Politics

29, March 2018

SDF wants Senate polls annulled for entire Southern Zone region ⁰

Cameroon’s main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) wants recently held Senatorial elections cancelled in the entire South West region of the country. Local media reports indicate that the party on Wednesday filed petition at the Constitutional Court to that effect.

The SDF tabled claims of fraud particularly in the town of Lebialem and incidents of attacks that marred the process in Bangem. The South West region along with the North West make up the Anglophone regions of the country. They have been riled by violence since October 2017 when separatists groups under the so-called Ambazonia Republic attempted to declare independence.

The two regions have been under curfew as a result of attacks on members of the security forces. Separatists under the banner of the Ambazonia Defense Force (ADF) have killed over twenty security forces in guerilla style attacks.

Security in the two regions has been the major issue with the series of polls that lie ahead for the country. The Senatorial polls of March 25 were the first in a multi-election year for the Central African country.

Cameroon’s parliamentary system caters for 100 senators out of which 70 are to be elected by municipal councillors across the country. The remaining 30 slots are the prerogative of the president.

The Senate polls will be followed by council, legislative and presidential elections later this year. The respective dates are yet to be determined by the President.

Source: Africa News

27, March 2018

German court keeps exiled Catalan leader Puigdemont in custody ⁰

A German court said on Monday it was likely to take several days to decide whether to extradite former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to Spain to face rebellion charges over the region’s campaign for independence.

Puigdemont appeared on Monday before a regional court in the northern German town of Neumuenster, which extended his detention pending a decision on extradition.

Another court, the Higher Regional Court in the town of Schleswig, will be responsible for deciding whether to grant Spain’s request. The court is unlikely to make a final decision on Puigdemont’s extradition before Easter, a spokeswoman for the state prosecutor said.

He had entered Germany from Denmark on Friday after leaving Finland, where he had attended a conference and was caught off-guard by the Spanish Supreme Court’s unexpected decision to reactivate his arrest warrant.

Puigdemont, who fled Spain five months ago for Belgium after Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dismissed his regional administration and imposed direct rule from Madrid, faces charges of rebellion that could lead to 25 years in prison.

(Source: Reuters)

27, March 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Things are falling apart ⁰

The Southern Cameroons crisis that started like a joke in 2016 is gradually producing one of the least expected consequences. When it all started playing out, the Cameroon government thought it could address the issue through military violence. In its view, killing a few demonstrators would send the others home and things would return to normal. But this strategy that has worked for years has turned out to be the government’s worst mistake.

Instead of sending the other demonstrators home after manhandling lawyers and Buea university students, things have instead snowballed and a small problem that could have been nipped in the bud through constructive and inclusive dialogue has metamorphosed into a full-blown conflict that has already consumed more than 1,000 lives. Despite this unfortunate picture, the government still holds that this unconventional war can only be won through conventional methods. It has declared war on the people it is supposed to protect and instead of using the population to gather intelligence so as to gain a better understanding of things, it has resorted to collective punishment which has only pushed the innocent and desperate population into the waiting arms of the secessionists.

Government measures have been anything but effective. Its arrogance has surprised the international community. Its financiers are gradually questioning its management effectiveness and this is gradually manifesting itself through dwindling resources. Pride goes before a fall, so say the wise. And this is gradually coming to pass in Cameroon where a government that has been at grips with a rebellion in the English-speaking part of the country and an endless insurgency in the north is dealing with empty coffers. The arrogance with which the government declared war on Southern Cameroonians a few months back is gradually fizzling out.

Mr. Joseph Beti Assoumou, the government’s defense minister, had declared that his troops would implement the president’s decision without batting an eyelid, but it turned out that Southern Cameroonian fighters, most of whom are ill-equipped, have killed so many army soldiers without batting an eyelid; a situation that has caused the docile Francophone population to start questioning the rationale behind the declaration of a war on fellow citizens as if they were some foreign fighters.

The violence escalated following the extradition of the Ambazonia President, Julius Ayuk Tabe, on Monday, January 26, 2018, to Yaoundé and this has continued for many weeks. Many young Southern Cameroonians have stepped up attacks on soldiers and gendarmes in a bid to express their frustration and anger. Many cities have been the theater of intense fighting for months with Manyu Division being the epicenter and this is costing the government a pretty penny. The government is facing a tough financial situation. Declining oil production and falling commodity prices are hurting a government that has spent more time wasting money on fake elections than on real and sustainable development projects.

The increasing attacks had been predicted by many analysts and politicians who had posited that the arrest and extradition of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe would only exacerbate things as more people would be radicalized. Most analysts based their thesis on the fact that the arrest of Mr. Mancho Bibixy, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla and Dr. Neba Fontem in January 2017 had only made matters worse and their predictions have been perfect. The Southern Cameroons crisis will not be over anytime soon. Ambazonian fighters are determined and the existence of many armed groups is giving the government much food for thought. It is today fighting an expensive war on many fronts with very limited resources. This is a huge challenge, but due to its legendary arrogance, it prefers to avoid the negotiating table. But this might not continue for a long time. Its Western backers are already skeptical about its ability to win this war.

Despite this, the violence continues. The government is wont to using violence as its weapon of choice to address even the least disagreement with its population. It still believes that it could use the same means to suppress a more determined Southern Cameroonian population that is receiving significant amount of help from abroad. Arms have been shipped into the country and there is a huge pool of willing fighters that is currently giving the government a run for its money. The stiff resistance is causing the government to lose sleep, while its expenses are increasing by the day, with government officials involved in the management of the war effort doing their best to line their pockets.

Despite the poker face that the country’s leaders have been spotting for some time, it is clear that the pride is gradually dwindling, as the country’s limited financial resources head south. The government is cash-strapped and it is in search of money to prosecute a war in the English-speaking regions that will surely last for years. It is also seeking to roll back a Boko Haram insurgency that has killed thousands in the north, including army soldiers who are poorly trained to deal with such a violent and radical insurgency.

The government has been drumming up support for its efforts to stem the tide of Boko Haram attacks in the north, but its efforts are not good enough. Years of neglect of that part of the country have created a vacuum that is being filled by Boko Haram. Years of unemployment among the youths have caused these youths to turn to other sources for help and Boko Haram has used this failure by the government to endear itself to the people.

Decades of corruption and recklessness have begun having an impact on a regime that has been anything but prudent in its financial management. Many former government officials are currently in jail for using state funds to feather their nests, although there are rumors that many of them ended there because they had the ambition of taking over from the country’s long-ruling president, Paul Biya. The country’s maximum security prison in Yaounde is today harboring distinguished personalities who had served in Mr. Biya’s government. A former prime minister, former Secretaries General at the presidency, a former minister of health, and a former minister of finance have all been roped in by anti-corruption campaign that is no longer inspiring fear. Government officials know that Mr. Biya’s time is almost up and given that they have participated in the mess, many of them are using unorthodox means to secure a good future for themselves.

A recent case is that of Basile Atanagana Kouna (BAK) who has simply underscored that there is nothing to write home about the government’s security system. BAK, as he is popularly known, was until early March, the powerful minister of water and energy who had transformed himself into a weapon of mass destruction for young jobless Cameroonian boys, many of whom have been condemned to wearing diapers for the rest of their lives. During his time at CAMWATER and the ministry of water and energy, if any young man had to dream of securing a job or having a promotion, then he had to think of bending over forward. BAK has left behind a trail of destruction and corruption wherever he has been to. At CAMWATER, the mess he left behind is still flowing and it has made its way to many neighborhoods. Even in Yaounde, the nation’s capital, there are many neighborhoods without water and electricity and this has gone on for years. BAK had decided to line his pocket instead of using the money for the purpose for which it was intended.

But BAK is not alone. There is still a long list of people to be arrested and taken to the Yaounde Maximum Prison that is already bursting at the seams. Adolphe Minkoa She, Magloire Ondoa, Jean Parfait Koe, Stanislas Victor Atangana, Rene Martin Mbida and Fidele Solange Ngono are among the people who are being watched closely. The country’s secret services are already on their trail. While in China with a begging bowl in search of financial resources, the country’s dictator had issued instructions that none of the people on the long list of suspects should be allowed to leave the country. He did not want a repeat of Basile Atanagana Kouna’s drama. His instructions were clear and firm and the country’s secret services want to prove that Basile Atanagana Kouna’s drama is just a flash in the pan.

Some of these people are already sick. Enow Agbor Kenneth, a native of Manyu Division, who has made this list of shame, has been suffering from diarrhea ever since he was informed of this decision. A source close to Benjamin Amenguele says his heart is already failing him ever since the country’s secret services summoned him to one of their many offices. Mr. Biya seems to have put all his collaborators on a diet. Many of them are losing weight, but this is against their wish. They know sooner or later, they will be at Kondengui and this is not a place a rich person should end up. Many of them are having violent nightmares and this is already impacting their health.

Biya has failed his people. He has disappointed his financiers. And this is hurting him, big time. With very limited financial opportunities, he is bound to look eastward. In this quest for more resources, China is gradually becoming a good friend. But there are many questions popping up regarding the viability of the corrupt system Mr. Biya has put in place in Cameroon. Even the Chinese have questions, but out of courtesy, they had to spare their host a lot of embarrassment. Mr. Biya has already been to China seven times. None of those visits seems to be producing the desired results.

Chinese are business people and they won’t be doling out money to a man who has run his own economy aground. Like in previous visits, many cooperation agreements were signed, but coughing up the money that will oil that cooperation, will be the hardest part of the agreements. Chinese have worked hard to earn their beautiful spot and respect under the sun. They are surely not going to be throwing their money down a dark and dry hole. If Mr. Biya’s Western backers are reluctant to give him vast financial resources, why would China do so when it knows the West will never allow it to take full control of Cameroon’s economy. China knows Cameroon is simply a fair weather friend. It will therefore not be fooled by Mr. Biya’s vain seduction. Things are clearly falling apart for the Yaoundé government. No matter how it pretends, the world is aware of what is happening.

The government of Cameroon had declared that it would never negotiate with English-speaking Cameroonians who have been demonstrating their frustration with the government for almost two years. This frustrated English-speaking minority has shown a lot of resilience. Its fighters are determined and their determination is something the government has not succeeded to understand. The fighters’ strategies have been evolving and this has produced some unexpected outcomes. They have moved from organizing ghost town operations to kidnapping senior administrative officers and this is spreading fear across the entire nation.

Civil servants sent to the two English-speaking regions now move around with lots of butterflies in their stomachs. The dangerous fighters have a nasty habit of surprising their targets. Even the Minister of Territorial Administration, Atanga Nji, knows that he is in their cross hairs. His out of control rhetoric is not making things better. The country is going through one of its most challenging moments and many people hold that only genuine dialogue can spare the once prosperous nation the pain it is seeking to inflict on itself. Analysts around the world are thinking that with dwindling resources, the government might soon have to eat its own words. It might soon be holding a peace plant and an invitation for an inclusive dialogue. The world is watching and it is really looking forward to that dialogue. Without inclusive dialogue, things will continue to fall apart. Fake elections and presidential decrees will not address the issues.

By Kingsley Betek and Rita Akana

Cameroon Concord News Group

Yaounde

27, March 2018

The AGBAW-EBAI DEBATE: Cameroon sinking to rise no more ⁰

Keeping them Honest:

Don’t step foot in Ambazonia, France warns its citizens. After the US embassy issued a travel advisory warning its citizens against travelling to the Anglophone regions because of the degenerating security situation, the French ambassador to Yde, Gilles Thibault has issued a travel ban on the embassy website, advising French citizens to avoid any travel to Ambazonia, saying they are potential kidnap targets.

Now that France has come to realize the obvious; would the French pressure Biya to come to the negotiation table?

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

26, March 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: UN urges Yaounde to respect human rights ⁰

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has appealed to the Government of Cameroon to respect human rights of all citizens for the sake of peace. The commission’s representative in Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr Antonio Canhandula, made the appeal while speaking with newsmen on Monday in Makurdi. Canhandula said the instability in Anglophone Cameroon had forced thousands of citizens to seek asylum in Nigeria. He said Cameroonian Government should explore alternative ways of engaging with those who feel aggrieved for the sake of peace and that both parties should respect human rights.

“UNHCR urges the Government of Cameroon to explore ways of engaging with those who feel aggrieved, for the sake of peace. “We also reiterate the need for respect of human rights by all parties involved,’’ Canhandula said. He said the refugees complained of exclusion from the national life by the Cameroonian Government, political processes and important positions in the government. “Longstanding grievances against the central government in Cameroon took a new turn in 2016 when a group of Anglophone Cameroonians triggered civil society-led demonstrations. “This was based on allegations of marginalisation by the authorities, particularly in the education and justice system. “Initially, the protesters called for the return to a federal system of government and greater autonomy. “However, on Oct. 1, 2017, the separatist movement, Ambazonia Governing Council, declared unilaterally the independence of Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest Regions.

“Tensions ensued with government security forces clashing with movement, resulting in injuries and deaths and leading to an influx of English-speaking Cameroonians into Nigeria. “Critics accused government forces of killing dozens of civilians while the administration is also alleging that suspected separatists have killed more than 10 security personnel since the crisis intensified in October.’’

Canhandula further said that the UNHCR had registered 20,485 Cameroonian refugees seeking asylum in Benue, Cross River and Akwa Ibom states. He explained that the commission also opened a permanent office for the coordination of their activities in Calabar, Cross River, field offices in Adikpo, Benue and Ikom in Cross River. The UNHCR representative said that the Benue Government had allocated 191 hectares of land for the settlement of refugees in Kwande Local Government Area. He added that the site was being developed. According to him, each site has the capacity to host 4,000 persons. He, however, said that the influx is expected to continue and there is the need for more land in Benue. “We are still working with the state authorities in Cross River to identify a suitable location to move the refugees away from the border in line with international standards. “Issues of accessibility, security, topography, water resources, absorption capacity and good terrain for sanitation facilities are taken into consideration while selecting potential refugee sites.’’

Canhandula said the commission was yet to gain access to Akwaya, where some Nigerian refugees in Cameroon were located. “The Akwaya sub-division, in particular, hosts small refugee population of around 1,800 Nigerians and around 600 Cameroonian returnees, who had been refugees in Nigeria before being repatriated in 2015 and 2016. “This area is very difficult to access, particularly during the rainy season. “Nevertheless, our office in Cameroon is working to organise an assessment mission there. “But we cannot provide first-hand information at this moment,’’ he said.

Source: www.vanguardngr.com

26, March 2018

Paul Biya: Cameroon’s ‘absentee president’ ⁰

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has been in power for 35 years. But while his longevity in office is a talking point at home, the time he spends out of the country has stirred international comment – as Paul Melly, an associate fellow of Chatham House, explains.

Criticised by some for a supposedly “hands-off” style of rule, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya recently held a cabinet meeting for the first time in more than two years.

Presidential elections are scheduled for October and Cameroonians are waiting to hear if the 85-year-old will seek a further term. But no such announcement was made at the meeting.

Mr Biya has been in power since 1982, making him one of Africa’s longest serving leaders. Under his rule, Cameroon has survived an economic crisis and moved from being a one-party state to multi-party politics.

But it has also been marked by endemic corruption and reversal of democratic gains, leading to the abolition of term limits in 2008, which allowed the octogenarian to run for re-election in 2011.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) accompanies President of Cameroon Paul Biya (R) to view an honour guard during a welcoming ceremony inside the Great Hall of the People on March 22, 2018 in Beijing, China. — Image captionPresident Biya has been in China this week

Today’s Africa is changing. The era of decades-old presidencies is slipping away. Satellite TV and the internet tell a growing urban audience about democratic changes of power in other sub-Saharan countries.

Some 60% of Cameroonians are under 25 and so were not even born when President Biya first came to power. There is massive demand for jobs and viable livelihoods.

The opposition Social Democratic Front has now recognised these generational realities. Earlier this year, the party’s leader, John Fru Ndi, 76, stepped aside to make way for a new presidential candidate, 49-year-old businessman and former pilot Joshua Osih.

Swiss hotel

This is the challenge that confronts Mr Biya as he decides whether to stand for a further term that could take him into a fourth decade in power in a country hungry for change.

His repeated absences from the country have riled critics.

His foreign travels have been the subject of an online spat between the state-owned Cameroon Tribune newspaper and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which calculated the amount of time the president spent abroad using reports from the daily newspaper.

The OCCRP estimates that the president spent nearly 60 days out of the country last year on private visits.

It also alleges that he spent a third of the year abroad in 2006 and 2009. The Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva is said to be his favourite destination.

The state-owned Cameroon Tribune called their investigation “a clear electoral propaganda”.

President Paul Biya (L) and his wife Chantal Biya in Yaounde — Image captionCameroon football players bow before President Biya and his wife Chantal to mimic an obsequious greeting

Back home, President Biya adopts a low-key style, staying out of the limelight and sometimes retreating to his home village.

He entrusts the day-to-day running of the government to the Prime Minister, Philemon Yang, who holds monthly gatherings of a “cabinet council”.

The prime minister is accorded wide latitude to manage the work of his ministerial team, while the head of state meets senior figures in private at the presidential palace in the capital, Yaoundé.

Culled from the BBC

25, March 2018

German police arrest ex-Catalan leader on Danish border ⁰

Catalonia’s former President Carles Puigdemont has been detained by German police as he was crossing the border with Denmark by car.

The arrest on Sunday came just two days after Spain’s Supreme Court vowed to prosecute 13 key separatists, including Puigdemont and his nominated successor Jordi Turull, over their role in the region’s failed breakaway bid.

Puigdemont “was arrested today at 11:19 am by Schleswig-Holstein’s highway patrol force,” a German police spokesman said, adding that the detention was based on a European warrant.

“He is now in police custody”, added the spokesman.

Separately confirming his arrest in Germany, Puigdemont’s party spokeswoman Anna Grabalosa said, “It happened as he crossed the Danish-German border. He was treated well and all his lawyers are there. That is all I can say.”

Puigdemont was picked up by German police as he was traveling back to Belgium, his lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas said on Twitter.

He “was heading to Belgium to present himself, as always, at the disposal of Belgian courts,” added Alonso-Cuevillas.

On Friday, Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena issued an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont, accusing Catalonia’s former president of organizing the vote on secession in October last year.

The independence referendum, called by Puigdemont despite objections from Madrid, triggered an unprecedented political standoff between Catalonia and Spain. Puigdemont used the yes vote as a base to make a declaration of independence on October 27, prompting Madrid to dismantle his government and the regional chamber, where he made the declaration.

Following the referendum vote, Puigdemont fled to Belgium to avoid prosecution on charges of sedition and rebellion. A number of his ministers, along with senior regional authorities, have been jailed or freed on bail over similar charges.

The new Catalan parliament was formed after snap elections in December in which pro-independence parties, like that of Puigdemont’s, retained their majority.

While separatist parties won Catalonia’s regional elections, they have been unable to form a government for the region as numerous leaders are in exile abroad or in jail.

Puigdemont to appear in court on Monday

Later on Sunday, Spanish court officials said Puigdemont would appear before a judge on Monday after he was detained by German police on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain.

“The sole purpose of this appearance is to verify the identity of the person arrested. The regional tribunal of Schleswig-Holstein in the town of Schleswig will then have to decide if Mr. Puigdemont has to be taken into custody” in view of handing him over to Spain, the court was quoted by AFP as saying.

Source: Presstv

24, March 2018

Quotable Quotes in the Southern Cameroons Struggle for Independence ⁰

Our traditional rulers have been turned into auxiliaries of an alien enemy administration and informants of the brutal colonial secret police in the land which our ancestors passed over to us and posterity. These are the crimes our Ambazonia self defense groups have taken up arms to free all of us from. If they arrest enemy collaborators or request banned enemy economic operators to pay back some of our own money which they stole or facilitated the theft through their conscious collaboration or facilitation that, cannot be characterized as ransom.

Our self-defense forces need to acquire weapons to prosecute the liberation war of self-defense. They need to feed themselves. They need to acquire intelligence from the enemy camp. They need to secure our borders and our communities. They live the daily realities of the brutal acts of genocide and must take self-survival tactics to fight this war which is escalating every day.

Extract from a Cameroon Concord News editorial by Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

23, March 2018

Cameroon: Playing games with our minds ⁰

2018 is an election year and it appears all tricks are acceptable, especially when there are no real economic and financial results that can endear a government to its people. True to its philosophy, the CPDM government yesterday March 22 staged a new show, using Vision 4, a local TV channel, to announce that the former minister of water and energy, Basil Atangana Kouna (BAK), who had fled the country last week when news of his impending arrest was released to the public following allegations of fraud and embezzlement when he was the head of Cameroon’s water corporation (CAMWATER) had been brought back to the country.

BAK, as he is popularly called, was until early March the powerful minister of water and energy who had transformed himself into a weapon of mass destruction for young jobless Cameroonians, many of whom have been condemned to wearing diapers for the rest of their lives. BAK has left behind a trail of destruction and corruption wherever he has been to. At CAMWATER, the mess he left behind is still flowing and it has made its way to many neighborhoods. Even in Yaounde, the nation’s capital, there are many neighborhoods without water and electricity and this has gone on for years. BAK had decided to line his pocket instead of using the money for the purpose for which it was intended.

Being aware of the fate that was awaiting him following his dismissal from government, BAK gingerly hatched a plan that would spare him a long jail term. BAK had left Cameroon surreptitiously on board a Turkish airlines flight to Montreal a day before he was expected to appear in court to answer for all his financial and economic crimes. His ordinary and diplomatic passports had been seized a weak before he disappeared. His disappearance was plotted with the connivance of top government officials and senior security and intelligence officers.

BAK’s trip to Montreal had been brought to the attention of Cameroon Concord News Group on the same day he was leaving the country. A former Cameroon government undercover security agent who fled the country, had reliably informed our senior correspondent in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, where he is living that Atangana Kouna would not be attending the court session scheduled for last Friday. The agent, who is struggling with life in Abidjan, is very bitter with the way things are turning out in Cameroon. He disagrees with BAK regarding the manner in which he has managed the energy ministry and CAMWATER, but points out that there are lots of bad elements in the system.

He argued that corruption had spread across the country like ragweed and if care was not taken, Cameroon could implode. He said many young soldiers had lost their lives in the north of the country and in the Anglophone regions, but the government was keeping things under wraps. He added that some had been killed by senior military officials due to little disagreements. The south region native stressed that the Minister of Defense, Joseph Beti Assoumou, was destroying the military, adding that his new policy of dismissing soldiers and imprisoning others for asking for their money could one day come back to bite the government. He promised to speak to our correspondent on the divisions within the ministry of defense, stressing that he had a lot to spill.

BAK’s choice of Montreal is not in error. BAK owns a mansion in an upscale neighborhood in Canada’s second largest city, Montreal. For security reasons, Cameroon Concord News Group has decided to withhold his home address. His property is estimated at more than one million dollars. Cameroonians in Canada had been planning a huge demonstration to take place in front of his mansion to let neighbors know that they were sharing their beautiful neighborhood with an embezzler and a homosexual whose actions have resulted in many deaths in his native Cameroon.

It should be recalled that BAK is not the first Cameroon government official to escape to Canada following threats of arrest by a government that has the nasty habit of jailing its real and perceived enemies for a long time without trial. Florent Ely Etoga, CRTV’s first general manager who passed away two months ago, had also embezzled CRTV’s budget and fled to Côte d’Azur in France where he lived for many years before returning to Yaounde to spend his last days. Years after, Messi Messi joined the club of embezzlers. He had once headed a prosperous Bank in Cameroon until it was alleged that he had engaged in financial malfeasance. He promptly skipped town and emerged in Montreal.

His saga started on April 19, 1992, when Garga Haman Adji, the then Minister of Public Service and State Control, announced that the Disciplinary Council of the Office of Budgetary Control (IGERA) had charged Robert Messi Messi, the former Director of the Société Camerounaise de Banque (SCB), with embezzlement. Messi Messi had already been fired as General Manager of SCB in August 1988, barely a month before the bank collapsed under the weight of its mountain of bad loans estimated at more than CFAF 150 billion. Over one thousand employees also lost their jobs in the process and many have since died due to stress and frustration.

IGERA had accused Messi Messi of swindling over CFAF 2 billion (CFAF 2,285,178,792 FCFA) and asked him to explain the whereabouts of another CFAF 45 billion missing from SCB coffers. IGERA barred him from holding public office in Cameroon for a 10-year period, and instructed the Minister of Justice to begin judicial proceedings against him. Messi Messi was also handed a CFAF 2 million fine.Instead of accepting his punishment, he simply skipped town, choosing Montreal as his destination of choice. He later sought asylum in Canada on political grounds where he is living today like a lord.

While in exile, he was interviewed in Switzerland by Celestin Monga, today a vice president at the African Development Bank in Abidjan, where Mr. Messi Messi alleged that most of the money had been taken by the country’s first lady and his family who kept on showing up in his office with notes from the Unity Palace that they be given money. The Unity Palace has never confirmed or disconfirmed that information, but what is clear is that the taxpayer had been robbed of a huge amount of money.

Atangana Kouna’s story is a déjà vu. Same people, same comedy. The story about his return to Cameroon on Thursday, March 22, 2018, is more of a distraction and part of a game that is designed to enrich certain people. The government of Cameroon is famous for playing games with the minds of its people. Alcohol consumption, which is a favorite pastime in Cameroon, seems to have reduced the people’s ability to think and analyze issues independently.

The government is aware of this and it is making hay while the sun shines. Elections are in the offing and there is no better way to distract a people who have been rendered helpless due to tough economic times. The government has weaponized poverty and it is using it to keep Cameroonians under control. Poverty can disarm even the bravest and it has indeed robbed Cameroonians of their mental capabilities and dignity. To the developed mind, yesterday’s story has produced more questions than answers. It is hard buying into the story that Atangana Kouna has been brought back to Cameroon “manu militari” from Nigeria.

The pictures of a plane purported to be carrying Basil Atangana Kouna do not tell any story. There were no pictures of BAK. If the photographer could take pictures of the airplane, why could he not take pictures of BAK as he alighted from the Chinese made airplane in handcuffs? Which other way could have been used to convince skeptics about the government’s determination to bring back criminals to Cameroon for them to answer for their crimes?

In all of the noise, nobody, not even those who broke the news, have made mention of the airport whence the flight originated. The story has only been that he has been brought back from Nigeria. From which airport did the flight originate? Cameroon Concord News Group wants to get to the bottom of the matter. It is prepared to send its reporters to gather more information in Nigeria. However, it needs the originating airport in order for it to do a clean job.

After all the buzz about BAK returning to Cameroon and being taken to the famous SED, Cameroon Concord News Group on Friday dispatched its West Africa Bureau Chief, Kingsley Betek, to SED to talk to some of his contacts who have always elected anonymity. According to one of them “BAK is a huge, handsome, and fair in complexion guy with a physical presence. If he is around, it will be easy to see him even from a distance. I have not seen anything extraordinary around here, but I will have my ears to the ground and will advise you whenever anything pops up.”

BAK’s story is being used by the regime to prove that it is effective. It is seeking to mend the dents its image has taken following BAK’s disappearance from Cameroon under embarrassing circumstances. The country’s intelligence community is still recovering from this embarrassment. However, it is used to such embarrassment. Many government officials have left the country incognito even when the country’s intelligence services are monitoring them. Corruption has finally spread to the intelligence services. Nobody is safe. Even Etoudi knows that with a few millions of francs, the country’s intelligence services could betray it.

The government is at its wit’s end. Its poor economic performance is coming back to haunt it. Corruption has become a norm in the country. As elections approach, the government needs something to distract Cameroonians. The Southern Cameroons crisis has diminished the government’s credibility and it is scrambling for other means that may make it look credible in the eyes of the poor and desperate population. Playing games is its forte. It has been playing games with so many minds. When will it face reality and quit playing games with our minds?

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai and Kingsley Betek with correspondent reports

22, March 2018

Federal Republic of Ambazonia: French Cameroun’s banning and burning of bikes is a crazy strategy ⁰

The policy of burning commercial bikes in villages and banning same in towns and enclave communities is clearly a very primitive and hopeless approach to restore peace and security. For one thing, it provokes anger and a thirst for vengeance in young people in restive areas in Southern Cameroons. By stopping the circulation commercial bikes and setting dozens of such bikes ablaze, the government has put out of business, tens of thousands of young people, many of them university graduates who depend on motor bikes popularly known as “Bend Skin” or “Okadas” as their only means of livelihood. Their families and dependants cannot have good meals and will not be able to pay various bills because their only providers have been artificially incapacitated.

While Divisional Officers (DO), Senior Divisional Officers (SDO) and regional governors west of the Mongo had repeatedly banned motorbikes and ordered night time curfews, the problems they have attempted to solve have not gone away. Rather, their actions have unfortunately created more difficulties and untold hardship for the populations. These actions have also gone a long way in radicalizing even the most moderate minds and pushed young people to invent other ways of hurting the government they so much detest. While, the population and critics have been vocal against the slash and burn strategy of the authorities, the new minister of territorial administration, Paul Atanga Nji, has not made things any better for the restive populations and communities. His first stamp as minister of interior on his own people was the banning of bikes in the main commercial towns of Kumba, Muyuka and other localities in the South West Region.

How insensitive could the new MINAT boss be? How could he place a complete ban on such a huge population and expect the sprawling and volatile city of Kumba to respect the rather punitive order? How could the minister go so low as to ignore the governors, SDO and DOs to ban bikes? What then is the role of the local administrators? His decision has been counterproductive in Kumba and this is having a huge impact on his reputation and authority. Could he risk a mass protest and the chain effect it could have if the “K” Town Boys descend on the streets to protest against any eventual enforcement of the ban? Paul Atanga’s style is reminiscent of the vicious and pitiless reign of terror that Cameroonians knew under Forchive, the then secret police boss of Bamoun extraction (under Amadou Ahijo and Paul Biya, ) who Cameroonians hate to remember. Forchive’s extremely repressive tactics of caging dissidents is a monolithic hang over which Paul Atanga Nji appears unable to shake off. By compelling governors and other administrators to feed him with security reports twice a day, it smacks of a police state of the past whereby innocent citizens were victimized, just to satisfy the bosses and prove that they were working hard to weed out enemies of the state or terrorists and preserve the security of the state.

BOOMERANG

Apart from the disgrace inflicted on MINAT by the daring Kumba bike riders, the overwhelming use of force to control movements has given birth to yet another extreme weapon against the government. A campaign to stop state-owned vehicles from plying the roads of Southern Cameroons is now being fanned. This is a first volley the Southern Cameroons pro-restoration campaigners have fired against the Atanga Nji rule. French language daily, Le Messager, vividly captured it well when it said that the Atanga Nji Paul formula could be greatly problematic.

Look back into East Cameroun history and you can easily see how francophone, especially in the Bamileke and Bassa areas, suffered the same atrocities that some Southern Cameroonian villages are currently experiencing. At the time, French soldiers led a bloody campaign against UPC nationalists who were branded as Terrorists or Marquisards. Villages were razed and heads were chopped off and displayed at road junctions to scare people and deter them from joining the revolution against the brutal French rule. Apparently, those ruling this country have forgotten their Cameroon history lessons and are bent on pursuing their “slash and burn” policy to the end. We say it is wrong. It is a wrong strategy to start eating up your own children. The ego of those in power cannot be too big to let go peace and justice. Dialogue, genuine dialogue is the right way to go. Various relevant organizations have echoed this as the right formula to restore lasting peace in the country. They include the UN, Commonwealth, AU, Amnesty International, International Crisis Group etc. But despite this crucial advice, President Paul Biya has remained faithful to his initial position that there will be no discussion on the form of the state. Those championing the crusade for good governance and autonomous rule for Southern Cameroons have been branded as terrorists. They are being hunted down, chased into exile and moderates are being pushed into extremism by the high handedness of administrative and military officials.

It has not been long since President Paul Biya declared war in his country. In effect, this is war on his people. The war is claiming lives and draining the country’s resources, and the end is not in sight. How the government intends to win such a war without the support if the population is what history is waiting to record as the world’s first. The same world history has shown repeatedly that after all the fighting, hatred, killings and excesses would have taken place, the warring parties will inevitably end up at the negotiating table. So why not just go to the negotiating table now and talk instead of the crazy decisions that are being taken on a daily basis?

By Sesekou Ashu Isong