9, April 2020
Cameroonians are worried about coronavirus but also about an absent president 0
Like elsewhere, Cameroonians at home and abroad are very worried over the novel coronavirus which has been rapidly spreading across the country.
By the close of April 7, Cameroon had registered 685 cases of Covid-19, with nine deaths, overtaking other countries to become the second hardest hit in Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa. Cameroon now has over 15 times as many confirmed cases as any other country in the central African sub-region and one of the highest numbers of daily new cases on the continent. Like many other African countries, Cameroon is not well-equipped to handle a major outbreak of the disease.
But as Cameroonians grapple with the spread of Covid-19, they are also preoccupied with the absence of their leader. President Paul Biya, 87, who in 2018 secured another mandate to extend his 36-year rule to 2025, has not publicly addressed his compatriots since the country registered its first case on March 6. His next-door peer, Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, with just 30 confirmed cases, has addressed his people on at least three occasions, despite still recuperating from a stroke.
Biya was last seen in public on Mar. 11, when he received the US ambassador to Cameroon at the Unity Palace in Yaoundé. No official mention has been made of his whereabouts thereafter. Even pressure from activists and opposition leaders has not forced the African strongman out in public.
Two weeks ago, Cameroon’s main opposition leader, Maurice Kamto issued an initial seven-day ultimatum, calling on president Biya to personally address the nation. On April 3, Kamto called on the population of coronavirus-affected regions to stay at home—a move the runner-up of the 2018 presidential election said he took because “the Head of State has refused to assume his functions in the fight against the coronavirus.”
The Popular Action Party on its part expressed concerns over the inaction of President Biya and accused Yaounde authorities of playing “a hide-and-seek game.” The party promised to seize the country’s constitutional council to make a declaratory statement on the vacancy or not of the presidency.
Despite his country exhibiting multiple layers of vulnerability to Covid-19, Biya has stuck with his reticence for public speaking. He however instructed the prime minister to put in place a 13-point response strategy and has through social media called on Cameroonians to respect the measures put in place. From wherever he is, the president has also signed several decrees, including one instituting a national solidarity fund to fight COVID-19 and another appointing officials to lead the reconstruction of the conflict-ravaged English-speaking regions in the country’s southwest.
It isn’t unprecedented for Biya to be unseen or silent during critical moments in the life of the country. Even recent widespread rumors of his demise on social media have not forced his hand. His aides and supporters have described this phenomenon as “presidential silence” and have often argued that “his attitude is a sign of maturity and wisdom.”
Biya’s “private visits” to his usual retreat at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva has often been a source of political controversy and quiet embarrassment. One estimate is that he’s spent 15% of his time in power, abroad.
Over the last decade, Biya has made the top floor suites of the five-star luxury hotel into his home away from home spending months at a time even as his country has slowly descended into conflict from Boko Haram Islamic terrorists in the north and an Anglophone-led insurgency in north- and southwest of the country.
Culled from Quartz Africa
9, April 2020
US: More signs of absolute dysfunction coming from the White House 0
The resignations of US President Donald Trump’s chief spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham and Acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly show absolute dysfunction in the White House, according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist.
Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday after Grisham stepped down Tuesday and the US Navy chief offered to resign in the wake of an aircraft carrier coronavirus crisis.
Modly’s trip last weekend to address sailors aboard the COVID-19-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt cost taxpayers more than $243,000, according to a Navy official.
In a speech to the sailors, Modly branded the fired captain of the ship as “naive” and “stupid” for seeking aid, causing his resignation Tuesday.
“When Donald Trump was running for president he promised to hire only the best. Maybe he saw himself as the reincarnation of John Kennedy with a cabinet of the ‘best and the brightest’ but like that previous administration, this term referred to the utter failure of its foreign policy regarding Vietnam,” Hoenig told Press TV.
“For Trump, it relates more to the idea of dumb and dumber when it comes to his choice of advisors, personnel picks, and overall policies. The latest resignations of Acting Navy Secretary Modly, followed by press secretary Grisham shows more than just looking for the best to represent the administration, but shows absolute dysfunction in the White House,” he said.
“Rarely has there been a near mutiny on board a US Naval ship which caused the ranking civilian close to the President to step down. Secretary Modly relieved of his command Captain Crozier for publicly highlighting a critical medical problem on board in order to get the attention of much higher ups. Modly, in talking with the naval personnel on board called him stupid and naïve. This didn’t go well and he was cursed at by many of the sailors. Discipline and decorum flew out the window, or porthole,” he added.
“On the political side the resignation of Stephanie Grisham, who never held a press briefing, only showed that in all policies it is President Trump who leads the way and is leading the way towards utter confusion, chaos, misinformation, and ridiculous conspiracy theories coming from the White House. On the Corona virus he’s not a doctor but plays one on TV, often offering to his supporters medical advice that contravenes the wisdom of the medical profession. But like everything else, it isn’t just that he thinks he is smarter than anyone in the room, as he so often states, but he has financial interests in the quackery that he’s promoting,” he noted.
“Overall, these two most recent resignation serve as a metaphor for a collapse of societal norms and capitalist dysfunction, not at all started by Trump, but certainly exaggerated by him. Overt racism, homophobia, misogyny, failure to accept responsibility, conspiracy theories, saving the very wealthy over the needs of everyday people, long preceded Trump but are all the hallmark of the Trump administration,” he concluded.
Source: Presstv