5, October 2021

Open Letter to Mathias Owona Nguini ⁰

Dear Mathias Owona Nguini,

After many years on the sidelines, watching you pontificate on key issues affecting Cameroon, I have decided to break my silence with a view to drawing your attention to your approach to and statements on the Southern Cameroons crisis that is gradually tearing our country apart.

I have been duly informed that you are a university professor in one of Cameroon’s many universities and being a university don implies that we must demonstrate a very high degree of objectivity and selflessness required in the resolution of a serious issue like the Southern Cameroons crisis.

This crisis has been going on for five years and thousands of Cameroonians – soldiers and civilians – have been sent to an early grave and there is nothing that could be humbling and touching like death.

Throughout this meaningless, unjustifiable and destructive war, I have watched you, in your effort to engratiate yourself with the government, calling for more violent military action against those Southern Cameroonians who have taken up weapons against a government that has slammed the door on any possibility of dialogue.

If military violence could bring about peace in that country, Cameroon could have regained its lost peace. Unfortunately, our country is unsafe. It has become a place wherein killing is a sport.

Today, Cameroonians are killing each other with impunity and army soldiers have become soldiers of death, killing civilians to prove a point due to ill-conceived advice from pseudo-advisers like you.

Many wish you had a brother or a child who could head to the warfront to have a taste of the medicine you are producing for others. Maybe when death hits close to home, you may take a long and hard look at your ineffective strategy that has resulted in thousands of deaths while making secession possible.

Over the last five years, the country has slowly and unfortunately continued its onward march towards the bottom of the abyss of violence, though the government has deployed its most feared forces and most sophisticated military weapons to the two English-speaking regions of the country.

Strangely, those efforts have come to naught, especially as the fighters on the ground have acquired rare combat experience, procured very dangerous weapons and, in recent months, have changed the game by making the most of their dreaded IEDs which are sending many of the country’s army soldiers to an early and uncomfortable grave.

These dead Cameroonians are unfortunately not traveling to another part of the world. They are quitting the world for good to the dismay of their parents and family. If this cannot compel us to be flexible, what then can cause us as a nation to take a long and hard look at our failing strategy.

I understand you have huge political ambitions, but those ambitions cannot only come true if you continue to beat the drums of war. As a native of Manyu Division, I was taught that honey like vinegar could be effective in catching flies, and that honey could be a better alternative in a volatile situation.

This implies that the war in Cameroon which is ruining our economy and bringing new challenges to the population and the government can also be called off through frank and fruitful discussions and not necessarily through the barrel of the gun.

I have watched you on many TV networks and I have concluded that your personal ambitions are transforming you into warmonger and such a philosophy is not only prejudicial to our country, it is indeed dangerous to future generations as it makes their job of building a strong, united and prosperous Cameroon impossible.

Building a strong and united Cameroon does not imply building a hyper-centralized country that does not give the people the opportunity to manage their own affairs. The time for centralization and dictatorship is long gone.

Cameroon can still be united through a federation that allows each region to develop at its own pace, depending on the resources it generates and those the federal government allocates. Federalism is not and has never been synonymous with secession.

It is oppression and failure to listen to the citizens of that country that have triggered the current unfortunate war of seccession that has become a hot potato in the government’s mouth.

I have heard you, more than a thousand times, proclaiming on rooftops that you are the best law and strategy professor in Cameroon. This does not imply that you are omniscient. As a university professor, you should be aware that you are supposed to be a role model to many young Cameroonians.

Allowing your ego to take control of your intellect only works against you and our country. Nobody, no matter how learned, is a repository of wisdom. We must, no matter how knowledgeable we may be, be humble not only in our comportment but also in our pronouncements.

You are not the only Cameroonian with a doctorate degree and the title of a professor in Cameroon is simply not worth its weight in gold. Always brandishing your academic title only makes you sound like a broken record.

Academic titles do not really imply that we are more knowledgeable than others. They simply underscore that we have done research in a particular area or that we are teaching in a tertiary institution. I guess you know that knowledge is self-bestowed and humility is a key hallmark of very knowledgeable people.

It is, indeed, preposterous of you to use your academic titles to intimidate others. Remember, knowledge is just a click away today and anybody who makes reading a way of life can be the next ‘Socrates’.

I have also been hearing you quoting Cameroon’s penal code as part of your obsolete strategy to intimidate those whose views on the war are at variance with yours.

Be advised that Cameroonians are wont to such a strategy and millions know that those laws in our penal code were designed to stifle debate and muzzle up those who are genuinely serving as the conscience of our country which has lost its way because of uninspiring and corrupt leadership. As a nation, we can do better if only we rid ourselves of ideologues and sycophants like you.

If you are, indeed, an adviser to the government, then that government is rudderless. Coming to you to seek advice on a crucial issue like the one that has reduced our country to the ridicule of the world is like heading to a brothel to look for genuine love.

That country has highly intellectual and selfless human resources whose honest and professional advice can point the government in the right direction.

I think when knowledgeable intellectuals get invited on national TV to share their perspectives on key issues facing the country, it is more because Cameroonians need ideas that can result in lasting peace and not those which are gradually making secession possible.

Remember, those who make peace impossible only make war inevitable and if we are where we are today in that country, it is because people like you think every issue can only be dealt with in a battlefield.

My letter has no intention of challenging your professoral knowledge. Its objective is clear – enable you see the folly and disaster in your poorly conceived and greed-driven advice.

Cameroon will certainly be a better country when our leaders listen to those they govern. Our networks will attract more viewers when people like you walk the path of humility, peace and reconciliation. Your pomposity and intellectual dishonesty are casting you in negative light.

You can do better and your political ambitions can also come true if you see other Cameroonians as being intelligent like you and as deserving of Cameroon as you.

No child ever applies to be born in Cameroon. However, be advised that once born in that geopolitical entity known as Cameroon, that child has the same rights like anybody else regardless of the language that child ends up speaking.

It is therefore incumbent upon our leaders to listen to Cameroonians in order to avoid conflicts. Conflicts do not only breed bitterness, they constrain a country’s development efforts.

Conflicts consume significant development resources and pit tribes against tribes, making national unity an illusion. Conflicts are sometimes born of arrogance and such conflicts could be transgenerationally transmissible. A professor of your calibre should be aware of this.

Arrogance has never bred peace and the current conflict in Southern Cameroons is the outcome of a culture of arrogance and greed. The sooner we understand that, the better for our country.

Yours sincerely,

Joachim Arrey

About the author: The author of this letter is a Canada-based journalist, translator, technical writer and public relations expert. He studied in Nigeria, Cameroon, Canada and the United Kingdom. He holds a Ph.D. He provides language services to multiple international organizations.

5, October 2021

The SOBA UK 2021 Residential Convention: hundreds of live feeds ⁰

The 2021 SOBA UK Convention is not only going to get a glorified Cameroon Concord News Group coverage but it is going to have a Camcordnews production with live shots and short clips from all across the venue.

The Sasse Old Boys big show “Appreciating Community Spirit” begins on Friday evening October 15, 2021 at The Hilton at St George’s Park, Burton Upon Trent. St George’s Park is the Home of the England National football teams.

Hundreds of live feeds

From Cameroon Concord News Isong ASU: “The 2021 SOBA UK ANNUAL RESIDENTIAL CONVENTION will feature hundreds of live feeds from across the venue according to a source that has seen recent SOBA UK plans.”

We understand that SOBA UK plans to structure the first night of the convention around its guests while maintaining strict Covid-19 rules. Chief Alfred Bate Bawak of Leicester likened the convention as “Most Important SOBA UK come together” ever.

Why the 2021 SOBA UK Convention matter

These recent comments in both Cameroon Intelligence Report and Cameroon Concord News hit the nail on the head:

— “With the issues Cameroon as a nation is facing right now and the coronavirus including the urgent need to start appreciating community spirit, the SOBA UK 2021 Convention will provide Sasse Old Boys with plans for a way forward,” Cameroon Intelligence Report’s senior Correspondent for special events Chi Prudence Asong said.

— Cameroon Concord News Desk Editor said the convention “will let Sobans to basically reintroduce themselves to Great Britain after the pandemic and bring the focus back to the pride of being an ex-Sasse.”

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in London

5, October 2021

Cardinal on trial as Vatican financial scandal case resumes ⁰

The trial of a once powerful Catholic cardinal and nine others resumes Tuesday at the Vatican over alleged financial fraud and a disastrous London property deal paid for with charity funds.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who served as the equivalent of chief of staff for Pope Francis at the time of the deal and was later fired from another post, is being tried alongside high-rolling London-based financiers and other Church employees.

They are accused of crimes including embezzlement, fraud and corruption relating to the Church’s loss-making purchase of a luxury property in London’s upscale Chelsea district.

Becciu was at the time number two at the Secretariat of State, the most powerful department in the Vatican’s central administration.

The case against the 73-year-old, which carries charges of embezzlement, abuse of office and witness tampering, also includes separate allegations over hundreds of thousands of euros of Church funds paid to his brother’s charity.

The trial is unprecedented in going before a Vatican tribunal of three lay magistrates rather than a religious court, after Francis changed the law to strip cardinals and bishops of legal privileges.

Becciu, one of only two defendants who attended a preliminary hearing in July in the temporary courtroom at the Vatican Museums, insists he will prove his innocence “with respect to every charge”.

The trial, which is expected to last months, follows a two-year probe into how the Secretariat of State managed its vast asset portfolio and, in particular, who knew what about the disastrous 350-million-euro (now $407-million) London investment.

Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has vowed to clean up the Church’s finances.

The scandal is particularly embarrassing because funds used for risky ventures like the London one came from the Peter’s Pence, money donated by churchgoers for the pope’s charities.

– Risky investments –

Ahead of the trial, prosecutors painted a picture of risky investments with little or no oversight, and double-dealing by outside consultants and insiders trusted with the financial interests of the Secretariat of State.

The Catholic Church suffered a major loss when it purchased this London property in the upscale neighbourhood of Chelsea

The Catholic Church suffered a major loss when it purchased this London property in the upscale neighbourhood of Chelsea DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS AFP/File

The primary defendants are “actors in a rotten predatory and lucrative system, sometimes made possible thanks to limited, but very incisive, complicity and internal connivance,” they argued.

The current case dates from 2013, when the Secretariat borrowed more than $200 million, mainly from Credit Suisse, to invest in a Luxembourg fund managed by an Italian-Swiss businessman, Raffaele Mincione.

Half was intended for stock market purchases and the rest for part of the building in London’s Sloane Avenue.

Prosecutors allege Mincione used the money to invest in high-risk ventures over which the Church had no control. By 2018, the Secretariat had already lost millions and tried to pull out of the deal.

Another London-based financier, Gianluigi Torzi, was brought in to broker the purchase of the rest of the building and cut ties with Mincione. But he is accused of instead joining forces with him.

Torzi allegedly inserted a clause into the sale deal that gave himself control of the building through voting rights. He is accused of demanding 15 million euros to relinquish control.

Mincione and Torzi were helped, prosecutors claim, by Enrico Crasso, a former financial consultant to the Secretariat, and employee Fabrizio Tirabassi, both of whom face charges including fraud.

Also implicated are two former top officials within the Vatican’s financial affairs watchdog, including its ex-president, Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, who prosecutors say did not do enough to protect the Secretariat’s interests.

Source: AFP

4, October 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima calls on Ambazonians to ignore Dion Ngute ⁰

INTERIM GOVERNMENT STATEMENT on DION NGUTE’S VISIT TO THE NORTHERN ZONE FROM 5TH–8TH OCTOBER 2021

Yesterday, 03 October 2021, Adolphe Lele Lafrique communicated that Joseph Dion Ngute, the Prime Minister of La Republique du Cameroun, will be “undertaking a peacebuilding visit” to the Northern Zone of Ambazonia from Tuesday, the 05 to Friday 08 October 2021.

The Interim Government of Ambazonia considers this scam an act of utter contempt and disrespect to the people of Southern Cameroons and a flagrant violation of our sovereignty. It is particularly cruel that this visit takes place a few days after the monstrous regime in Yaoundé released hundreds of army and gendarme officers to the Northern zone with the exclusive order to rape our women and kill our people.

This action from Dion Ngute and his master in Yaoundé confirms what the opinion of all Ambazonians is, that La Republic du Cameroun has a disregard for the lives of our people. This move is proof of Yaoundé’s steadfast commitment to deception.

After consultation with Generals and Commanders in Ground Zero, major military operations have been planned in the Northern zone over the next few days. Consequently, our military leaders cannot guarantee the safety of anyone who ventures outside their home.

Because the safety of our people is of paramount importance, your Interim Government now wants to counsel that all law-abiding Southern Cameroonians in the Northern Zone must stay at home during these four days. All emergency activities within this zone of Ambazonia must be assumed with extreme caution.

Fellow Ambazonians, this is a difficult journey we have embarked upon. 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 games from the murderous regime in Yaoundé. We shall not accept anything less than total independence.

God Bless Ambazonia. It’s Total Independence or Resistance forever.

Thank You, and God Bless You

Dabney Yerima

4, October 2021

Extreme heat threatening cities ⁰

Rapid population growth and global warming are increasing exposure to extreme heat in cities, aggravating health problems and making moving to urban areas less beneficial for the world’s poor, according to a study released Monday.

The rise is affecting nearly a quarter of the world’s population, said the report published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

In recent decades, hundreds of millions of people have moved from rural areas to cities where temperatures are generally higher because of surfaces such as asphalt which trap heat and a lack of vegetation.

Scientists studied the maximum daily heat and humidity in more than 13,000 cities from 1983 to 2016.

Using the so-called “wet-bulb globe temperature” scale, a measure that takes into account heat and humidity, they defined extreme heat as 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).

The researchers then compared weather data with statistics on the cities’ population over the same 33-year period.

They calculated the number of days of extreme heat in a particular year by the population of the city that year to come up with a definition called person-days.

The authors found that the number of person-days in which city dwellers were exposed went from 40 billion per year in 1983 to 119 billion in 2016.

Cascade Tuholske at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, a lead author of the study, said the rise “increases morbidity and mortality.”

“It impacts people’s ability to work, and results in lower economic output. It exacerbates pre-existing health conditions,” he said in a statement.

Population growth accounted for two-thirds of the exposure spike, with actual warming temperatures contributing a third, although proportions varied from city to city, they wrote.

Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka was the worst-affected city, seeing an increase of 575 million person-days of extreme heat over the study period.

That was largely attributable to its population soaring from around four million in 1983 to around 22 million today.

The authors said the patterns they found in Africa and South Asia, “may crucially limit the urban poor’s ability to realize the economic gains associated with urbanization.”

They added that “sufficient investment, humanitarian intervention, and government support” would be needed to counteract the negative impact.

The study was carried out by researchers at New York’s Columbia, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, the University of Arizona at Tuscon and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Source: AFP

4, October 2021

UK threatens to abandon post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland ⁰

Britain’s Brexit minister threatened Monday to trigger a contentious break clause in the UK’s divorce deal with the European Union – a move that would send the UK’s already chilly relations with its huge neighbor into a deep freeze.

David Frost told a gathering of the UK’s governing Conservative Party that the Brexit agreement – which he negotiated and was signed by Britain and the EU – was undermining peace in Northern Ireland and causing “instability and disruption.”

He said unless there are major changes to the deal, Britain will invoke Article 16, a provision that lets either side suspend the agreement in exceptional circumstances.

However, Britain has made that threat before, and Frost did not pull the trigger.

“But we cannot wait forever,” he said.

The crisis straining UK-EU relations stems from trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK that has a land border with the 27-nation bloc. The divorce deal the two sides struck before Britain’s departure means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

The regulations are intended to prevent goods from Britain entering the EU’s tariff-free single market while keeping an open border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland – a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process. But the checks have angered Northern Ireland’s unionists, who say they impose burdensome red tape on businesses and weaken Northern Ireland’s ties with the rest of the UK.

Britain accuses the EU of being needlessly “purist” in implementing the agreement, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, and says it requires major changes to work.

Blaming the bloc’s “heavy-handed actions,” Frost said “the Protocol itself” was undermining Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement.

“Businesses, political parties, the institutions, and indeed all in Northern Ireland face instability and disruption,” he said.

“So I urge the EU to be ambitious. It’s no use tinkering around the edges. We need significant change.”

Officials in the EU are likely to greet Frost’s ultimatum with disdain. The EU blames Britain for the disruption, accusing it of trying to renege on a legally binding deal it signed up to.

Britain has also angered the EU by delaying the introduction of checks on some goods from the bloc agreed in the divorce deal, citing the burden on businesses.

Britain’s Conservatives are holding their first in-person conference since Britain left the bloc last year. Despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s vow to “get Brexit done,” the rupture is roiling the economy as Britain tries to bounce back from pandemic disruption and damage.

A severe shortage of truck drivers, due in part to a post-Brexit exodus of European workers, has snarled British supply chains, leaving gaps on supermarket shelves, fast-food chains without chicken and gas pumps dry of fuel. Scores of soldiers have been drafted in to drive fuel tankers after more than a week of gas shortages.

2, October 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Three Cameroonian soldiers killed in Bamali ⁰

At least three Cameroonian soldiers were killed on Thursday in an ambush by separatist fighters in the country’s restive Anglophone region of Northwest, according to local and security sources.

Separatist fighters ambushed soldiers who were on patrol in Bamali village of the region and opened fire on them, according to a military official who asked not to be named.

A video of the ambush filmed by separatist fighters went viral on social media in the Central African nation.

Clashes between government forces and separatist fighters were also reported early Thursday in at least seven parts of the region, according to security reports.

Separatist leaders declared the “independence” of the two Anglophone regions of the country in 2017 and have since been battling with government forces.

Source: Xinhuanet

2, October 2021

Cameroon’s Elderly Say They Feel Abandoned ⁰

In Cameroon, scores of seniors marked Friday’s International Day of Older Persons by calling on authorities to do more to support the elderly in the country’s conflict areas.

Many of those demonstrating in Yaounde fled from Boko Haram terrorism in the north or Cameroon’s separatist conflict in the west. They say hundreds of seniors remaining in those regions have been left to fend for themselves.

Sixty-seven-year-old Veronica Ngum, an activist for the elderly in Cameroon, said a majority of protesting seniors are suffering.

She said they lack energy to work, are frail, and lack the financial means to buy healthy food or be treated in hospitals.

The Cameroon Association of Elderly Persons organized the 30-minute walk to raise awareness of what they said is the plight of older persons in the country. Similar protests took place Friday in the cities of Bafoussam and Douala.

The Timely Performance Care Center for disabled children and older persons helped organize the protest.

The manager of the Yaounde-based center, Betty Nancy Fonyuy, said older persons suffer neglect from their families and communities.

“Most of them that are here are the elderly that have been abandoned by their families,” she said. “Some of them are already visually impaired. The center gives them ambulatory materials, medications and reading glasses, with food supplies, bathing supplies, and their basic needs.”

Fonyuy said her center has received at least 120 older persons displaced from Cameroon’s English-speaking regions since January. Some have no relatives in Yaounde. She said her center is finding it difficult to help all elderly in need, and pleaded with donors to help.

Pauline Irene Nguene, Cameroon’s minister of social affairs, said Cameroon has a national solidarity plan that includes the treatment and resettling of people, especially vulnerable civilians like older persons affected by Boko Haram terrorism and separatist conflicts.

Nguene said the government is inviting older persons who have been displaced to report to social affairs offices of their choice for medical assistance.

The United Nations General Assembly instituted the International Day of Older Persons in 1990 to examine issues and challenges faced by the elderly. The day is marked every year on October 1.

A 2020 government report indicates there are about two million people older than 60 among Cameroon’s 25 million population. The report says most of them are poor and need lodging, food and health care.

Source: VOA

2, October 2021

Biya regime stages anti-terror simulation drill ahead of AFCON ⁰

Cameroon staged its biggest ever anti-terrorism exercise Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare against any terrorist attacks during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) which will be hosted by the Central African nation next year.

Sirens wailed as 100 personnel drawn from the army, navy as well as police and rescue services gave a carefully orchestrated demonstration of how they would deal with a terrorist attack during a football match.

During the mock exercises held at the Ahmadou Ahidjo Stadium in Yaounde, the capital, policemen and soldiers overpowered a group of gunmen who took some important personalities and other football spectators hostage.

“The objective of this exercise was to make sure that every (security) unit understands what to do. We also wanted to see if there is synchronisation of action and understanding of each other in order to be able to get to the solution which is bringing back peace and security. We wanted to prove that Cameroon is ready for any eventuality during AFCON,” Colonel Franics Ekosso, one of the organizers of the event, told reporters during the simulation exercise staged.

“Although it is an exercise, it gives us an opportunity to show how we can interact with defense forces in situations like this,” said Leonard Ntuntu, commander of 10th Fire and Rescue Battalion.

The army said the exercises were not held in response to a specific threat but noted that an armed separatist movement in the country’s Anglophone regions, Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North region, and some security challenges in other parts of the Central African nation were reasons enough for the army to prepare for any eventuality.

AFCON, a biennial competition involving 24 African countries, is scheduled to take place in Cameroon from Jan. 9 to Feb. 6 next year.

Source: Xinhuanet

2, October 2021

CPDM looks to post-Biya future ahead of party conference ⁰

Elections to the local institutions of the ruling RDPC have now come to an end. The stakes are high, since those appointed to senior positions will be able to take part in the next party conference (the first since 2011), which could very well be decisive in terms of who succeeds Paul Biya.

Source: Africa Intelligence