15, September 2021

Emmanuel Macron Is Dancing with the Dictators ⁰

A week after Colonel Mamady Doumbouya seized power in Guinea, France is still unsure how to respond to the crisis unfolding in its former West African colony. For now, it seems content to let multilateral bodies such as the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States try and find a resolution.

They are unlikely to get very far. The AU has suspended Guinea’s membership, and Ecowas has held a “positive” meeting with the coup leader in Conakry, the country’s capital on the Atlantic coast. But there is little hope for a speedy restoration of a civilian government.

The most likely outcome is a junta led by Doumbouya, and the promise of a democratic transition somewhere down the line. That was the compromise formula that followed coups in two other Francophone countries, Mali and Chad, earlier this summer.

That arrangement suited French President Emmanuel Macron just fine. He had offered only muted criticism of the coup in Bamako and endorsed the appointment of the junta in N’Djamena. The promise of democracy in the future allayed the embarrassment of doing business with tyrants for the time being.

But France’s speedy accommodation of military strongmen was bound to inspire other wannabes in Francophone Africa. Doumbouya was among those paying careful attention.

It is not yet known how much time he spent with his fellow Colonel, Mali’s Assimi Goita, when the two men participated in a 2019 U.S.-led military exercise in Burkina Faso. But it can hardly have escaped the Guinean’s attention that Goita was able thereafter to lead two coups — ousting President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020, and then transitional President Bah N’Daw in May — with little more than desultory disapproval from Macron. France suspended joint operations with the Malian military for barely a month.

Ironically, the man Doumbouya ousted was also counting on Macron’s hypocrisy. President Alpha Conde won reelection last year after having forced through a constitutional amendment to allow himself a third term. When the French leader blasted him for this power grab, Conde reckoned forgiveness would follow. After all, Macron had no qualms about congratulating the Ivory Coast’s Alassane Ouattara for having secured a third term with the help of some constitutional jiggery-pokery.

But Doumbouya’s coup comes at an especially awkward moment for the French president, who is limbering up for a reelection run of his own even as his party tries to recover from a humiliating defeat in June’s regional vote. As Macron hits the hustings, his foreign policy record is coming under especially close scrutiny, amid rumblings of disquiet among professional diplomats, who say he is more show than substance.

Improving relations with Francophone African countries, in the face of the growing Chinese, Turkish and Russian influence, has been one of Macron’s priorities. The region has provided him with opportunities to burnish his international stature, including a much-publicized summit earlier this summer. Perhaps more important, the cooperation of former French colonies is crucial to the president’s counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel, the belt of countries south of the Sahara.

These factors may explain why he is leery of antagonizing the new rulers of Mali, Chad and now Guinea. But by handing out yet another free pass to a military strongman, Macron is in effect inviting others to take advantage of his weak hand. Several other leaders in the region will now be looking nervously over their shoulders: Ouattara of the Ivory Coast, Faure Gnassingbe of Togo, Paul Biya of Cameroon and Patrice Talon of Benin.

Even if there are no more coups between now and the French presidential election next April, the democratic retrenchment in Africa will at the very least be a source of embarrassment for Macron. He will only have himself to blame.

Source: Bloomberg L.P.

14, September 2021

Football: Pele leaves ICU after tumor removed ⁰

Brazilian football legend Pele left the intensive care unit of a Sao Paulo hospital on Tuesday after undergoing surgery for a suspected colon tumor.

“The patient Edson Arantes do Nascimento is in good clinical condition and has left the intensive therapy unit. He will be recovering in a room,” the Albert Einstein Hospital said in its latest medical bulletin.

“I continue every day happier, with a lot of disposition to play 90 minutes, plus extra time. We will be together soon!” Pele wrote on Instagram, thanking fans for “thousands of loving messages”.

On Monday night one of his daughters, Kely Nascimento, gave an update on her father’s health on social media, accompanied by a close-up photo of the smiling 80-year-old football mega-star.

“He is doing well post surgery, he is not in pain and is in a good mood (annoyed that he can only eat jello but will persevere!),” Nascimento wrote.

“He will move into a regular room in the next day or two and then go home.”

Her father “is strong and stubborn and with the support and care of the brilliant team at Einstein and all of the love, energy and light that the world is sending, he will get through this!” she wrote.

The suspected tumor was detected during routine tests, according to the hospital, where Pele has been undergoing treatment since August 31.

Considered by many to be the greatest footballer of all time, Pele has been in poor health in recent years, and has had various stints in the hospital.

The only player in history to win three World Cups (1958, 1962 and 1970), Pele burst onto the global stage at just 17 with dazzling goals, including two in the final against hosts Sweden, as Brazil won the World Cup for the first time in 1958.

“O Rei” (The King) went on to have one of the most storied careers in sport, scoring more than 1,000 goals before retiring in 1977.

Source: AFP

14, September 2021

Let us buy Covid jabs, pleads Africa ⁰

Africa wants to buy Covid-19 vaccines, rather than keep waiting for donor-funded doses to arrive, the African Union said Tuesday, imploring producers to give the continent a fair shot at market access.

The AU also urged manufacturing nations to lift export bans so the continent can begin to address for itself the glaring inequity in access to coronavirus jabs, as wealthy nations hog available doses.

“Vaccine sharing is good. But we shouldn’t have to be relying on vaccine sharing,” Strive Masiyiwa, the AU’s Covid-19 special envoy, told a press conference at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

“We want to buy from those same manufacturers.”

The major Covid-19 vaccine producers have a moral responsibility to ensure equitable access to end the pandemic, he said, but “those manufacturers know very well that they never gave us proper access”.

Just nine vaccine doses have been administered per 100 people in Africa, according to an AFP calculation.

That figure stands at 118 doses per 100 people in the United States and Canada; 104 in Europe; 85 in Asia; 84 in Latin America and the Caribbean; 69 in Oceania and 54 in the Middle East.

African nations “have been left behind by the rest of the world”, said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The UN health agency chief spelled out the danger of leaving Africa so poorly covered by vaccines.

“This doesn’t only hurt the people of Africa, it hurts all of us,” he said.

“The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more the virus will keep circulating and changing, the longer the social and economic disruption will continue, and the higher the chances that more variants will emerge that render vaccines less effective.”

– ‘Miracle’ –

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told the press conference that just under 3.5 percent of the eligible African population has been fully vaccinated.

The WHO wants 40 percent fully immunised in every country by the end of the year and 70 percent of the world’s population by mid-2022.

It has called for countries to hold off administering extra booster shots until the end of December to allow more people to get a first dose instead.

The AU has set up the African COVID-19 Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, or AVAT, to purchase jabs for member states in a scheme to run alongside the donor-funded global Covax facility.

Masiyiwa said Africa was also setting up its own manufacturing capabilities and called for a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights on the vaccines, as a common good.

He said: “It was a great miracle to have these vaccines. Now let this miracle be available to all mankind.”

Source: AFP

14, September 2021

Southern Cameroons Situation Report: 9 soldiers, 4 separatist fighters killed ⁰

At least nine soldiers and four separatist fighters were killed in weekend clashes in Southern Cameroons that has been ravaged by a four-year armed separatist conflict, security and local sources said on Monday.

Seven soldiers were killed and four others seriously injured on Sunday when separatist fighters detonated a roadside improvised explosive device in Kikaikilaki, a locality in the region, an army official who asked not to be named revealed.

The soldiers were transporting corpses of two other soldiers who were ambushed and killed on Saturday while they were patrolling the Chounghi village in the region, the official said.

Early Monday, the army displayed corpses of four armed separatist fighters on the street of Bamenda, chief town of the region whom they said were killed in overnight clashes in the town. A civilian was also killed in the clashes, according to the army. There were no reports of casualties on the part of government forces.

There have been renewed clashes in the region over the past one week after separatist fighters threatened to disrupt schools, according to security reports.

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with separatist fighters in the Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest of the Central African nation where separatists want to create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia”.

Source: Xinhuanet

14, September 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: No Lockdown from September 15 ⁰

INTERIM GOVERNMENT STATEMENT:

THERE IS NO LOCKDOWN FROM 15 SEPTEMBER 2021

Fellow Ambazonians,

Over the last 24 hours, the Interim Government of Ambazonia has been inundated with calls and questions from concerned citizens in Ground Zero and the Diaspora regarding a so-called “Gutteres Lockdown” of Ambazonia starting Wednesday 15 September 2021 to Saturday 02 October 2021. After extensive consultation with Generals and Commanders in Ground Zero, and other trustworthy frontline movements of our struggle, your Interim Government now states that it made NO such decision and declaration. Consequently, there is NO LOCKDOWN of Ambazonia, and any such notice should be disregarded forthwith.

Monday Lockdowns remain in place for the foreseeable future.

As a government, the safety and security of our people in Ground Zero is our utmost priority, and your Interim Government would always consult with our self-defence heroes before making public pronouncements that affect the lives of our people in Ground Zero. Daily business and community activities within the territory of Ambazonia must proceed with vigilance and without interruption.

Truth has always triumphed over deception, and integrity must remain our companion in this journey for freedom. Despite the sufferings that the regime in Yaoundé is inflicting upon our people, it is unfortunate that some Southern Cameroonians have decided to join them in their duplicity. Still, despite this, I am calling on the people of Ambazonia to remain hopeful.

We want to use this opportunity to advise our people to go about their daily business but remain vigilant as some major military actions are planned over the coming weeks.

Fellow Ambazonians, this is a difficult journey we have embarked on. No one can say with utmost certainty what the outcome will be, but we must remain focus and keep our eyes on the prize despite the hard work of detractors. We shall not accept anything less than total independence.

Thank You, God Bless Ambazonia. May God bless you all.

Dabney Yerima

14, September 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: AU, EU using double standard in dealing with Biya regime ⁰

A senior adviser to the Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has slammed the AU and EU for following double standards in dealing with the Biya regime over the war in Southern Cameroons, noting that both African and European diplomats disregard for the Ambazonia issue has turned the Francophone dominated regime in Yaoundé into an international consortium of crime syndicates.

Dr Patrick Ayuk made the comments in a Sunday telephone conversation when he was asked by Cameroon Concord News why the African Union and the European Union show no sensitivity toward the genocide going on in Southern Cameroons.

“It is sad and unfortunate that the AU and the EU are following a very shameful path vis-à-vis the war in Southern Cameroons and as a result they not only refrain from putting pressure on French Cameroun but are also providing Yaoundé with everything at its disposal to encourage Biya and his gang to continue to kill innocent Southern Cameroons women and children” Yerima’s top aide said.

Dr Ayuk Patrick emphasized that nobody in French Cameroun is in any position to speak about the future of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Ambazonia is the indigenous name of the former United Nations trust territory of the Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom Administration for close to half a century, excluding the period of British connection with the territory. When La Republique du Cameroun took control of the territory, it split it into two parts and designated them as “northwest and southwest provinces/regions of Republique du Cameroun.” This was rejected and continues to be rejected by the people of the former British Southern Cameroons.

The people of the territory insist on the indigenous name of their Homeland which is Ambazonia. This is consistent with a 1978 recommendation of UNESCO that African countries should call their countries by the name they wish to be known. Here, the designations ‘Ambazonia’ and ‘the Southern Cameroons’ are used interchangeably.

By Isong Asu in London

14, September 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima urges international community to make Yaoundé stop abusing Amba inmates ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has urged the international community to follow up on the conditions of Southern Cameroons political detainees and prisoners of conscience held in French Cameroun controlled jails and detention centers, after it was revealed they are going through the harshest treatment in the Buea prison.

Dabney Yerima informed members of the Ambazonia war cabinet that “In Buea the prison cells are opened at 11:00am and closed at 4:00pm. This means that our people get 5hours outside their cramped cells. Within those cells are very poor sewage systems and the smell is constant.”

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader noted that the situation is worse with Southern Cameroons detainees in Kumba, Bamenda, and Bafoussam.

The Southern Cameroons Vice President made the revelation during the Amba weekly cabinet meeting on Monday, demanding that international players make sure the inmates are not subjected to torture and abuse, and compel the French Cameroun regime to implement the Third Geneva Convention related to the treatment of prisoners.

By Chi Prudence Asong

14, September 2021

Football: Messi gets set for PSG Champions League bow ⁰

Lionel Messi came to Paris to win the Champions League again and on Wednesday he is set to finally make his first start for his new club when they kick off their European campaign in Bruges.

Five weeks have passed since Messi was presented as a Paris Saint-Germain player and declared he was in “the ideal place” to win the biggest prize in club football for the fifth time.

In more than a month he has been seen in a PSG jersey for just 24 minutes as a substitute in a Ligue 1 game at Reims.

The 34-year-old had been expected to make his full debut for the Qatar-owned club last weekend but in the end he was rested against Clermont after returning from international duty with Argentina.

However, PSG coach Mauricio Pochettino is expected to finally unleash the six-time Ballon d’Or winner from the start at the Jan Breydel Stadium against Belgian champions Club Brugge in the Group A opener.

If Neymar and Kylian Mbappe start too, it will be the first time the superstar attacking trio will have been on the pitch together for the Parisians.

Expectations are sky-high, both for Messi at his new club and for PSG in the Champions League, a trophy they have yet to win but crave more than anything.

PSG will play Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City -– the team that knocked them out in last season’s semi-finals -– as well as RB Leipzig in a group that could hardly have been tougher, but this is a team built to go all the way.

“It makes me think of Liverpool when I arrived there. Liverpool were building a team to win the Premier League. Here I have joined a team that has been built to win something. I said to myself: ‘This is going to be massive’,” Georginio Wijnaldum, another of PSG’s summer signings, told sports daily L’Equipe.

– Lucky? –

They should, at the very least, be far too strong for their first opponents, even if the former European Cup finalists have been Belgian champions in three of the last four seasons.

The last time PSG went to Bruges was in the group stage two years ago. There was no Messi then, and there was no Neymar either, but Mbappe bagged a hat-trick in a 5-0 win.

This summer Wijnaldum and Messi were joined at the Parc des Princes by Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, flying full-back Achraf Hakimi and former Real Madrid skipper Sergio Ramos, as well as Portuguese prospect Nuno Mendes.

Ramos has not played at all yet, while Messi has been slowly preparing himself, but PSG have still won five games out of five in Ligue 1, scoring 16 goals.

Their recruitment drive, coupled with their decision to knock back up to 200 million euros from Real Madrid for Mbappe even with the France star in the final year of his contract, has had some of their European rivals up in arms.

“State-owned clubs are as dangerous for football’s ecosystem as the Super League was,” said La Liga president Javier Tebas, calling PSG’s spending “unsustainable” in a football economy suffering from the impact of the pandemic.

PSG have always claimed they have not breached UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations and issued a stinging rebuke to Tebas, calling his remarks “insulting and defamatory”.

When it comes to Messi, La Liga’s loss is PSG’s gain. That is clear even if Messi has hardly contributed anything on the field for his new team.

“There are many more people who have a wider vocabulary to describe him closer to the reality Leo deserves,” Pochettino told UEFA.com when asked for his impressions of his compatriot.

Pochettino, who is without the suspended Angel di Maria for the start of the European campaign, was wary of playing up PSG’s Champions League chances just yet.

“This is a really unpredictable competition…you need to be lucky,” he told UEFA.com.

Then again you can’t get much luckier as a coach than having Messi, Neymar and Mbappe in your team.

Source: AFP

13, September 2021

Cameroon: Evacuation Season Arrives! ⁰

Every young person in West and Central Africa knows that there are only two seasons in a year – the dry and rainy seasons. The rainy season is just wrapping up while most people expect the dry season to kick in. But in Cameroon, another season will succeed the rainy season and the dry season might only come later.

Cameroon is a land of wonders and there is always something new and negative emerging from there. This year, the dry season might have to wait a little longer. A new season – evacuation – has started in earnest and it might take longer than expected.

Cameroon’s government of the old is finally falling apart. The sick and elderly leaders are grudgingly yielding to the dictates of time. The number of evacuations is on the rise and the old and tired are gradually falling apart. First it was the country’s minister of finance, Louis-Paul Motaze, who was rushed to Switzerland where he is currently fighting for his dear life after a massive attack by COVID-19.

Though relatively younger than most of his peers, the finance minister has almost all of the known lifestyle diseases. Rumor burst out yesterday, indicating that the man who still has some sense of decorum had died. But a source close to the Motaze family has informed the Cameroon Concord News Group that he is still alive but in very bad shape.

The virus has pinned him down and is delivering some of the deadliest punches to a man who has never been athletic. His family members are currently biting their finger nails given that they know that Motaze is immuno-compromised and does not stand a chance.

Many Cameroonians thought Motaze’s case was just a one-off, but it has simply turned out to be the beginning of a long and disturbing season. The floodgates have been opened. While the government was hoping that other cases would not emerge, the 87-year-old Senate President, Marcel Niat Njifenji, has relapsed. He had been patched up in France a few months ago, but things are really falling apart for a man who is simply a bundle of diseases.

Besides the lifestyle diseases, Niat is hosting other ailments that will not let him have a good night’s sleep. He is permanently feeling like peeing and since his caregivers cannot keep up, he has been placed in a diaper which gets too wet every thirty minutes.

Other people have joined the evacuation club and this time around, it is the 84-year-old Sultan of Foumban, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya. The Sultan’s body has been ravaged by diabetes and a heart problem, and COVID-19 has shown up just to serve as a finisher. COVID-19 is not a respecter of persons and the Sultan’s family is fully aware of that. His family members are down on their knees knocking their heads to the ground in prayer in the fervent hope that the virus will grant the Sultan clemency for all the sins and crimes he has committed.

While new members are joining the club, old ones are still out there in France enjoying some reprieve. Inoni Ephraim, the country’s one-time Prime Minister, is still in France trying to have his damaged health repaired. The country’s bad politics and years in solitary confinement have reduced the former prime minister to a shadow of his former self.

As the Cameroon Concord News Group writes this article, a source at the Presidency of the Republic has just called to advise that another bad case is already getting worse. The country’s president, Paul Biya, will likely be evacuated to Switzerland again as his health is still a concern. Mr. Biya, who has been a host of multiple diseases, is having a tough time eating and sleeping, the source said, adding that for the moment, his is the Kingdom of sleeping pills which he happily eats like peanuts.

The Swiss did a good job to put him back together, but like everything artificial, the decorations are already falling apart and the 88-year-old Biya is losing weight and muscles at a very fast rate. He has lost appetite and the fear of death has plunged him into delirium which is an acute mental disturbance characterized by confused thinking and disrupted attention usually accompanied by disordered speech and hallucinations.

The evacuations are costing the Cameroonian taxpayer a pretty penny. President Biya and his collaborators thought they would be young forever. They disregarded the health sector and never thought there will be a day when they themselves would be scrambling for solutions to their health issues. A modern state-of-the-art health facility in Yaoundé could have reduced the number of evacuations and health spending if the greed that has become the hallmark of the government had been cast off.

The time has come, and aging is a process nobody can reverse. Old age is a disease, and it must be taken seriously like any of the age-related diseases. Having a modern and well-equipped hospital will allay everybody’s fears, including that of those who erroneously think they are eternal.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

13, September 2021

Expect No Peace In Sub-Saharan Africa Until Ambazonia, Biafra Have Their Own Nations ⁰

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) says the Nigerian government and its Cameroonian counterpart met recently to plan ways to attack its members and the Ambazonia agitators in Cameroon.

IPOB alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government derives happiness in shedding the blood of innocent Nigerian people, and that he facilitated the meeting with the Paul Biya-led government in Cameroon, while hiding under claims it was for security and border control.

The separatist group, however, stated that there would not be peace in the sub-Saharan region of Africa until Biafra and Ambazonia agitators in Nigeria and Cameroon respectively get their sovereign nations.

The pro-Biafra group’s spokesperson, Emma Powerful, disclosed this in a statement obtained by SaharaReporters on Sunday.

In the statement titled, ‘Nigeria and Cameroon Jittery over Agreement between Biafra and Ambazonia – IPOB’, the Nnamdi Kanu-led secessionist group called on the international community to hold the governments of the two nations responsible for any attacks on their members.

It also called on the European Union and other organisations to guarantee referendums for the separatist groups to break away from their mother nations.

The statement read, “The global movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) ably led by our great leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, is aware of the security and border meeting in Abuja between the two oppressive and terror sympathising countries, Nigeria and Cameroon. We know that both countries enjoy the spilling of the blood of their innocent citizens by both terrorists and security agents pretending to be combating insurgency.

“The meeting in Abuja between both countries shows the fear of the agreement between Biafra and Ambazonia. The agreement between the two emerging nations has become a nightmare for Nigeria and Cameroon but unfortunately, there is nothing they can do to stop their emergence.

“If Biafra was able to survive the 1967-1970 civil war and genocide by Nigeria supported by Cameroon, West African countries like Ghana and its security agents, we shall also triumph over whatever plot they hack against us now.

“Biafra and Ambazonia have been divinely ordained to come, and they are at the threshold. No antics of Nigeria and her partner in crime can stop Biafran and Ambazonia actualisation.

“The Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari and Paul Biya of Cameroon should be held responsible for whatever happens to Biafrans and the good people of Ambazonia and Biafra.

“We are also calling on world leaders and the international community especially America, Israel, European Union and civilised nations across the globe to prevail on Nigeria and Cameroon to allow Biafra and Ambazonia to conduct their referendum to decide their fate.

“The independence of Biafra and Ambazonia and Biafra are the only things that can guarantee peace in the gulf of Guinea and the African sub-region because they are the countries that can guarantee peace in the region.

“We signed MOU for collaboration in our struggle for independence. We shall continue to work together as brothers and the oppressors understand our resolve to synergise, hence their morbid fear and anxiety. The agreement and MOU have come to stay and nothing can change it.”

Source: SaharaReporters