul Atanga Nji for the crimes he perpetrated or for accepting to perpetrate or oversee the use of CRTV to perpetrate crimes against Southern Cameroonians in which alleged “enemies dans la maisons” “biafrais” “anglobami” “Opposants” and now are blackmailed and targeted on account of their ethnicity or valid claims for self determination.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

11, September 2018

US: White House hits back at Woodward over new revelations ⁰

The White House is calling Bob Woodward “reckless” and “careless” over his revelations in a new book.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the comments on Monday, not dismissing the idea of a lawsuit against Woodward over his book.

“A number of people have come out and said Woodward never even reached out to corroborate statements attributed to them, which seems incredibly reckless for a book to make such outrageous claims to not even take the time to get a $10 fact-checker to call around and verify that some of these quotes happened,” Sanders said during Monday’s press briefing.

Some administration officials have already refuted claims attributed to them in the book, titled Fear: Trump in the White House.

They include Defense Secretary James Mattis, chief of staff John Kelly and former Trump attorney John Dowd, all of whom have “aggressively” hit back at the claims.

“I think those are far more credible sources, and far more reliable voices within this administration and that can accurately tell what’s taken place in the building behind me,” Sanders said.

Releasing responses to every single allegation by Woodward “would be a complete and utter waste of our time.”

The veteran journalist has been promoting his book, which describes a paranoid White House under the New York billionaire.

Source: Presstv

10, September 2018

Race for the White House: Former Vice President returns to Instagram and draws 1 million followers ⁰

Former US Vice President Joe Biden has returned to the popular social media platform Instagram amid speculation that he might be planning to run for president in 2020.

On Friday, Biden posted two photographs of himself and his wife, Jill, participating in a walk for injured veterans in New York. He has gathered more than 1 million followers since then.

According to different polls, Biden leads Trump by several points in a potential 2020 matchup. His blue-collar appeal has put him at the center of talk for months about whether he’ll run against.

According to the Associated Press, Biden will make a decision on the race by early next year. Biden is a strong critic of Trump and his leadership style. He has accused his administration of misunderstanding and misrepresenting the American values.

He has called Trump a “charlatan,” and accused the Republican head of state of taking advantage of frustrated middle class voters.

It seems Biden is remorseful about his decision not to run in the last presidential election, and has claimed that he could have easily defeated Trump.

Biden, a favorite for the 2016 Democratic nomination, announced his decision to not run for the White House in October 2015, cementing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s standing as the front-runner.

The popular vice president, who lost his son Beau to cancer in May 2015, said back then that he was not emotionally prepared to take on the battle and that it was too late for him to enter the race. Trump proceeded to pull off a historic victory against Clinton.

Source: Presstv

10, September 2018

Sudan’s Bashir dissolves government amid economic crisis ⁰

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has dissolved the government and appointed a new prime minister in a move aimed at fixing the country’s ailing economy.

President Bashir on Sunday appointed Moataz Moussa — who had been serving as minister of water resources, irrigation, and electricity — as Sudan’s new prime minister, replacing Bakri Hassan Saleh.

Saleh, who was serving as both prime minister and vice president, had been appointed in 2017. He will retain his vice presidential post.

Moussa’s government is expected to have 21 ministers rather than the 31 ministerial posts of the now-dissolved administration, a move intended to cut spending.

A statement released by the presidency said the latest measures were necessary to solve “the state of distress and frustration faced by the country.”

In recent months, people in Sudan have been suffering from shortages of bread, fuel, and hard currency.

The US dollar exchange rate has recently risen from an official rate of about 30 Sudanese pounds to about 47 Sudanese pounds on the black market.

Sudan’s economy reportedly began deteriorating after South Sudan seceded from it in 2011, taking with it three-quarters of the country’s original oil output and a huge part of foreign currency.

The lifting of a 20-year-old US trade sanction on Sudan last year was expected to improve the economy; however, the economic situation worsened as the black market for the US dollar has in effect replaced the formal banking system.

8, September 2018

Angola’s former president steps down as party chief after 4-decade rule ⁰

Angola’s former President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has handed his position as the leader of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (PMLA) party to incumbent President Joao Lourenco after more than four decades of political rule.

Dos Santos handed the PMLA leading position to Lourenco in an official ceremony at the party headquarters in the Angolan capital of Luanda on Saturday.

The 76-year-old veteran politician marked the ceremony by addressing the crowd, “Today, with my head up, I leave and pass on the baton to comrade Joao Lourenco,” marking the two men’s long-lived party affiliation.

The PMLA was born fighting against the Portuguese colonial rule over the country, gaining Angolan independence in 1975. The party dominated the Angolan political scene ever since, defeating other rival anti-colonial parties over the course of a bloody and prolonged civil war that lasted for over 26 years.

President Lourenco had served as defense minister under dos Santos’ presidency.

The announcement of dos Santos stepping down as party leader was not unprecedented. The former president had declared his intent to do so many times before, ultimately declaring in 2016 that he would resign in two years.

After dos Santos’ presidential tenure ended in 2017, the PMLA chief handpicked Lourenco as president, ending speculation on his successor. Many observers had speculated that the outgoing president was seeking to appoint a puppet, one that would preserve the lucrative business and political monopoly dos Santos had built up for his family.

The incumbent president has, however, shown himself as an independent leader, depriving many of the previous president’s affiliates of their positions, hoping to stifle corruption and ensure economic stability for foreign investors.

“Lourenco is already entirely autonomous as shown by his sacking of the dos Santos children, all of the country’s sectors have been purged,” said Benjamin Auge, an analyst with the French Institute for International Relations.

The firing of the former president’s daughter Isabel dos Santos from heading the state-owned oil company Sonangol by Lourenco is among the most important instances of the new president reining in on dos Santos’ economic monopoly.

The dos Santos resignation as PMLA leader signals a smooth handover of power in the country, leaving Lourenco in full power of state institutions.

Angola, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is Africa’s second largest oil exporter after Nigeria. The country’s economy fell into recession in 2016 with the unemployment rate reaching 25 percent. Despite being one of Africa’s richest states per capita, Angola remains one of the world’s most unequal countries with much of its population living in poverty.

Source: Presstv

8, September 2018

Obama attacks Trump, Republicans over ‘abuses of power’ ⁰

Former US President Barack Obama has assailed his successor Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers ahead of the upcoming mid-term congressional elections, urging Democrats to curtail the administration’s “abuses of power” and restore a sense of sanity to US politics by voting in November.

In an unusually blistering attack on Trump, Obama said Friday that Americans were living in dangerous times and accused the president and other Republicans of threatening US democracy, dividing the country and undermining Washington’s global alliances.

“In two months we have the chance, not the certainty, but the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics,” he said in a speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “There is actually only one check on bad policy and abuses of power, and that’s you and your vote.”

Obama also mocked Trump for taking credit for the recent economic growth that began under Obama’s administration, and said Trump was exploiting economic anger and cultural fears that have grown in recent years amid societal upheavals.

“In the end, the threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress,” he said. “The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference. The biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism.”

Trump was dismissive of Obama’s speech. “I’m sorry, I watched it but I fell asleep,” he said during a fundraiser in Fargo, North Dakota. “I found that he’s very, very good for sleeping.”

Other Republicans also shrugged off Obama’s criticism. “In 2016, voters rejected President Obama’s policies and his dismissiveness towards half the country. Doubling down on that strategy won’t work in 2018 either,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens.

Both major political parties are urging their supporters to vote in the November 6 midterm elections, when Democrats need to gain 23 seats in the House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate to gain majorities in both chambers of Congress and frustrate Trump’s agenda.

The November elections have been seen as a referendum on Trump, who faces a widening federal investigation over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and growing questions about his fitness for office, even by some within his own administration.

The White House has been shaken by an explosive, anonymous article on The New York Times that has plunged Trump’s presidency into its worst crisis yet.

The unsigned article published Wednesday, claimed that senior US officials were quietly working within the Trump administration to frustrate the president’s “worst inclinations.”

Trump has slammed the “gutless coward” who wrote the article and suggested he might take action against the newspaper.

6, September 2018

Trump staff says US officials working against ‘amoral’ president ⁰

Many senior members of US President Donald Trump’s administration are so alarmed by his “erratic” and “amoral” behavior that they are actively working to undermine him and protect the country from his worst impulses, according to an anonymous “senior official” in the White House.

“President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader,” the official wrote in The New York Times Wednesday.

“The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” the official wrote in an op-ed article entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” the official said.

In the piece, the official described “early whispers” among members of Trump’s cabinet to take steps to remove him as president, but added they decided against it to avoid a constitutional crisis.

The official wrote that the root of the problem was that Trump is amoral and not moored to any discernible principles that guide his decision-making.

Asked about the column during a White House event, Trump called it a “gutless editorial,” bashed the New York Times as “failing,” and ticked off economic achievements that he said were proof of his leadership.

The unsigned piece appeared to reinforce the claims made in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward, excerpts of which were made public Tuesday, that describes a virtual cabal of high-minded White House and cabinet officials scheming to prevent Trump from taking decisions damaging to the US economy and national security.

The Washington Post, which obtained an advance copy of the book by the veteran chronicler of modern presidents, reported Tuesday that Woodward describes Trump manically pressing his staff for actions that could lead to major conflict — leaving them little choice but to disregard his orders.

The White House has condemned Woodward’s book as “nothing more than fabricated stories,” and Trump called it “a work of fiction.”

But the Times op-ed suggests that dissent and resistance inside Trump’s White House are even deeper than Woodward described.

5, September 2018

Chaos engulfs Senate hearing for Trump’s Supreme Court pick Kavanaugh ⁰

The US Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, has turned into utter chaos as angry protests erupted and Democrats criticized Republicans for withholding documents about Kavanaugh’s past service at the White House.

It took the nominee over seven hours to be able to deliver his opening statement during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday as shouting protesters were arrested in droves.

US Capitol Police arrest a protestor during the US Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, September 4, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

According to US Capitol police, 61 protesters were removed from the room and charged with disorderly conduct, along with nine more outside the hearing. The protesters, mostly women, were shouting slogans like “This is a travesty of justice”, “Our democracy is broken” and “Vote no on Kavanaugh.”

Meanwhile, Democratic senators repeatedly interrupted the committee’s Republican chairman Chuck Grassley at the outset of the hearing, quickly turning the session into a ruckus.

They condemned the withholding of the documents and tried to have the proceedings adjourned, as Grassley struggled to maintain order.

Democratic Senator Cory Booker said the withholding of the documents has left lawmakers unable to properly vet Kavanaugh.

Protesters hold up signs during a rally near Capitol Hill against the confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on September 4, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

“We cannot possibly move forward. We have not had an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing,” Democratic Senator Kamala Harris said.

“This is the first confirmation for a Supreme Court justice I’ve seen, basically, according to mob rule,” Republican Senator John Cornyn said, a characterization Democrats rejected.

In response, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said, “What we’ve heard is the noise of democracy.”

Grassley described the Democrats’ request to halt the hearing “out of order,” accusing them of obstruction.

Republicans, who hold a slim Senate majority, can confirm 53-year-old Kavanaugh if they stay united. There were no signs of Republican defections.

If confirmed, Kavanaugh is expected to move the court, with an already conservative majority, further to the right. Senate Democratic leaders, however, have pledged a fierce fight to try to block his confirmation.

On Twitter, Trump reacted angrily, saying the hearing was “truly a display of how mean, angry and despicable the other side is.”

He accused Democrats of “looking to inflict pain and embarrassment” on Kavanaugh.

Source: Presstv

4, September 2018

Biya should NOT bid for a 7th term ⁰

The African Union Commission should for Africa’s sake; its dignity and self-respect do everything to stop President Paul Biya of Cameroon from his intended extension of his autocratic rule in October. The idea of a seventh term for Biya, another seven-year tenure, is abominable, tyrannical and reflects the helplessness of the people of Cameroon in the face of this tyrant to whom nothing else counts than power. It is obvious he has lost all regard for his people, so he can foist on them his medieval kind of rule.

Paul Biya is 85 years old. He came to power in 1982 when his predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo, who had been president since Independence in 1960, eventually decided to quit owing to failing health. When Ahidjo left, he extorted from the people of Cameroon incredible, scandalous rewards which shocked the world’s diplomatic and intelligence circles at the time.

Cameroonians had thought that Ahidjo stayed too long. If President Biya awards himself a 7th term, he would have spent nearly double the tenure of Ahidjo. He would have nearly matched Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi’s 44 years. He would have been in power for 43 years, nearly one half of a century.

It is of little use enlisting the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) to help dissuade President Biya from seeking a 7th term. The 11 countries seem to have a disdain for term limits. Central Africa holds the world’s largest collection of gerontocrats. Their attitude to democracy encourages men like Paul Biya. Jose Eduardo dos Santos, for instance, quit being President of Angola last year. He ruled the country for 38 years and left his two children controlling the commanding heights of the Angolan economy. His daughter, Isabel dos Santos, is the undisputed richest woman in Africa. Hundreds of Burundians had been killed and hundreds of thousands had fled the country in the last three years because of President Nkurunziza’s determination to serve a third term in office contrary to the constitution. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it took the Catholic Church many months of protests from the pulpit and in the streets to persuade President Joseph Kabila to reconsider his ambition to seek a third term in office.

We do not know what else actuates President Biya to seek a seventh term other than ambition. He is a man with precarious health, which necessitates his taking regular trips abroad for treatment, so frequently that he is sometimes referred to as the “absentee president.” People close to him say he suffers from prostate cancer in addition to heart ailments. It is said that in the years 2006 and 2009, he spent one third of the years abroad.

There can be no doubt that the current political upheavals in Cameroon were the result of the misrule of President Biya. The Northwest and the Southwest Anglophone provinces eventually declared the sovereign state of Ambazonia because President Biya was unable to administer those territories with fairness and justice and, worse, he failed to persuade the secessionists to see a rosy future in Cameroon as presently constituted. Indeed, one of their conditions for a peaceful negotiation of the crisis is that Mr. Biya must quit office. President Biya, apparently in defiance of the agitators, is seeking a 7th term.

The Nigerian government must review its policy toward Cameroon to take into consideration Biya’s extended stay which now constitutes part of the problem and his high-handed tactics in dealing with the agitators, which complicates the resolution of the conflict. The surrender of the leaders of the Ambazonia state, who were taking refuge in Nigeria, to the Biya government by Nigeria is a poor policy choice, which has turned tragic in its consequences. Our good neighbourly policy has always been good as a strategic position, but the crisis in Cameroon is the kind Nigeria ought to be able to mediate successfully before it degenerates.

We appeal to the international community to persuade Paul Biya not to seek a 7th term because it would inflame the delicate situation in the country and make a resolution more difficult. The teeming thousands of Cameroonians in Cross River State, in Benue and Taraba States have overwhelmed those Nigerian states already. And that is just a tip of the iceberg. If a civil war actually breaks out, and all the auguries are present, we think it is a lot cheaper to persuade President Biya to handover to a younger generation of leaders capable of dousing the flames than to risk a civil war which Biya’s 7th term would certainly provoke.

Culled from The Sunnews online