29, March 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Masked Soldiers Storm Kendem and Mbeme villages ⁰

Masked soldiers from French Cameroun reportedly ferried to the Manyu County by CPDM Senator; Chief Tabetando went on a rampage on Wednesday and Thursday in parts of Kendem and Mbeme villages killing several Southern Cameroonians and pushing hundreds to flee their homeland to Mamfe the chief town in Manyu.

Condemning the development, a popular media guru from Kendem, Eric Tataw opined that the presence of hooded military personnel in Kendem in the name of senatorial election security is the making of Chief Tabetando.

We gathered that the Bishop of the Mamfe Diocese, His Lordship Bishop Andrew Nkea has pulled out Revered Fathers Kenede and Blaise from the area as fighting intensified last night. The officers operating in military trucks numbers over two in a convoy, with their faces completely covered.

This item is still developing

By Judith Fon in Mamfe

29, March 2018

Nigeria police declares controversial senator wanted over fake assassination ⁰

A Nigerian lawmaker has been declared wanted by the police. The controversial Senator Dino Melaye described himself in part as a democratic evangelists and private investigator.

He is wanted over a fake assassination case. According to police Melaye provided false information in relation to an attempt on his life in 2017.

Police on Wednesday, March 28, declared him wanted and said they had requested assistance of Interpol to arrest the lawmaker who represents people in Kogi state.

He is wanted along with one Mohammed Audu, son of a former governor of the state, Abubakar Audu. In a related development, the Inspector General of Police also suspended Kogi State police chief after suspects being held in the Melaye matter escaped from custody.

The two escapees had accused the Senator of being their sponsor and gun supplier. In turn Melaye has threatened to sue the police for negligence in allowing the the suspects to slip from custody.

“The IGP dissatisfied with the circumstances surrounding the escape of six suspects including two principal suspects (KABIRU SEIDU A.K.A OSAMA, NUHU SALISU A.K.A SMALL) who indicted Senator Dino Melaye and Mohammed Audu in a case of conspiracy and unlawful possession of prohibited firearm already filed at the Federal High Court, Lokoja which came up in court today, 28th March, 2018, has ordered the immediate removal of Commissioner of Police, Kogi State Command, CP Ali Janga,” a statement from the Nigeria Police Force read.

Melaye has previously threatened to beat a female lawmaker after launching a verbal assualt on her back in 2016. He is on record to have also led an advocacy pushing for the abolishing of tribal marks.

He has appeared in a music video with son of a top politician, released a track of his own and is the subject of a recall by his constituents. He lives a flashy lifestyle and has often shared his wealth on social media platform, Instagram.

The Senate has yet to respond to the police warrant for one of its own despite he being a very close ally of Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

Source: Africa News

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

28, March 2018

Ghana: Thousands of protest controversial military deal with U.S. ⁰

Thousands of people protested in Ghana’s capital Accra on Wednesday against the expansion of its defence cooperation with the United States, in a rare public display of opposition to the growing foreign military presence in West Africa.

Demonstrators blowing vuvuzelas and beating drums filled Accra’s business district, holding placards criticising a new deal with Washington that they say threatens Ghana’s sovereignty.

“As a right-thinking citizen, I am here to fight for my country. I am against selling our peace and security for $20 million,” said Gifty Yankson, a 49-year-old trader.

“They (the American military) become a curse everywhere they are, and I am not ready to mortgage my security,” Yankson said.

Police estimated the crowd size at about 3,500 protesters. While officers in riot gear were present, no violence was reported.

International powers including the United States and France are looking to extend their presence in the remote Sahel region in particular, where al Qaeda and Islamic State militants have gained a strong foothold in recent years.

But Washington is struggling to mend its image in Africa, which was damaged by reports President Donald Trump described African nations as “shithole countries” in a discussion on immigration. The White House later denied he used that language.

Under the deal approved by Ghana’s parliament last week, the United States will invest around $20 million in training and equipment for the Ghanaian military this year. Opposition lawmakers boycotted the parliamentary vote.

In return, the U.S. military will be allowed to deploy troops and import military equipment tax-free, use an airport runway that meets U.S. standards, and have free access to Ghana’s radio spectrum.

Ghana has had a long-standing military and trade ties with the United States, but many say the latest agreement was a step too far.

Responding to local press reports concerning the deal, the U.S. Embassy in Accra underscored in a statement last week that it had no plans to establish a military base in Ghana.

It said the existing 20-year-old cooperation agreement “does not cover the current range and volume of bilateral exercises and assistance.”

Four elite U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger alongside local troops in an Islamist ambush in October, sparking a fierce debate back home about covert U.S. actions in West Africa.

The United States has about 7,200 U.S. Defense Department personnel, including soldiers, stationed in Africa. Over half of those are stationed at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, with the remaining personnel scattered across 32 other smaller locations.

REUTERS

28, March 2018

Corruption, backlogs strangling Cameroun’s Douala port ⁰

In Cameroon’s port of Douala, corruption, bureaucratic red tape, overpriced services and a growing backlog have combined to put a major drag on cargo trade through central Africa’s largest harbour.

More than 95% of Cameroon’s maritime traffic transits through Douala, a sprawling hub that serves as the main gateway for landlocked Chad and Central African Republic.

But the procedures for clearing goods are a permanent headache, and very little gets done without greasing palms with extra cash, traders say.

“There is high-level corruption at Douala port,” says one businessman as he slips a 1.50 euros note to the ticket seller at the entrance – a quarter of the official entry price.

Bribes are just one of the obstacles to moving cargo at Douala port. The procedures are interminably long and costly and due to a lack of investment its infrastructure has degraded.

“To take a car out of customs, for example, you have to get between 20 and 22 different stamps,” says a port employee who asked to remain anonymous – for each stamp, a bribe has to change hands. On top of that, there are rapidly rising formal costs.

“A car that we cleared a year ago for 850 000 CFA in charges would now cost 1.3 million,” explains the businessman who bribed the man at the gate.

“In the offices, staff (handling the paperwork) are incredibly slow, so if you want your dossier to be dealt with, you have to pay up.”

The World Bank has noted the remarkably long time taken to move goods through the Douala – an average of 16 days according to an expert mission in March last year.

The team said this period was “an eternity compared, for instance, with the port of Lome in Togo, where the delay is two days”.

Catastrophic delays

For Chad and Central African Republic, Douala is the nearest gateway for a stream of hauliers supplying the capitals of N’Djamena and Bangui.

Due to the red tape endured by the freight transporters, some are now considering the idea of “going through other ports in the West African subregion”, Chad’s ministry of infrastructure warned in a recent statement.

In Douala, “our lorries are often blocked for many weeks at the port before being able to get on the road”, Ali Abdallah Youssouf, head of Chad’s national council of importers, exporters and freight forwarders, told AFP by phone from Libreville.

A survey conducted for the World Bank in 2011 noted that customs “sometimes rightly” took much of the blame for delays in clearing containers and other cargo, but pointed out that many other agents were involved, from shippers to sanitary services.

Such delays are “catastrophic” for most businesses, stated a businessman from Central African Republic who has to work through the Cameroonian port.

“By holding the goods” the terminal managers “earn more money than they do in handling them,” particularly when it comes to wood, a valuable commodity in central Africa, he said.

‘A marked degradation’

Since 2004, the container terminal has been managed by Douala International Terminal (DIT), a subsidiary of France’s Bollore Group. Another of its subsidiaries, SEPDC, manages the wood terminal.

And it is through these two terminals that around half of the port’s merchandise has to pass.

But it has not gone unnoticed by the authorities themselves, with the port’s Director General Cyrus Ngo’o warning last month that a singular lack of investment had caused a “marked degradation” in its infrastructure.

His remarks were made in a pointed letter addressed to the transport ministry, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

The port, he wrote, was initially built to cope with an average “seven million tonnes of merchandise” per year, while today it handles 12 million tonnes – which was putting major stress on its limited infrastructure.

“Since 1980, there has not been any major investment to expand its ability to accommodate vessels and process their merchandise,” he wrote.

‘Congestion is real’

In February, France’s Rougier Group, which trades in tropical timber, said its business was suffering from the “chronic backlog” at Douala port, which was affecting its Cameroonian, Congolese and Central African subsidiaries.

But Ngo’o hit back, saying Douala could not be held responsible for Rougier’s failings since the port’s “logistical operations for international trade were proceeding as normal”.

Despite his fighting talk, Ngo’o’s letter admitted the port was facing “an unforeseen situation in which its operations were experiencing a decline in fluidity”.

“This situation is having a negative impact, notably on the speed of handling the exports of Cameroon’s main cash crops such as coffee, cocoa and wood,” he wrote.

“More than 2 000 containers” of these three goods had been stuck at the terminal for many weeks, he warned, saying the risk “of congestion at Douala port is very real.”

Source: AFP

28, March 2018

Atanga Nji in Southern Cameroons: But is anyone actually listening to him? ⁰

The government of Cameroon will accept dialogue as part of measures to end the Anglophone crisis, Interior Minister Paul Atanga Nji is reported to have said.

He however stresses that the sole condition to the dialogue being that it will be held with persons who are advancing the unity of Cameroon as a nation.

His view effectively means that the Central African country is not going to engage armed separatists whose activities continue to threaten members of the security forces and disrupt life in the Northwest and Southwest of the country – the Anglophone regions.

“We can still solve the problem without burning, looting, raping, destroying. The government is ready to dialogue with those who seek the oneness of Cameroon,” the Minister said in a visit to Buea, capital of the Southwest region on Tuesday.

Atanga is one of two Anglophones who were handed positions in the government following a cabinet reshuffle carried out by long-serving leader, Paul Biya.

What has become known as the Anglophone crisis, has riled the country’s two English-speaking regions. A previous cry against discrimination and marginalization from French-majority Cameroon has now taken a violent turn.

Secessionists under the so-called Ambazonia Republic continue to push for a breakaway from Cameroon – a move the government has flatly rejected. After a crackdown on protests in October last year during a planned symbolic independence declaration, the secessionists turned to arms.

They have since attacked and killed over twenty members of government forces – police, soldiers and gendarmes. They have also kidnapped two government officials. A soldier after burning his vehicle and a government official who appeared in a video begging to be rescued.

The call for dialogue has continually been made by several countries and groups but has yet to be seriously pursued. A number of the separatists leaders have been arrested and deported from Nigeria since January but they have yet to appear in court.

The humanitarian crisis arising from the situation has also led to Cameroonians fleeing the Anglophone regions in their thousands. The United Nations refugee agency has openly tasked parties to use dialogue to avoid further escalation of the crisis.

Source: Africa News

28, March 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Sisiku Ayuk Tabe showing no signs of surrender ⁰

A well-placed source in Yaoundé has hinted Cameroon Intelligence Report that the Interim President of the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia who was abducted alongside members of his government in Nigeria and forcefully extradited to French Cameroun, Sisisku Ayuk Tabe has no intention of giving up his struggle for the independence of Southern Cameroons.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is currently being held in a presidential bunker in Yaoundé and has been refused contacts with legal representation hired by the Interim Government. Our source indicated that the Ambazonian chief executive has been questioned by French Cameroun Secret Service officials a couple of times but he would never surrender in the face of pressure on him to give up his push for independence of Southern Cameroons.

We gathered that the Sisiku was recently allocated 15 minutes daily by the Biya regime to sit outside and get some sun shine. Our informant further pointed out that “he looks like a man who will continue fighting and is aware that this is going to be a long fight but it will be a fight that Southern Cameroonians will win.”

The Yaoundé regime is preparing a case against the former Minister of Transport, Edgard Alain Mebo Ngo’o and other CIR sources have revealed that documents are being concocted to paint a political link between the former baron of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate and President Ayuk Julius Tabe.

Moderates within the Biya government are reportedly saying that the war on the people of Southern Cameroons was ill-advised and that Southern Cameroonians have the right to express their willingness for independence and a republic in West Cameroon.

Lawyers representing the abducted leaders in the Federal Republic of Nigeria received an objection from the Cameroun embassy in Abuja to travel to Yaoundé and meet their clients who were extradited without any legal process.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was abducted in Abuja, Nigeria by a joint French Cameroun and Nigeria operation after the French Cameroun army launched a sweeping crackdown to block his declaration of independence for Southern Cameroons. He has mostly been based in Nigeria and has managed to get re-elected in snap elections staged by the various legitimate groups fighting for the independence of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia. Yaoundé is expected to charge him, along 46 others for sedition and rebellion. We also got intelligence that 20 of the young Southern Cameroonians arrested in Taraba in Nigeria and sent back to French Cameroun were killed recently.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

28, March 2018

Israeli prime minister Netanyahu rushed to hospital ⁰

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rushed to hospital, say Israeli media sources.

According to several media sources on Tuesday, Netanyahu was transported to Haddassah Hospital in Jerusalem al-Quds after suffering from a high fever and severe coughing.

His personal physician has said that Netanyahu is suffering from lack of rest following an illness he contracted around two weeks ago.

“The prime minister is suffering from a high fever and is coughing,” confirmed his spokesman.

Source: Presstv

27, March 2018

Southern Cameroons War: Interim Gov’t says La Republique Forces Burnt St. Benedict’s Comprehensive College ⁰

Soldiers from La Republique du Cameroun regular army, its elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (Bataillon d’Intervention Rapide, BIR) have burned St. Benedict’s Comprehensive College (SABECC) alongside a nearby Government Technical School in the territory of Ambazoania on Monday, 26 March 2018, sources close the school administration have confirmed.

His Grace, Mgr. Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua, Bamenda Archdiocese is the proprietor of St. Benedict Comprehensive College, within the St. Mathias parish in Widikum Local Government Area, Momo County, Northern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Since February, BIR soldiers were using the campus and classrooms as their military base from where they planned attacks, kidnapped unarmed civilians, confined civilians in dark rooms doe days without food, ferried many blindfolded civilians to Yaounde under the cover of darkness and released others after payment of ransom ranging from 500,000 – 1,000,000 Frs CFA.

In the early hours of Tuesday, Ambazonia self-defence forces in Widikum carried out operation “flush out” of the campus that resulted on the dead of fifteen (15) BIR soldiers. During the exchange of fire power, unfortunately, we lost one student who was in the custody of the BIR soldiers. The surviving few BIR soldiers burned the campus and their whereabout is still unknown.

By the Communications Secretary

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

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)