Nigeria’s Buhari says dozens dead in unrest following anti-police abuse protests

24, October 2020

Nigeria’s Buhari says dozens dead in unrest following anti-police abuse protests 0

At least 51 civilians have been killed in Nigeria’s unrest following days of peaceful protests over police abuses, the president said Friday, blaming “hooliganism” for the violence while asserting that security forces have used “extreme restraint.”

President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments are expected to further inflame tensions in Africa’s most populous country after Amnesty International reported that soldiers shot and killed at least 12 demonstrators Tuesday night as a large crowd sang the national anthem. The deaths sparked international condemnation.

In a statement, Buhari also said 11 policemen and seven soldiers had been killed by “rioters” as of Thursday, and “the mayhem has not stopped.” He said another 37 civilians were injured in some of Nigeria’s worst turmoil in years.

The president said the well-intentioned protests were hijacked by thugs.

But many Nigerians are upset by what the president hasn’t said. Buhari in a national address Thursday night didn’t mention the shootings, instead warning protesters against “undermining national security and law and order.” On Friday he said the government “will not fold its arms and allow miscreants and criminals continue to perpetrate acts of hooliganism.”

Resentment lingered with the smell of charred tires Friday in Nigeria’s relatively calm streets. Soldiers remained in parts of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, as a 24-hour curfew remained in place.

A witness of Tuesday night’s shooting, 33-year-old Isaiah Abor, ventured out anyway to visit the scene where solders had opened fire. He managed to escape the chaos.

“When (the soldiers) were making comments that the flag is not bulletproof, that’s when I knew this was going to go out of hand,” Abor said. Empty ammunition shells still littered the ground.

The president’s speech annoyed him. “The blood that stained a whole Nigerian flag, those youths were not even mentioned,” Abor said. He added: “We are not cowards. We will always come to this ground, and we will always feel for those that are gone.”

Another protester, Olatunde Joshua Oluwanifemi, said simply: “The speech killed our spirit.”

The president’s comments, “devoid of sympathy,” were worrying, said Okechukwu Nwanguma with the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Center. Shielding those behind the shootings will only lead to abuses by the police and military, he said: “If those who carried out the killings did so and nothing happens, it will encourage them and others to do the same thing next time.”

But citing the president’s comments, one influential group behind the protests, the Feminist Coalition, urged youth to stay at home, saying that “we need to stay alive to pursue our dreams to build the future.”

Others disagreed. If the protests have been hijacked, then Nigerian youth should not give up the struggle and instead should “go back and re-strategize,” said Seriki Muritala with the National Youth Parliament.

Campaign to shut down police unit

This week’s scenes have touched a chord with Black Lives Matter supporters in the United States, while the U.S. government has strongly condemned the “use of excessive force by military forces who fired on unarmed demonstrators in Lagos, causing death and injury.”

The protests turned violent Wednesday after the military’s shooting as mobs vandalized and burned police stations, courthouses, TV stations and a hotel. Police battled angry crowds with tear gas and gunfire. The looting and gunfire continued Thursday.

The demonstrations began early this month with calls for Nigeria’s government to shut down the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a police unit known as SARS. The squad was launched to fight crime, but it carried out torture and killings, according to Amnesty International.

The #EndSARS campaign spread across the country and Buhari’s government announced that it would disband the SARS unit. The protest persisted with demonstrators calling for more widespread reforms of the police and an end to corruption.

In one attempt at calming tensions, the Lagos state government on Friday shared a list of ongoing prosecution against police officers accused of human rights abuses.

“Today seems like a good day to get on to the work of rebuilding Lagos and ending police brutality,” Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu said.

But an angry crowd shouted at him over the unrest as officials toured burned-out vehicles and the sacked palace of a Lagos ceremonial leader. The leader, or oba, isn’t popular with some Nigerians who see him as a product of the country’s often corrupt politics.

‘We need to heal ourselves’

Opulence and grinding poverty are in close contact in Lagos, a city of some 20 million, and the inequality sharpens Nigerians’ grievances.

After touring the battered city, the governor told reporters he was “very traumatized” and that “we lost people in several parts of the city.” He didn’t give details.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “We need to heal ourselves.” He said the curfew would begin easing Saturday morning and a panel looking into the unrest would begin receiving petitions on Monday.

And yet nerves were frayed. Near the scene of Tuesday’s shooting, police shouted, then fired into the air, to stop a convoy carrying the body of a Muslim who had died overnight; the cause of death was not clear.

After questioning by police, the mourners were allowed to continue, to go on and bury the dead.

(AP)

French Cameroun: Customs seize record amount of ivory tusks

24, October 2020

French Cameroun: Customs seize record amount of ivory tusks 0

Cameroon customs have seized 626 kg of smuggled ivory, amounting to 118 elephant tusks during an operation in Ambam, a subdivision in South region, officials said on Thursday.

The recovery indicated, about 59 elephants had been killed amid reports the smuggler intended to sell the tusks to an international buyer.

State media, Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) reported that the tusks were concealed in a truck that was trafficking the smuggled items from neighbouring, Gabon.

The suspected trafficker was remanded in custody and must appear before justice to answer for his act, according to officials.

It is the largest seizure of smuggled elephant tusks by Cameroon customs in recent years. The seizure came, as the Central African nation struggles to dismantle an international ivory smuggling criminal gang and contain the surge in poaching, officials said.

In Cameroon, the law imposes a fine of 10 million CFA francs (about 16,512 U.S. dollars) or a period of imprisonment of up to three years on whoever unlawfully imports, exports, re-exports or markets wild animals or their trophies and remains.

Source: Xinhuanet

Cameroonians are resisting attempts to raise tax revenue from rising mobile use

24, October 2020

Cameroonians are resisting attempts to raise tax revenue from rising mobile use 0

Earlier this week (Oct. 19) in Cameroon, president Paul Biya ordered the deferment of the collection, by digital means, of custom duties and taxes on imported phones and other electronic devices. A new automated system for the collection had been scheduled to go operational on Oct. 15.

But the move sparked widespread outrage, especially online with the hashtag #EndPhoneTax, in a country where manifestation of dissent can easily spiral into violence. The pressure was enough to push the government to halt the tax collection system which would have undoubtedly shifted the burden of payment from the importer to the end user.

It is important to note the customs duties and taxes on phones, which stand at 33% of their factory price, as well as a 200 CFA francs (36 cents) tax on app download, have not been scrapped. The levies have merely been suspended over the lack of an appropriate collection mechanism. The Biya government remains keen on recapturing this tax revenue.  It says the government has been missing out on about $21.5 million annually to irregular customs clearance and phone smuggling.

It is not only in Cameroon where citizens have been pushing back at attempts to raise tax revecnue through one of the few successful and growing industry sectors on the continent.

Source: Quartz Africa

French Cameroun: Police Chase, Beat Kamto Supporters

24, October 2020

French Cameroun: Police Chase, Beat Kamto Supporters 0

Witnesses say Cameroon police have chased and beaten at least 200 opposition supporters outside the home of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who has been under de facto house arrest for over a month.  Anti-riot police were deployed to Kamto’s home this week to contain crowds of supporters demanding he be released.  Police blocked Kamto from leaving his house after he organized anti-government protests in September. 

An unknown female supporter of opposition leader Maurice Kamto stripped off her clothes in front of his house Thursday and shouted at the large police presence that his month-long detention was illegal. 

The woman, in her early 50s, screamed that she would not leave until police allowed Kamto out of his house to speak with her. 

She was one of over 200 opposition supporters gathered outside Kamto’s house to mark one month since police surrounded his home, placing him under de facto house arrest. 

Kamto supporter Giselle Malongo says she came from the western town of Bafoussam to ask why Kamto has been stopped from leaving his house since September 22.

She told VOA the police violently brutalized and blocked supporters from meeting Kamto, a man she called “their president.”  Malongo said armed police seized mobile phones from supporters who tried to take photographs (of the clashes).  She said police also prevented them from delivering food donations to Kamto and his family. 

A reporter also witnessed police beating and blocking Kamto’s supporters, some of whom were trying to donate food. 

Christopher Ndong,  secretary general and legal advisor of Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement party, said police beat 13 supporters so badly that they had to get treated at a hospital.

“Kamto was very furious at this gesture by the military refusing people to come and give him food aid after he had been locked up for a month,” Ndong told VOA.  “There were a lot of hot exchanges.  We decry the attitude of government and its military operatives.  We are saying in fact, this is an infringement to democratic principles and democratic rights.”

Cameroon police gave no official statement on the clashes and would not answer a reporter’s questions. 

Authorities have not officially declared Kamto to be under house arrest, but police have not allowed him to leave his home since he organized nationwide anti-government protests in September.

Cameroon Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji said police are watching Kamto because he is being investigated for hostilities against the state. 

“I want to sound a stern warning to unscrupulous politicians that they will face the law.  It must be clear that the discontinuance of legal proceedings does not imply that the charges have been dropped.  Any further act of public disorder will take them back to square one,” Nji said.

The September opposition protests were against Cameroon holding December 6 regional elections. 

The opposition says the electoral laws favor long-ruling President Paul Biya and his Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party. 

Biya has been in power for 38 years, making him one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. 

Kamto and about 200 supporters were jailed last year for protesting against the 2018 presidential election results, which named Biya the winner. 

Kamto was released after nine months following international pressure. 

Since then, Cameroon police have closely monitored his activities and all of his political rallies and protests have been declared illegal.

Source: VOA

US: Cameroonian asylum seekers were subject to torture at an ICE detention center in Mississippi

24, October 2020

US: Cameroonian asylum seekers were subject to torture at an ICE detention center in Mississippi 0

If you thought ICE detention centers couldn’t get any worse, think again. In Mississippi, US immigration staff allegedly tortured Cameroonian asylum seekers until they signed their deportation documents. Cameroonians are seeking refuge outside of their country due to Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis, which has been occurring since October of 2016.

According to the Central Africa branch of the International Crisis Group, 20% of the population feel marginalized.

Four years ago, strikes and riots resulted from years of frustration in the country’s Anglophone minority and led to political demands from the population. The government’s approach was deemed not effective and was forced to negotiate trade unions with Anglophones. However, the population was subject to three months without internet, six months of strikes, and one entire school year lost. Today, there is a demand for federalism or secession at a boiling point.

The Instagram account, Justice For Cameroon, details the history of migrant Cameroonians, and why some are fleeing the country and seeking refuge in the United States as a result of the crisis.

On February 5, 2019, The Washington Post also published an investigative video on the crisis in Cameroon.

For the first time since 1996, Cameroon will hold its first regional polls in December. Current President Paul Biya has been in power since 1982.

English-speaking provinces will also take part in the election process, which comes after years of separatists fighting with the government that has cost more than 3,000 lives and uncertain living conditions for many more.

The people who have fled from Cameroon have come in fear of government forces that have enacted countless civilian killings, and are  are awaiting asylum hearings in ICE detention centers.

There is where the problems begin for the already threatened people.

Multiple refugees have alleged detainees were threatened with violence, choked, beaten, and pepper-sprayed as a way of forcing them to to request the complete opposite of asylum.

It is reported ICE agents put several of their detainees in handcuffs, and forcibly took their fingerprints to replace their signature for the stipulation order of removal. This meant the asylum seekers were forced to waive their rights for immigration hearings and accept deportation.

Advocates for human rights alongside attorneys reported an acceleration in deportations recently. With the election around the corner, the link between the Trump administration’s immigration policy and quicker rates of deportation is clear.

Freedom for Immigrants Executive Director, Christina Fialho said reports of the abuse began in late September and early October of 2020.

“We began to receive calls on our hotline from Cameroonian and Congolese immigrants detained in ICE prisons across the country. And they were being subjected to threats of deportation, often accompanied by physical abuse,” she said.

Fialho added that ICE thrives in secrecy, and “operates in the shadows.”

On Oct. 13, a plane flew 60 Cameroonians and 28 Congolese asylum seekers out of the country from Fort Worth Alliance Airport in Texas.

Quietly, ICE used a charter plane with no flight plan. Luckily, it was found and tracked by the immigration rights group Witness at the Border, and they reported a stopover over in Senegal, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo before landing in Kenya, and then arriving back in Texas.

In 2019, the Trump admin cut trade privileges with Cameroon due to the ongoing uprisings in the country.

The deported individuals on the flight testified about the abuse they suffered in detention centers under the Cameroonian military, with some having family murdered.

Under the U.S. immigration court system, run by the Justice Department, Cameroonians are also regularly denied asylum or parole.

A complaint filed in conjunction with FFI and the Southern Poverty Law Center recounts eight different stories with claims of abuse and torture.

One person, who was taken off the Oct.13 flight, codenamed CA, still faces deportation, but was one of the people that shared their accounts.

They claim to have been pepper-sprayed before being dragged on the ground.

“The officers told me to open my eyes. I couldn’t. My legs and hands were handcuffed. They forcefully opened my palm. Some of my fingers were broken. They forced my fingerprint on to the paper,” they said.

Source: Aldianews.com

Race for the White House: Trump plans to vote early on Saturday in Florida

23, October 2020

Race for the White House: Trump plans to vote early on Saturday in Florida 0

US President Donald Trump will cast an early vote in the presidential election while he is visiting Florida this weekend, White House spokesman Judd Deere said on Thursday.

The Republican president plans to vote in West Palm Beach, Florida, where his Mar-a-Lago estate is situated, on Saturday, according to Deere.

This comes as he is preparing for the third and final presidential debate against his Democratic rival Joe Biden and also as he is trying to close a big gap in opinion polls before the Nov. 3 election.

Trump trails Biden significantly in national polls and needs to score some hits in the debate to steady his campaign that is struggling, in part because of his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to polls, there are relatively few voters who have yet to make up their minds as Americans have cast more than 47 million votes for the election.

That eclipses total early voting from the 2016 presidential election with 12 days to go, according to data compiled by the US Elections Project.

Nearly 47.095 million Americans have turned in ballots, almost eight times the number of early votes cast at around same point before the 2016 contest, and just over the 47.015 million early votes that were cast before Election Day in that year.

Source: Presstv

CPDM baron says ruling party is controlled by homosexuals

23, October 2020

CPDM baron says ruling party is controlled by homosexuals 0

Politician and professor Pascal Charlemagne Messanga Nyamding recently floated the claim that his own ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) party is controlled by homosexuals.

He made that charge in the World News Cameroon newspaper despite the fact that the CPDM is the party of the country’s revered longtime president, His Excellency Paul Biya.

Messanga Nyamding, a professor of political science at the Institute for International Relations (IRIC) at the University of Yaoundé II, is known for expressing homophobic views to his students, claiming that homosexuality is an unnatural and even diabolical practice.

This isn’t the first time he has used the issue of homosexuality for political ends.

During the 2018 presidential campaigns, Messanga Nyamding accused Cameroonian opposition leader Professor Maurice Kamto of being a supporter of homosexuality.

He presented no evidence to support that statement, nor has he presented evidence to back up his latest complaint about the CPDM. Yet many Cameroonians still believe him.

His latest homophobic denunciation came on Oct. 8, when he declared about the CPDM that “the queers who run our party” threatened to take him to the party’s disciplinary council if he did not go along with their plans.

Unlike those political opponents, he said, he and his allies are the true supporters of President Paul Biya — “the real biyaists”.

Source: 76crimes.com

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Minister Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh weaponises presidential directives

23, October 2020

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Minister Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh weaponises presidential directives 0

Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the all-powerful secretary-general at the presidency of the republic, has a key weapon in his running battle against certain rival ministers and advisors to Paul Biya. Africa intelligence reports that Ngoh Ngoh who now has the authority to sign directives on behalf of President Biya is weaponising presidential directives and targeting his rivals in government.

US: Trump and Biden face off in more civil, but equally contentious, final debate

23, October 2020

US: Trump and Biden face off in more civil, but equally contentious, final debate 0

After the first presidential debate was panned so widely that organizers introduced a mute button, Thursday’s second and final debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden was far more civil, yet showed the same sharp divides on the key issues facing the United States.

Trump, the Republican incumbent, took a more restrained approach than he did during the chaotic first presidential debate in September, when he repeatedly interrupted Biden. He even praised the moderator, whom he’d repeatedly denigrated before the debate.

“So far, I respect very much the way you’re handling this,” Trump said to NBC’s Kristen Welker when she gave him time to respond to Biden at one point.

Still, Thursday’s clash featured plenty of personal attacks between two men who evince little respect for each other, and Trump kept fact-checkers busy by leveling unfounded corruption accusations at Biden and his family. He also brought back campaign tropes about immigrant “rapists” and “murderers”, hearkening back to the speech that kicked off his 2016 campaign and suggesting that his pitch to voters remains much the same.

The televised encounter in Nashville, Tennessee, represented one of Trump’s last remaining opportunities to reshape a campaign dominated by a pandemic that has killed more than 221,000 people in the United States. Trump has trailed Biden in opinion polls for months, though the contest is tighter in some battleground states likely to decide the election.

Here are the issues that dominated the two candidates’ final televised clash before the November 3 election.

Covid-19: ‘People are learning to die with it’

Trump’s difficulty articulating a defense of his handling of the coronavirus remains a drag on his campaign. The opening topic of the debate was entirely predictable — Trump has received variations of the same question in interviews and has rarely delivered a clear answer.

Asked to outline his plan for the future, Trump instead asserted his prior handling was without fault and yet again predicted a rosy reversal to the pandemic.

“We’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner,” Trump claimed, even as cases spike again across the country. “It’s going away.”

Biden, who has sought to prosecute Trump’s handling of the virus in his closing pitch to voters, came prepared. “Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” he said.

Biden added: “He says we’re, you know, we’re learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it.”

Trump asserted that a vaccine would be ready by the end of the year and potentially within “weeks”, but stopped short of claiming it would be ready before the election, as he earlier had. Most experts, including administration officials, have said a vaccine is unlikely to be widely available until mid-2021.

The debate came as several US states, including the election swing state of Ohio, reported record single-day increases in Covid-19 infections on Thursday, evidence the pandemic is accelerating anew.

Trump promises to ‘terminate’ Obamacare

Trump and Biden each sought to position himself as the defender of American’s health care, keenly aware that it ranked among the top issues for voters even before the coronavirus pandemic struck the nation.

But Trump’s efforts to repeal and undermine the Obama-era Affordable Care Act proved to be a liability, as Biden hammered his efforts to strip coverage from tens of millions of Americans and his lack of a plan to cover those with preexisting conditions.

Biden, by contrast, fended off Trump’s attack that his plan to reinforce the Obama-era law with a “public option” amounted to a step toward socialized medicine by relying on his well-established public persona — and his vanquishing of Democratic primary rivals who campaigned on a Medicare-for-All program.

“He thinks he’s running against somebody else,” Biden said. “I beat all those other people.”

‘The least racist person in this room’

With centuries of institutional racism coming to a head in 2020 with the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement, it’s been a bit of disconnect to see a 74-year-old white Republican and a 77-year-old white Democrat battle for the presidency. Trump and Biden did little to dispel that disconnect.

Welker offered both multiple opportunities to talk directly to Black Americans. Both men said they understood the challenges Black citizens face, but the segment amounted mostly to them blasting each other.

Trump blamed Biden as an almost singular force behind mass incarceration, especially of “young Black men”. Trump declared himself “the least racist person in this room” and repeated his claim that “nobody has done what I’ve done” for Black Americans “with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, possible exception”.

Trump and Biden spar over racism

Biden, incredulous, called Trump a “racist” who “pours fuel on every single racist fire”.

Polls suggest many young voters of color do not support Trump but aren’t particularly enthusiastic about Biden either. It’s unlikely their final debate altered that view.

Climate change

Trump and Biden faced off on global climate change in the first extensive discussion of the issue in a presidential debate in 20 years.

Biden beseeched the world to address a warming climate, as Trump took credit for pulling the US out of a major international accord to do just that. Trump asserted he was trying to save American jobs, while taking credit for some of the cleanest air and water the nation has seen in generations — some of it a holdover of regulations passed by his predecessor.

Trump also sought to blame other countries for their role in climate change, referring to “filthy” pollution in China, India and Russia. (China overtook the US as the world’s largest overall CO2 emitter in 2005, but US emissions per capita are still vastly higher.)

Biden, tapping into an issue of particular importance to his base, called for massive investment to create new environmentally friendly industries. “Our health and our jobs are at stake,” he said.

Biden also spoke of a transition from the oil industry, which Trump seized upon, asking voters in Texas and Pennsylvania if they were listening.

Foreign policy meets personal attacks

Biden also finally got a chance to talk a little foreign policy. But most discussion of other countries came as the two candidates attacked each other with allegations of foreign entanglements.

Trump repeatedly leveled unsupported allegations against Biden and his son Hunter in an attempt to cast his rival and his family as corrupt.

“I don’t make money from China, you do. I don’t make money from Ukraine, you do,” Trump said.

Trump offered no hard proof for his assertions, as has often been the case during his presidency. Biden meanwhile highlighted a recent New York Times report that the president has a Chinese bank account as well as the Times’ earlier reporting showing that Trump paid only $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017.

When given the opportunity, the former vice president also hammered Trump’s cozy relationship with North Korea’s authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un. “His buddy, who’s a thug,” Biden said, arguing that Trump’s summit with Kim “legitimized” a US adversary and potential nuclear threat.

Trump defended his “different kind of relationship … a very good relationship” with Kim, prompting Biden to retort that nations “had a good relationship with Hitler before he, in fact, invaded the rest of Europe”.

Snap polls show Biden as debate winner

Despite the swipes, the moderator appeared relieved at the end the debate and thanked both candidates for a “robust, fantastic” discussion. Many on social media touted Welker as the debate’s winner, cheering her ability to keep the discussion on track.

Source: France 24

CPDM Southern Cameroons Politics: Ntemoyok Mewanu is Kumba’s new mayor

22, October 2020

CPDM Southern Cameroons Politics: Ntemoyok Mewanu is Kumba’s new mayor 0

Gregory Ntemoyok Mewanu is now the new Mayor of Kumba. The pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons business tycoon was elected today at the Kumba town council hall.

The CPDM Kumba spy master won 64 of the 75 cast votes to unseat incumbent Victor Nkelle Ngoh  in a controversial process that recorded 11 spoiled ballots.

The outgoing mayor Nkelle Ngoh was declared mayor of Kumba on March 3, 2020, following the February 9 twin municipal and parliamentary elections. Nkelle reportedly secured 38 votes as against 31 for Mewanu and 6 for Stephen Ekoko Mwelle.

However, Meme politics took a dramatic u turn and Greg Mewanu petitioned the Francophone South West Administrative Court for the elections to be cancelled. The court in Buea upheld the outcome of the April 9 polling but Mewanu again appeared before the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court and seek and gotten French Cameroun support.

On Thursday, September 24, 2020, the Supreme Court in Yaoundé annulled the March 3, 2020 and ordered a repeat. The Senior Divisional Officer for Meme, Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong was ordered to stage a repeat of the electoral process.

Today’s so-called elections justifies more than 58 years of annoying Southern Cameroonians by the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé. Nkelle Ngoh was first appointed Government Delegate to the Kumba Urban Council in 2009 to replace Cavern Nnoko Mbelle who had held the office for a decade.

The electoral process was teleguided by a Central Committee delegation of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM led by Paul TASONG NJUKANG, Minister Delegate in charge of Planning.

Balike Esuka Victorine epse Ebanja and Sako Umana McMillan were respectively elected First Deputy and Second Deputy Mayor.

By Rita Akana

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