A prominent Catholic bishop in Cameroon was released late Saturday after being kidnapped in the country’s volatile English-speaking Northwest region, according to church officials.

“Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo Diocese has been released by his captors. He is back in the parish and in good health,” the officials said in a statement.

Armed separatists claimed responsibility for kidnapping the bishop, claiming that they “wanted him to pray and bless us.”

The abduction came barely a week after two Catholic priests were kidnapped in the region.

Kidnapping of priests has become widespread in the region since an armed conflict started in 2017.

Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions are English-speaking, while the rest of about 80 percent of the country is French-speaking. Separatists in the two English-speaking regions have been fighting government forces in an effort to establish a separate state.

About 530,000 people have been displaced internally and hundreds killed by the conflict, according to the United Nations.

Source: Xinhuanet

Last week unidentified gunmen seized two Catholic priests in the village of Ibal in the restive Anglophone region of Cameroon. Church officials said they were “kidnapped late at night” and appealed to their abductors to release them unharmed. Local police claimed that the kidnappers were separatists seeking to break away from Francophone Cameroon and found an independent Anglophone state. But separatist leaders denied that they had taken the priests.

The abduction is just the latest in a series of troubling incidents involving churchmen in the West African country. In May 2017, the body of Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Balla was discovered in the Sanaga River. The authorities ruled that it was suicide, but local Church officials insist he was murdered. In November 2018, a missionary priest from Kenya was shot dead outside a church in Kembong, in the Anglophone region. Reports suggested that he was killed in crossfire between the Cameroon army and separatists.

The recent surge in violence has undermined Cameroon’s reputation as one of Africa’s more stable nations. President Paul Biya has ruled the country since 1982. Last year the 86-year-old won a seventh term with a remarkable (some say suspicious) 71 per cent of the votes. But many Western observers blame his refusal to compromise for the worsening conflict in the Anglophone region.

The crisis is rooted in the country’s colonial history. During the First World War, Britain and France combined forces to take over German Kamerun. The Treaty of Versailles gave most of the territory to France. It awarded Britain two small regions next to Nigeria, known as Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. In a 1961 referendum, Northern Cameroons opted to join Nigeria, while Southern Cameroons voted for union with Cameroon, with the assurance that it would have substantial autonomy, including its own prime minister. But in 1972, after another referendum, Cameroon adopted a new constitution which swept away the federal system, replacing it with a unitary state. Southern Cameroons lost its autonomous powers and was divided into two administrative areas, the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region.

President Biya has resisted all appeals to restore autonomy to the Anglophone region. Separatists, in turn, have become ever more vociferous. In September 2017, they declared independence, renaming the Anglophone territories Amazonia and clashing with government forces.

The Catholic Church has a unique role to play amid this conflict, which verges on civil war. The Church is one of the few institutions that truly integrates both French- and English-speakers. Catholics account for 38 per cent of Cameroon’s 20.4 million inhabitants, with Protestants comprising 26 per cent and Muslims 21 per cent, according to the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report.

The Church has called consistently for negotiations between the government and separatists. It has suggested that some decentralisation of powers could help to end the unrest. It has also denounced the violence in the Anglophone region. For that, it has paid a price.

In May 2018, shots were fired at the residence of Archbishop Samuel Kleda, president of Cameroon’s bishops’ conference. A local news agency described the incident as an “attempted assassination”. A month earlier, Archbishop Kleda had given a television interview in which he called on the government to make concessions and for both sides to stop the killing. “Since we’re all in the same country and all brothers, our message is to stop the violence immediately at all costs, without vengeance, and accept others who don’t think like us,” he said.

But the fear is that the separatists and the government have moved beyond the point where they can “accept others who don’t think like us” and are engaged in a fight to the death. If this is so, there is little the local Church can do. It will not be able to ensure the safety of clergy in the blood-soaked Anglophone region.

Perhaps it is therefore time for the Vatican to intervene. Biya evidently has a certain respect for the Church. His father was a catechist who hoped his son would become a priest. It was not to be: Biya attended a minor seminary but ultimately left Cameroon to study law in Paris. In 2013, his government signed an agreement with the Holy See outlining the Church’s legal status. If Pope Francis were to invite Biya to Rome perhaps he might be able to persuade him to budge. It seems that no one else can.

Source: Catholic Herald

Officials of Catholic Church in Cameroon said on Friday unknown gunmen have kidnapped two Catholic priests at Ibal village in the troubled Anglophone region of Northwest.

They were “kidnapped late at night on Thursday along Ibal — Jikejem road on their way to the town of Oku in the Northwest region,” said a statement by the Catholic Church in Northwest, calling on the abductors to release the clerics unharmed.

Local police said operatives were already combing the village with the view to rescue the priests and arrest the kidnappers who police claimed are members of separatists fighting for the independence of Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest.

The separatists have denied kidnapping the priests.

Kidnapping of priests has become widespread in the two regions since an armed conflict that has so far led to hundreds of deaths since 2017.

In 2018, a Kenyan priest was shot dead in front of the church of the Parish of St. Martin of Tours in Kembong, a locality in Cameroon’s Southwest region.

Source: Xinhuanet

I send my warmest greetings to all Muslims celebrating Eid al-Adha.

Eid al-Adha honours Abraham’s obedience to God’s command in agreeing to sacrifice his only son. Seeing Abraham’s remarkable demonstration of faith, God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. In like manner, an animal is sacrificed ritually, and the meat is shared with the poor, relatives, friends and neighbours during Eid al-Adha.

During these three days of Eid al-Adha, we join the community thanks in the spirit of shared thankfulness for the blessings we have been given, and reflect on our duties towards one another during these very challenging times for our country.

In the spirit of Eid al-Adha, may we all resolve to be more giving towards one another, especially towards those who have been hardest hit by the ongoing war.
Happy celebrations to Ambazonia’s Muslim community and goodwill to Muslims worldwide.

Respectfully,
Dabney Yerima

Vice President, Interim Government (IG) Federal Republic of Ambazonia

Cameroon Muslims are looking for alternatives for the sacrifice as recommended by prophet Muhammad on the day of the Eid al-Adha feast. Sheep, traditionally slaughtered, have become very scarce as a result of the Boko Haram conflict and separatist war in the country’s main production areas. 

Hundreds of Muslims are buying food stuffs from the popular market called “Marche Huitieme” in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde in preparation for the feast of sacrifice.

In Cameroon, large numbers of sacrificial animals, especially sheep, are slaughtered and their meat distributed to the poor as a religious tradition in Islam.

41-year old Abdoul Aziz says for the first time in 20 years, he will not have a sheep to sacrifice.

He says with the scarcity of sheep, he has decided to buy either a she or he goat. He says he does not want to miss a religious rite just because prices of the few sheep he has seen have increased drastically.  He says the prices of goats are also increasing.

Aziz said because of the scarcity, some families are buying chickens, leading to arguments on whether the substitution is religiously correct.

Mohaman Aboubakar, assistant Imam of Yaounde’s central Mosque says Islam allows people to adjust with the changing times.

Imam Aboubakar says their religion finds nothing wrong if Cameroon Muslims who can not find the sheep they traditionally bought to slaughter in honor of Abraham’s willingness to slay his son Ishmael at Allah’s request, turn to goats and fowls today. He says the scarcity that started so many years ago with camels is now affecting cows and sheep.

Most of the sheep sold in Cameroon towns comes from the area around the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria that has been suffering Boko Haram atrocities, or from the English speaking Northwest and Southwest regions where separatists have been fighting to create an English speaking state, or neighboring Chad.

Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon minister of employment and vocational training, and a Muslim, says the crises the country is facing has had negative impacts on livestock production.

He says many people have escaped from ranches in the far north region of Cameroon due to Boko Haram terrorism, and from the English speaking north west region because of the war against separatist groups. He says on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria alone, close to five five thousand cattle and an unknown number of sheep have been stolen by Boko Haram terrorists.

In 2016, the World Bank approved a $100 million fund to help Cameroon improve the productivity and competitiveness of livestock production over six years. It said besides replenishing what had been lost as a result of the Boko Haram conflict, the program would help build resilience to climate change and improve the nutrition status of vulnerable populations.

Last July, Cameroon began distributing 60,000 goats and sheep to young people in villages along the border with Nigeria to provide livestock for a basic income, and replenish what has been lost in order to stop the Islamist militant group from recruiting the youths.

More than a thousand Mbororos, who are indigenous people in Cameroon have also fled their cattle ranches following repeated attacks and seizure of their cattle by separatists fighting for the creation of an English speaking state. The Mbororos say they are victimized and killed because they refuse to join the fight.

Source: VOA

As a separatist uprising in Cameroon enters it fourth year, Cardinal Christian Tumi is calling for a federal system to end the crisis and keep the country unified.

About 80 percent of Cameroon is French-speaking. However, the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon are majority English-speaking, a legacy of the colonial history of the country: Cameroon was originally German, but after World War I the defeated country transferred it to the Allies, and it was divided between France and Britain.

In October 2016, strikes by lawyers and teachers over perceived attempts by the Francophone administration to assimilate the legal and educational systems practiced in the two English-speaking regions turned violent, and morphed into rising demands by Anglophone Cameroonians for independence. The government has been accused of razing entire villages and extrajudicial killings in their hunt for separatists, who are calling on the English-speaking areas to form a new country, called ‘Ambazonia.’ Tumi, the emeritus Archbishop of Douala, said the re-introduction of a federal form of government can keep the country united.

“At reunification, I was 32 years old. I opted for federalism, and it’s in my blood,” Tumi told Crux.

In 1960, the northern part of Cameroon administered by France gained its independence. The southern part administered by Britain as part of Nigeria was in 1961 subject to a plebiscite in which they were offered independence by reuniting with their francophone Cameroonian “brothers” or by remaining part of Nigeria.

The results showed an overwhelming desire by English-speaking Cameroonians to reunite with the French-speaking part of Cameroon.

The “marriage” was guaranteed by a Federal Constitution that was meant to preserve and protect the minority Anglophones and their colonial heritage. But in 1972 then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo organized a referendum that dissolved the federation in favor of a united republic, thereby removing the protections Anglophones enjoyed.

Ever since, relations between Anglophones and the Francophone-dominated government have been tense. The 2016 demonstrations broke out after there were demands to use French in the common law courts and English-modeled schools used in the Anglophone regions.

The ensuing fighting between the separatists and government forces has led to the deaths of at least 2,000 people, and the displacement of a further 500,000.

Tumi said a return to a federal system will be the foundation for a more sustainable peace and stability in Cameroon. “We are a people called to live with all our differences. In federalism, these differences are respected,” he told Crux.

“I don’t have the number of states I want,” Tumi said, alluding to several different federal proposals being presented by different parties.

“We can begin as we were at reunification -with two states; but with time, experience would instruct us on whether we need more. History is before us. Other countries like the USA did not start with the 50 states they have today. Neighboring Nigeria did not start with the number of states they have today,” the cardinal explained.

Tumi is working with other religious leaders from other Christian denominations and the Muslim world to organize what he has called an “Anglophone General Conference.”

“The conference isn’t an end in itself,” the cardinal said. “What we want is to inform Cameroonians on what is happening in the English-speaking regions of the country.”

Tumi said many people, including President Paul Biya, “have no clue” about what is happening in the conflict zone.

“And since Anglophones are complaining, we want to give them a voice through a broad-based consultation so that they can tell us what they want and what they are proposing as a solution,” he said.

He added the conference will come up with a questionnaire that will enable Anglophones clearly to identify the problems they face and propose a solution.

“For instance, we will ask them: Between federalism and the unitary state, what form of government, in your opinion, could likely help us come out of this crisis?” Tumi said.

The cardinal said the organizers will then try to meet with Biya to transmit the resolutions of the conference, and to implore the president to organize a national dialogue on the Anglophone crisis.

Although a date has not yet been fixed, organizers say it will likely take place in October.

However, in a rare act of unity, both the government and the separatists have expressed skepticism about the proposed conference.

Separatist’s leaders say Tumi’s conference and its perceived “federalist stance” can only serve to foster government interest.

“The government of the Republic of Cameroon has proven over and over that it cannot be trusted. The only negotiation we can tolerate with that government is to lay down the terms of our separation,” said separatist leader, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

Government Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary accused Tumi of working to foster the separatist agenda.

“Federalism is the anti-chamber of secession,” Tchiroma said.

But the cardinal said he can’t understand why people want to discredit a conference, “whose sole purpose is to find a solution to a crisis that is killing many people.”

“Our sole objective is that peace should return without which we would not be able to do our missionary work,” he said.

Source: Crux

HOMILY AT THE MASS OF THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY TO THE PRIESTHOOD OF REV. FR. MAURICE AGBAW-EBAI

BOSTON, USA, 28TH JULY, 2019

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today is a very important day in the life of Rev. Fr. Maurice Agbaw Ebai, Priest of the Diocese of Mamfe, Cameroon and Pastor of St. Anne’s Parish in the Archdiocese of Boston, United States of America. On this day, we have all joined to render thanks to Almighty God, who ten years ago, called Fr. Maurice to make a complete and irreversible donation of his entire life to the service of and to pour out his life as a libation for the redemption of souls. On this day, ten years ago, Fr. Maurice died with Christ on his altar of sacrifice, and after his ordination, he could say with St. Paul, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Jesus Christ his Son, and to the Church that is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. On this day, ten years ago, Fr. Maurice prostrated himself before God and the Entire Church gathered in prayer, to empty himself of himself

My dear people of God, gathered here with Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai to celebrate his tenth anniversary, I welcome you all to this great day in the life of this priest and I want to apologize  that I could not stay in America long enough to be present at this occasion which I had agreed to preside over and preach. But since urgent duties recalled me home to the Diocese of Mamfe and the Church in Cameroon, I decided to ask Fr. Dieudonne Akawung, the Diocesan Finance Administrator to come to Boston and to preach this homily on my behalf which I had written to preach myself. I know that Fr. Dieudonne will deliver the homily well on my behalf, but the only difference is that he will be delivering the homily without a miter on his head. Some people in Mamfe had asked me if I was going all the way to the United States to celebrate only a tenth anniversary, the what would I do if it were a silver Jubilee? My answer to them was a quotation from the Psalmist who said “One day in his house is better than a thousand elsewhere” and again, the same Psalmist who said in another instance that “a thousand years for God is like a day just come and gone”(Ps.90:4). To be a priest even for one day only, brings a lot of glory and honour to name of Jesus Christ who is the Supreme High Priest of the New Covenant. If after nine years of seminary formation, a priest had the chance to celebrate only one Mass and died, he would have fulfilled the reason for his ordination, because his first Mass and  the Mass of his  golden Jubilee in the priesthood is one continuous sacrifice, during which he re-enacts in an un-bloody way, the bloody sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Cross for the salvation of the world. Therefore, this celebration is not about Fr. Maurice, it is about glory and honour to the Name of Jesus Christ whom he has been so blessed to serve with devotion and loyalty all these ten years.

However, while we give honour and glory to God, we must remember the quote from St. Augustine who said “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not”. It is in this light I wish to join you all and say to Fr. Maurice, a big Congratulations on your tenth anniversary. Within these ten years, God has used your hands to dispense his blessings to thousands of people, God has used your mouth and your voice to bring his Good News and consolation to thousands of Christ’s Faithful. Within these ten years, God has used you to bring absolution and forgive the sins of thousands of people everywhere in the confessionals. Within these ten years, many have been born through you in the waters of baptism, and above all everyday, you have stood in the place of Christ to celebrate the Eucharist and raise the cup of salvation on behalf of the people of God entrusted to your care. Fr. Maurice and many of us will now understand better what St. Augustine meant when he said “without us, God will not”. Thank you Father Maurice for making yourself an instrument in the hands of God for all these years so that God’s graces may come down from heaven and rest on his people on earth. Through you, heaven is wedded to earth and man is reconciled with God. For this, we can only say “Glory be to God on high, and congratulations to you, man of goodwill.”

In the Letter to the Hebrews, it is stated that every high priest has been taken out of mankind, and is appointed to act for men in their relations with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins… No one takes this honour on himself, but each one is called by God as Aaron was (Heb. 5:1-4).

The priesthood thus is a gift and at the same time, it is a mystery. It is a gift in the sense that it is freely given by God. That is why Christ says in John 15:16 that you did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last.

It is a mystery because it is something that can never be understood. How can a human being command God to come into bread? How can human being touch water and it becomes holy? How can a human being throw a bit of water on your head and original sin is taken away? How can a human being wave his hands in the air and impart the blessing of God? How can a human being say “I absolve you” and sin is taken away? This remains a mystery, more or less like the Trinity, the most ancient of all mysteries. Even the priest who carries the priesthood in him does not fully understand it. He simply exercises this ministry in faith, knowing that the Lord who called him and whom he is serving, will not let him down.

The priest is a man of God and he  never acts in his name but in the name of the one who sent him. That is why every time the priest carries out   liturgical function, he does so in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He never does this in his own personal name.

There are two things I would like  you people to understand today about priests on this day on the tenth anniversary celebration of Fr. Maurice .

The first is that Priests called by God are human and sinners like all other people. That is why St. Paul Says in 2Cor. 4:7; that we are only earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us. Priests fall down in different ways from time to time. The twelve Apostles called on Holy Thursday to be priests were men, with faults and failings. Fr. Columba, an Irish Priest said in one of his homilies  that The first Pope, St. Peter was rash and bad tempered. He also denied Christ in His hour of need. St. Mathew was a swindler who co-operated with his country’s enemies. And poor St. Thomas wasn’t too sure about what he believed or where he stood. If God only relied on the virtuous and the perfect, he would have very few (or no) priests. I for one standing here would not even come any where near the altar.

In this regard, I want to say that most often Christians see the man in the priest and not the priest in the man. Many people only look at the man in the priest, and some people may not even believe in the miraculous work of God through the priest. But when we look at the priest in the man, we transcend his own petty weaknesses and see the grace of God at work in us through the instrumentality of human beings. It is in this connection that the church teaches us about the principle of ex opereoperato to mean that the efficacy of the sacrament does not depend on the worthiness of the priest. He is a simple instrument that has to struggle for his own salvation in fear and trembling.

The second thing I want you to understand about priests is that their life is not their own. They have offered it to the church and they do everything according to the mind of the Church. They must conform therefore not to the standards set by men but to the standards set by God and the Church. These standards come out in the way they minister to their people. Before you think of the one wrong of a priest, remember the thousand good things he does for his flock daily. Satan exists in the community to ruin it. The priest is a good and struggling man. His goodness is and should not only be seen when de dies. Always be ready to appreciate what a priest does for you, never take it for granted.

From the day Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Mamfe, he has done his work to the best of his ability, and like his Bishop, I want to use this chance to thank him for the priest that he has been. The real seminary for the priest is the Ministry, and thus we rise and fall in our attempt to give our all to God. The one thing I know for certain about this priest, all his human weaknesses notwithstanding, is that he loves the church with his whole heart. He is not just a Catholic priest but he is a true son of the Church and he is ready to defend the doctrine of the Church with such passion that could be seen only in the likes of St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius and his mentor in the faith, Pope Benedict XVI. I encourage him on this day that his faith may never fail, so that he may always remain a source of strength to his brothers and sisters in Christ. I invite all of you in this Church today to pray in a very special way for our celebrant, that he may remain faithful to Christ, loyal to the Church, fervent in prayer and constant in love for the Christians he serves in the Archdiocese of Boston.

I wish each and everyone of you a very happy celebration, and once again to Fr. Maurice, Happy tenth Anniversary and God bless you all.

+Andrew NKEA,

Bishop of Mamfe.