30, March 2017

Southern Cameroons digital businesses still relying on La Republique!! Diaspora won’t talk ⁰

Young businessmen and women from British Southern Cameroons have established a center at Bonako, a village some few kilometers from French Cameroun from where they are able to have access to internet services from La Republique du Cameroun.

Not to see their businesses crumble, the Southern Cameroons entrepreneurs particularly start-ups have decided to create an “oasis” of the Internet following cuts ordered by the 84 year old dictator, President Paul Biya.

Bonako has become the largest internet hub in the world for Southern Cameroonians. “Several start-ups have rented rooms in the village of Bonako, furnished it with chairs and tables and installed electricity using generators. Dozens with start-ups now operate here, each using their own phone as an internet modem.’

It is tedious and the remoteness of the village is not easy to manage. However, the so-called Anglophone CPDM political elites are satisfied with the internet shutdown and have claimed that La Republique du Cameroun will eventually stifle the Southern Cameroons revolution.

Southern Cameroons have been cut off from the world after months of violent protest. The Francophone dominated government decided to deprive the Anglophones of any internet connection-a radical policy that has endangered the highly developed digital ecosystem in the Southern Cameroons.

The absence of the internet does not only affect exchanges among British Southern Cameroonians, but it has also weighed heavily on the economy and the fact that the Southern Cameroons Diaspora is maintaining a kind of deliberate silence on the matter is disturbing.

By Chi Prudence Asong

30, March 2017

UK prime minister triggers Brexit process ⁰

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has triggered the formal, two-year process of withdrawing Britain from the European Union (EU), likely to be the most complex London has held since World War Two. Launching the process of Britain’s exit from the EU, popularly known as Brexit, was announced by the prime minister on Wednesday at the UK Parliament, after more than 40 years of membership in the bloc.

On behalf of May, British Ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow hand-delivered a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels to officially notify the EU of Britain’s decision to withdraw from the bloc. The six page letter invoked Article 50 of the EU Treaty, the mechanism for starting Britain’s divorce process. In her speech to Parliament, which was planned to coincide with the letter’s delivery, May urged the country to come together as it embarks on a “momentous journey.” “The Article 50 process is now under way and in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union,” she said. “This is a historic moment from which there can be no turning back.”

Brussels is expected to deliver its first response to London on Friday, followed by a summit of EU leaders on April 29 to adopt their own guidelines, possibly taking weeks before formal talks start. The United Kingdom held a referendum last June in which Britons voted by a 52-48 percent margin to leave the EU, the first member state ever to do so. However, there is a chance that the Brexit negotiations will break down and the UK will be forced to exit the EU without any deal in place. The EU is determined to preserve its own unity and has said that any Brexit agreement must not encourage other member states to leave the bloc.

Although Britain as whole voted to leave the EU, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the bloc. The Brexit referendum has prompted nationalists in Scotland and Northern Ireland to call for a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom. There is broad consensus among economists that Brexit will have a prolonged effect of the British economy and will ultimately diminish output, jobs and wealth to some degree. Many business leaders are also concerned about May’s decision to leave the EU single market, a free trade area of 500 million people, fearing its impact on jobs and economic growth.

Presstv

30, March 2017

146 feared missing after boat capsizes in Mediterranean ⁰

A Gambian man rescued from a refugee vessel sunken in the Mediterranean has told the United Nations officials that around 150 were on board when the ship capsized off Libya. The UN refugee agency said Wednesday that some 146 refugees, among them children and several pregnant women, were feared missing after the capsizing, which purportedly occurred earlier this week.

The agency said the Gambian man was interviewed in a hospital in the Italian island of Lampedusa after he was spotted almost by accident by a Spanish military ship sailing in the Mediterranean as part of a European Union operation to crack down on smugglers. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the Spanish ship had found the man while he was desperately holding on a fuel can to survive.

The Gambian told a member of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that the refugee vessel, which left on Sunday or Monday from Sabratha, western Libya, began taking on water a few hours after setting off. He said passengers included refugees from Nigeria, Mali and The Gambia.

A deal between the EU and Turkey in March last year forced many to dare the risky journey through the Central Mediterranean from Libya to Italy. Smugglers have also benefited from the chaos and lawlessness in Libya to dispatch more people on board unsafe dinghies.

More than 23,000 refugees have managed to make it to the Italian shores since the beginning of 2017, Italian authorities say. The IOM says 590 refugees have died or gone missing along the Libyan coast, without considering the figure from the recent disaster.

Presstv

29, March 2017

Financial scandal rocks the Indomitable Lions, Head Coach says corruption so profound that even aid granted to the country by international partners rarely reaches their recipients ⁰

After winning the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon, Cameroon football has gone back to its old habits rocked by scandals. In a statement that has sparked controversy and embarrassed the Yaoundé regime, the trainer of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, Hugo Broos has told the world that the players did not eat at noon in Brussels, Belgium before a friendly encounter because the hotel was not paid.

The declaration has once again raised the issue of corruption and embezzlement of funds allocated to the management of the national team and more generally of Cameroonian football. “I’m more than outraged before the game the players did not eat. About eleven, I asked them to go down to the restaurant for lunch. They went there. But the hotel staff blocked the entrance saying that since the team’s stay, the bills have not been paid, “said the Belgian technician on Radio France International, after the friendly match against Guinea in Belgium.

The Belgian added, “And me the question I ask is where the money went. We must stop with amateurism. I’ve been with Cameroon for a year now. With the players I have done beautiful things. But frankly, I wonder if I have to continue with Cameroon!! “

Perhaps that explained why the current African Champions suffered their first defeat on Tuesday evening, against Guinea at the Edmond Machtens stadium. The European technician revealed that corruption is a profound evil in Cameroon. So profound that even the aid granted to the country by the international partners rarely reaches their recipients. Cameroonian leaders are accused by the press of monopolizing all the wealth they share with their families or courtiers. And that they are passed down from generation to generation.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

29, March 2017

Trump’s funding request for wall, military must wait ⁰

US President Donald Trump’s funding request for building a wall on the Mexican border as well as military activities has to wait by later this year, Senate Republican leaders say. Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt argued Tuesday that the new president’s supplemental funding request would complicate the spending bill lawmakers already have to deal with.

The US government could face a shutdown as its funding is due to expire on April 28. “We have the FY17 defense bill,” said Blunt, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, at a leadership press conference.

Democrats have vowed to bar any legislation, involving a funding for the construction of the wall, which the Republican president used to promote on the campaign trail.

“All of the committees, the leaderships of the House and Senate, are working together to try to finalize the rest of the FY17 bill,” Blunt said. “My guess is that comes together better without the supplemental.”

The statement ran against Trump’s request for a supplemental spending bill. According to South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, “The border wall is probably not a smart investment.” While campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, the then-GOP candidate vowed to make Mexico to pay for the wall rather than American taxpayers

Presstv

29, March 2017

Nelson Mandela’s closest colleague in the anti-apartheid struggle dies aged 87 ⁰

Celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, a Robben Island prisoner and one of Nelson Mandela’s closest colleagues in the struggle against white rule, died early Tuesday aged 87.

Kathrada was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the Rivonia trial in 1964, which drew worldwide attention to the brutalities of the apartheid regime. He died in hospital in Johannesburg after a short illness following brain surgery, his charity foundation said.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island, the notorious jail off the coast of Cape Town.

After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 to 1999 as parliamentary counselor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as “a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness,” hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

“These were people of the highest integrity and moral fibre who, through their humility and humanity, inspired our collective self-worth -– and the world’s confidence in us,” Tutu said in a statement.

Culled from Concisenews

29, March 2017

West Cameroon Crisis: Fru Ndi and the SDF should go and go now ⁵

The crisis in Southern Cameroons has finally exposed the SDF Chairman Ni John Fru Ndi as a collaborator and not an opposition to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime. The SDF leadership held a National Executive Committee meeting in Yaoundé to demonstrate to their French donors that the party is against secession. The barons of the SDF party launched a fierce attack on the credibility of Hon. Joseph Wirba calling him a reckless and tackle Member of Parliament. Fru Ndi further pointed out that Wirba acted out of the party’s rules and regulations.

The SDF National Executive Committee meeting came out virtually with nothing than the simple fact that Fru Ndi’s authority was fast draining away even among his own people. We of this publication think Ni John Fru, Joseph Mbah Ndam and the other NEC members are playing the Francophone card and are trying to benefit from the Southern Cameroons revolution. The recent SDF stand on Hon. Joseph Wirba only confirmed that Fru Ndi and his acolytes should go and go now.

When we of the Cameroon Concord News Group look along the SDF front liners and we see Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam, we wonder if he is aware of the killings and abductions going on in his home constituency or if he is thinking about the current militarization of Bamenda or is he wondering about his private investments in La Republique du Cameroun if an independent state of Southern Cameroons becomes a reality in the months ahead?

We think about Hon. Josuah Osih who should be concerned with the current problems facing businesses in Southern Cameroons after the shutdown of internet services but notice he is wondering whether he will continue to have lucrative CPDM government contracts when Southern Cameroons is freed.

The fact is that Southern Cameroonians have got long-term challenges and we need a long-term political strategy not the SDF’s short-term collaboration with Biya to deal with those challenges. We are standing by our earlier comments that all Anglophone MPs be they from the SDF or the ruling CPDM crime syndicate should stand down from the National Assembly in French Cameroun for the good of all Southern Cameroonians. Cameroon Concord News Group meant that sincerely. And this week SDF NEC meeting only confirms what we said.

Southern Cameroonians are utterly confused because they pay their taxes but they see everything including the health service potentially shrinking instead of growing. Fru Ndi and his gang need to admit to the mistakes that have been made by the SDF. There has been mismanagement of good political opportunities by the SDF and that has created so many deficits in Southern Cameroons. The Southern Cameroons uprising and the unity of the North West and the South West people are not about better jobs and top pay or health care and other financial imperatives. It is about an INDEPENDENT STATE OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Concord News Group

29, March 2017

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Buea University Campus remains deserted ¹

The Buea University campus is still completely dead after calls from the National Union of Higher Education Teachers demanding students to return to school. A certain Dr. Abangma who had moonlighted with the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium made the appeal after a senior aide to President Biya promised him the post of Rector of the university.

In a scantily attended press conference at Chariot Hotel in Buea, the leadership of the University Teachers Trade Union stated that they had moved for the respect of decisions reached at the ad hoc committee which included the release of teachers arrested.

The National Union of Higher Education Teachers issued an empty political statement that those detained in connection with the Anglophone crisis that began in November 2016 should be also be released and noted that internet connection should be restored to the North West and South West. Also, the Union revealed that there would be some major adjustments on the academic calendar to allow students to catch up with the courses.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has maintained its position that there shall be no dialogue with the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime until all those arrested since 2016 including were released. The Consortium has also made it abundantly clear that those that have been killed must be accounted for and the troops behind the action brought to justice. The Consortium has also sounded a note of caution that there will be severe consequences if anyone dares to counter the Southern Cameroons revolution. Schools and all higher education establishments in Southern Cameroons will remained closed.

By Sama Ernest

29, March 2017

Bamenda bleeds as Francophone security agents unleash terror: A Randy Joe Sa’ah Azeng Production ⁰

These are horrible times for Bamenda inhabitants. Arbitrary Arrests, Torture and Extortions are plentiful in their daily menu served by gendarmes, police and soldiers. Ask those who have been arrested in recent weeks and taken to the gendarmerie premises Up Station. Many (whose names are being withheld for fear of further victimization) have recounted horrendous stories of beatings and degrading treatments, to

Their crimes! Well, simply possessing a mobile phone with text messages, pictures or videos relating to the current Southern Cameroons resistance is synonymous to terrorism. And for this they could be blind folded and shipped off to the capital Yaoundé. First you would pass through the torture room. To say that that they are arrested is to put it nicely. Otherwise, these are citizens who are simply abducted and extradited to French speaking Yaoundé where they are detained for long periods before being arraigned in a military court.

Physical violence

As it has turned out for many, it is even a big surprise that beatings and physical torture are virtually absent in the infamous National Gendarmerie head quarter, SED as is the case in Bamenda. “I was surprised that I was not beaten at SED when we arrived there. Whereas I had expected that they would cripple us with the baton. It’s terrible what they did to us in Bamenda” said 45-year-old man recently ferried from Bamenda.

At Up Station Bamenda, “those arrested are beaten so badly they can’t walk with swollen feet and limbs. Gendarmes take turns flogging them with batons and smashing them with boots and gun butts”. The other day, gendarmes at Mile 4 Nkwen pounded a driver with gun butts in full view of the population before dragging him into their office. The victim’s face was terribly swollen, with his bloody eyes almost falling off from their sockets. Cry and wail as you may, the baton will keep rising and falling on you until your torturer gets exhausted or hands over to his partner.

“I witnessed how they tortured a young, deaf and dumb fellow. They beat him repeatedly asking him to admit that he was encouraging the strike”, said a former detainee just released from the judicial police in Bamenda. He almost came to tears as he recounted he described the beatings in detention facilities.

Ask the City Council officials of the Bamenda Food Market what happened to them last week – a day after the marketplace went up in flames. To cut things short, they were picked up and taken to GMI police station where a barge of terror was unleashed on them. They were so badly thrashed that they were unable to walk within a short time of administering the corporal punishment.

Imagine a young man jugging on the streets towards Up Station Bamenda early in the morning. Gendarmes stop him and demand his ID and phone. Then they whisk him off to their station just because they found text messages relating to the Anglophone struggle. Then as darkness falls, he is bundled into a van and sped driven to Yaoundé. He is then charged for terrorism and secession. Life imprisonment is now hanging over him should the French speaking military court find him guilty. But that is the same story of dozens of Anglophones arrested from parts of the North West and Southwest regions.

Night Raids

Bamenda has for several months now been militarized. And in what appears like a State of emergency scores of “young people are being arrested in day and night time raids. We are now living in fear and moving without valid identification is now taboo” said a Metta Quarter resident. Anxiety is growing amongst the population as no one knows when his/her turn to be arrested will arrive.

“Imagine troops cordoning off a neighborhood, allowing no one out and no one in. Imagine you are deep asleep with your family. And then, soldiers come pounding on your door; ordering you to open. They force their way into your bed room, turn it upside down, inside out”. The raids popularly called Kale Kale are an old practice in French speaking East Cameroun but dreaded by English speakers. Francophone administrators and gendarmes introduced the practice into Anglophone Cameroon decades ago. Kale Kales are currently taking place in different neighborhoods in Bamenda, Ndop and other towns in the northwest region. Residents of Metta Quarter are still in shock following a recent raid.

“They just popped into my home with guns. I could not question if they had any search warrant because they could feel I am rude and bundle me to Yaoundé”, said a resident. “I don’t know what they were looking for. They went into my bed room scattering everything. They also searched my kitchen. Then they wrote OK on the door and left”.

Another inhabitant told CAMCORDNEWS that “they kept asking for receipts for every gadget in the house: TV, blending machine, decoder etc. We are not safe in this city anymore. You stay in your house and they follow you into your bed room”.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that dozens of young people were arrested during the raids for possessing leaflets promoting the Operation Ghost Town or civil disobedience campaign taking place every Monday in the English speaking northwest and southwest regions. The said campaigns have stopped schools from reopening for three straight months. Young people were taken away and risk being whisked off to the capital Yaoundé, simply for having text messages or videos about the Anglophone protests on their hand sets.

The police department in Bamenda would not comment on the reasons behind the raids despite repeated requests by journalists. But the regional governor, Lele L’Afrique, has now prescribed that civilian vigilante groups be set up in the different villages and towns. The governor is alarmed by the number of arson on schools’ infrastructure and markets, which the authorities believe are the handiwork of those enforcing the civil disobedience campaign.

Extortions

Money speaks! “Oh yes, eight of you could be arrested for one of those imaginary crimes. Then two of you agree to cough up a hundred bucks or more each. No receipts are issued. But guess what, the two of you will be freed” a bitter ex detainee said. Such money no doubt ends up in the private pockets of your oppressors. And the deal can sometimes run into hundreds of thousands. We have even heard of millions of CFA being asked from relatives of detained suspects. As the people of Bamenda say in local parlance, “something di spoil, fix another one”. Loosely, this means the sufferings of some people is good tidings for others. So many of the uniformed men wielding batons are somehow making brisk business. The more people they arrest, the more opportunities they create for extortions.

Randy Joe Sa’ah Azeng

28, March 2017

Anglophone Crisis: Counting the cost ⁰

It is only five months since the unfortunate drama between the government and the Anglophone minority has been playing out and the adverse consequences are already far-reaching. When it all started, not many people thought it would last for more than a week, but five months after, the government is yet to reestablish its authority in the English-speaking part of Cameroon. On the surface, it looks like a simple game, but when you scratch beyond the surface, the true cost of the conflict hits you like a ton of bricks. Government authority has been challenged in the Anglophone region and in places like Akwaya, one of the most impoverished sub-divisions of the country, the Nigerian flag is joyously flying above many government buildings. Administrative officers in Akwaya have been fired by the people and government offices have either been burnt or come under attack by irate youths. The people of Akwaya are clearly demonstrating their anger against a government they claim has neglected them for more than five decades and, to make matters worse, it has arrested one of their prominent sons, Justice Paul Ayah.

In Eyumojock, the youths are clearly advising government officials of the end of their era. Last Friday, members of the ruling party were attacked by youths who hold that the ruling party has overstayed its welcome in West Cameroon following the outlawing of the Consortium. Many of the party officials had to flee the ceremonial grounds where they had planned to celebrate the thirty-second anniversary of their party, living behind their cars when stone-throwing youths invaded the venue of the event. From the actions playing out in West Cameroon, it is obvious that the ruling party has died a natural death. Many Anglophones are already asking ruling party parliamentarians in the Anglophone zone to start looking for new jobs as they will have to face the wrath of West Cameroonians in the 2018 parliamentary elections.

However, it is the killing of many innocent Anglophones during the strikes and demonstrations that is hard to swallow. Many Anglophones were brought down by the bullets of the forces of law and order and many more have died in detention either due to poor detention conditions or torture by some overzealous elements who erroneously hold that the country belongs to them and any attempt to challenge their God-given right must meet with a stiff response. This is even one of the issues that is making genuine dialogue almost impossible, as the government cannot confidently account for all those who have been arrested. Information from government sources which have elected to be anonymous alleges that some of those arrested have been tortured to death and they claim to know where these victims have been buried in mass graves.

They have expressed their willingness to expose some of these human rights abuses when the right time comes – that is, if it will ever come. Some terrifying videos and pictures are already online and this explains, in part, why the government has rolled back the Anglophone region into the Dark Ages by disconnecting the Internet. Stories of gruesome arrests have been making the rounds, alleging that some people have been arrested while alone and nobody is aware of their whereabouts. It will be hard to actually account for all those who have disappeared and many government officials have been working hard and long to ensure that the issue of those who have died or disappeared never gets included in the agenda of any dialogue whenever both parties agree to meet to thrash out their differences regarding the disaster that is still playing out in Cameroon; a disaster that has caused the country’s economy to be caught in a downward spiral.

However, the Anglophone minority holds that it has incontrovertible evidence in that regard and that those responsible for such abuses will be taken to the International Criminal Court where they could spend a long time reflecting on their atrocities; an idea that is causing many government officials to lose sleep and appetite. Their determination to take government officials to The Hague is being supported by prominent African and International human rights lawyers who are keeping a close eye on the situation and are documenting abuses committed by both sides.

Besides the killings that many Anglophones consider as worrisome, the country’s image has taken a serious beating. Cameroon has always been considered around the world as a peaceful country in a tough neighborhood. While many countries in the Central African sub-region have known either a civil war or a Coup d’état, Cameroon has, over the last fifty-six years, been enjoying some relative peace. Though many consider the peace as unsettling because of the lack of genuine human rights and freedoms, the country’s government has successfully packaged the country as an oasis of peace in a desert of chaos, an image that has been bought by many investors and diplomats across the globe. But this image has suddenly vanished following the brutality government troops unleashed on Anglophone lawyers when they took to the streets to call for better working conditions and a return to a federal system of government that will guarantee the interest of the Anglophone minority in Cameroon. Today, Barrister Felix Agbor Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and Justice Paul Ayah have been robbed of their freedom for calling for a federal system of government; a request that has caused the country’s government to lose sleep and control of itself. Scenes like these are hurting the country’s image and scaring investors who are averse to uncertainty.

The country’s economy that was already on the ropes prior to the advent of the Anglophone crisis, has taken a dangerous nosedive. Poor policies and mismanagement over the last decades have sapped the country’s economy of its vitality. Corruption and embezzlement have caused many state-owned enterprises to collapse and, currently, many former ministers and corporate executives are languishing in jail for robbing the people of their scarce resources. But this situation has been made worse by the crisis, especially in the English-speaking part of the country, where ghost towns are respected to the letter and the disconnection of the Internet has caused many start-ups to either shut down operations or relocate to where they can do business, albeit at exorbitant costs.

Banks and money transfer agencies are struggling to stay afloat, but the longer the Internet disconnection persists, the greater their pain. To cushion the impact of the government’s ill-informed decision to disconnect the Internet, a tool that is vital for their operation, financial institutions and software companies have laid off many employees, pushing up the country’s unemployment rate to levels never witnessed before. The situation is very disturbing and it has already served as a death sentence to many small- and medium-sized enterprises. With students not going to school and many Cameroonians facing an uncertain future, the country’s crime rate is gradually heading for the sky. In a country where there is no welfare and universal health coverage, death toll from preventable and curable diseases will surely reach alarming rates, especially in West Cameroon where many people have lost their jobs and sources of revenue.Though members of the Diaspora are reaching out financially to their family members for medical reasons, the country’s medical facilities still leave much to be desired. They are, at best, consultation clinics and, at worst,mortuaries for many Cameroonians who lack the resources to seek better healthcare abroad.

Also, one of the major costs that will be borne by the country as a result of this conflict is the academic year that has been messed up by the striking Anglophones. From the look of things, the 2016-2017 academic year is over and it is likely that end-of-year examinations will not take place. The entire Anglophone educational sub-system is in total chaos and pulling the system out of this pretty mess will take a lot of hard work and determination. Schools have been closed for more than four months. The strike is still in effect and there is no end in sight, as the government is not willing to make any concessions and the Diaspora that is running the show remotely is not yielding an inch of its acquired territory to a government that is wont to speaking from both sides of its mouth.

Though the country’s officials have rolled out plans to make up for the lost time, it will be challenging to play catch-up in an environment of conflict and mistrust. Students of the Anglophone educational sub-system and their parents must have to pray long and hard for this unfortunate situation to be laid to rest. Staying at home could be boring, but losing an entire academic year could be really unsettling, especially as many parents are out of work and the economy is in a tailspin.

If this unfortunate situation has to be a thing of the past, both the government and striking Anglophones have to make big concessions. The government has to listen to the people who have clearly stated that for any talks to take place, their leaders, the only people mandated to represent them in any discussions, and fellow Anglophones who are currently being detained in Yaounde must be released. The Internet, a great research tool,must be restored and the arbitrary arrests that have become a daily occurrence must also stop. They insist that federalism must be on the agenda of any discussion with the government. The striking Anglophones are calling for a better Anglophone educational sub-system and an Anglophone section at the Supreme Court.

The government, for its part, has expressed its willingness to dialogue, but insists that the form of the state is not up for discussion. It considers those in jail as terrorists who must be dealt with according to the law. This appears to be a sticking point and neither the government nor the striking Anglophones are willing to make concessions. As both parties stick to their guns, they must understand that the country is suffering as a result of the conflict. They must remember that students want to go to school, but they want to attend classes in a demilitarized and learning-friendly environment. Similarly, in this battle of the wills and egos, both parties must bear in mind that the true winner will be Cameroon, as a better country will emerge from the ashes of the old country that had been designed without the people’s interest at heart.

Dr. Joachim Arrey

Contributing Editor

Cameroon Concord News Group

About the Author: The author of this piece is a keen observer of Cameroon’s political and economic landscape. He has published extensively on the country’s political and economic development, especially in the early 90s when the wind of change was blowing across the continent. He has served as a translator, technical writer, journalist and editor for several international organizations and corporations across the globe. He studied communication at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and technical writing in George Brown College, Toronto, Canada. He is also a trained translator and holds a Ph.D.