17, October 2017
Mister George nears goal of Liberia presidency 0
George Weah has been here before: on the goal line of the Liberian presidency, one run-off vote from victory. Unlike in 2005, however, his support is much wider and many expect him at last to succeed. The 1995 European football player of the year won 39 percent of votes in first round presidential polls last week, with 95 percent of votes counted. The final result is due on Wednesday. That was 10 percentage points more than closest rival Vice President Joseph Boakai, and a better score than he had in earlier contests, but short of the 50 percent needed to win.
A run-off between Weah and Boakai will be held in November. The result shows how support has grown steadily for the former AC Milan striker, who lit up television screens in Liberia in the 1990s with his mazy runs, briefly distracting fans from a 1989-2003 civil war that killed tens of thousands. Now “King George”, as his supporters call him, has to persuade the majority that he can run a country as well as he kicks a ball. His rhetoric has been light on policy so far. In an interview on Oct 8 he spoke vaguely about a need for better roads. “We will seek a government of inclusion where everyone can work together and make our country a better one for all of us,” he told Reuters.
Weah grew up in Clara Town slum in the capital Monrovia, playing football there and in Cameroon, where manager Arsene Wenger spotted him and took him to Monaco. He went on to play for Milan and Paris St Germain, and later in his career for Chelsea, Manchester City and Marseille. He became the first non-European to win the Ballon d’Or in 1995, the same year he picked up the African and world player of the year awards. His rags-to-riches story has inspired supporters from similarly lowly backgrounds. “Weah is grass roots, a son of the soil – he is a star, but he has the country at heart,” said Oliver Myers, an unemployed 39-year-old from the Rehab neighbourhood outside Monrovia.
Others are wary of his lack of political experience and education, and question his ability to govern a country that remains 12th from bottom of the U.N. Human Development Index. “Weah’s populism and inability to articulate a coherent platform … are deeply concerning,” said Liberian political analyst Robtel Neajai Pailey in a recent opinion piece for Liberian website The Bush Chicken. “Success at football does not translate into success in the presidency of a traumatized, poorly managed, post-war nation.”
“THERE FOR US” Doubts over Weah’s experience could still sink his ambitions in next month’s run-off, as in 2005, when he won the first round but lost the second to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who went on to rule for 12 years. Weah refused to take part in televised debates attended by most other major candidates, and his choice of running mate Jewel Howard-Taylor – ex-wife of Charles Taylor, the former president and warlord serving 50 years in Britain for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone – has raised eyebrows.
Johnson Sirleaf was credited with shoring up peace after the civil war, but criticised for failing to tackle elite graft and doing little to lift most Liberians out of poverty. Development has been hindered by an Ebola outbreak and a drop in the price of iron ore. Poor roads still leave most of rural Liberia stranded during the rainy season, often without electricity. In Monrovia, where derelict buildings line the main highways, most live on pitted dirt streets with little access to clean water. Boakai, 72, Sirleaf’s deputy for 12 years, has struggled to separate himself from her during his campaign, despite promoting his humble beginnings.
As Weah gained popularity, he was elected to the Liberian senate in 2014, defeating the president’s son Robert Sirleaf. He still plays football every Sunday in Monrovia. “While people have reservations about his lack of education, he is seen as the candidate for change,” a diplomat told Reuters on Monday. “It will take a lot for Boakai to turn this one around.” Thomas Kojo, who played with Weah on the Liberia national team, thinks his former teammate’s passion for his country will take him far. “The heart George has for Liberia is unbelievable,” Kojo said in an interview outside Weah’s compound in Rehab on Monday. “He made sure the national team was always trying to bring (home) some pride.”
Weah paid for the national team’s kit when the Football Association couldn’t afford it during the war, and gave players up to $600 spending money and similar bonuses if the team won, Kojo said. He once chartered a flight for the team when they were stranded in Ivory Coast without a flight to a game. “The football team was the only good image to come from Liberia when all people saw was the killing,” Kojo said. “He made sure he was there for us.”
Source: Euronews




Sadi Senior


Cameroon Concord News Group and the Cameroon Intelligence Report are focusing instead on a new Cameroon after Biya and the terms of separation no matter how long the process will take. It is time for this new generation of Southern Cameroonians to live up to the greatness and to prove themselves renewed and worthy of a future by staging a massive ghost town operation against Philemon Yang and his gang.












19, October 2017
Southern Cameroons Crisis: Akere Muna says Fru Ndi won the 1992 Presidential elections 0
Barrister Akere Muna has said that the leader of the SDF, Ni John Fru Ndi actually defeated President Paul Biya during the presidential election of 1992. The lawyer with international reputation who recently declared his intention to contest the 2018 presidential elections made the revelation to local and international newsmen and women while presenting his vision for Cameroon.
On Wednesday, October 18, the 65-year-old Prince from the Mbengui County in Southern Cameroons held a press conference in Yaounde and presented to the public his motivations and especially the orientation he wants to give to the management of public affairs in Cameroon if he is elected President of the Republic.
“I think that I will give Cameroonians hope. My speech and what I will put on the table will stimulate Cameroonians to a renewed hope. I am Cameroonian and I think I will put on the table a program that can meet the expectations of the hour. And let the Cameroonians judge, “said the former Vice president of Transparency International.
In his exchange with the media gurus, Akere Muna also gave out alot, some that certainly did not go well with the barons of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate. This is the case with the one linked to the 1992 presidential election. Akere opined that the elections in 1092 were won by the leader of the SDF, NI John Fru Ndi.
“In 1992, it was the first multiparty elections in Cameroon. I managed the assembly and vote counting. And I can tell you in ’92, Fru Ndi indeed won, “he said before explaining.
“Since we did not have an efficient counting machinery, I had the results of the parliamentary elections that came earlier. There was a room and each had a department. There was a young lad who counted together the votes of all the departments. We began to announce, every day, the results we had to show that we were advancing. The state, panic-stricken, decided to begin to announce the results too. So I did assign someone who tallied the votes of the ruling party, the CPDM. After two hours, he came to see me saying that there was something weird. He told me “the figures given to the radio are the same as in the legislative elections …” At the time, Minister Kontchou was in communication. They decided to pass on the figures for the legislative … Minister Kontchou was called to point out that the figures that were read are the same as those of the legislative ones. He was stronger than the current minister Issa Tchiroma. He acknowledged that it was a mistake. That he put the results of the presidential election in the same drawer as those of the legislative ones. At the time of release the results for the reading, he said, had rather released the bad results, “said Akere Muna.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai, CCN