31, December 2018

AFCON 2019 Security Issue: Another Own Goal By CAF ⁰

Egypt and South Africa are the only countries that met Confederation of African Football’s December 14, 2018 deadline to show interest in hosting the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in 2019. The decision on who wins the hosting rights is expected to come up on January 9, 2019. This is going to be barely six months to the event in June. The decision to host arose when Cameroon was stripped of the hosting rights after it was originally awarded in 2014. CAF had claimed that Cameroon’s unpreparedness and the insecurity arising from the Boko haram insurgency and the Anglophone separatists group were reasons it denied the country from hosting AFCON 2019. I think CAF’s decision is unfair.

Taking the contentious issue of security for instance, what measure of insecurity is enough to withdraw the hosting rights from a candidate that had been awarded and how close to the tournament can this decision be made? Bigger events like the Summer Olympics in Munich 1972 and Atlanta 1996 are remembered for massacres of Jews and bomb blast during the respective games, yet they weren’t considered unsafe to host future events. Even AFCON 2010 staged in Angola witnessed a terrorist attack on the Togo national team bus while on its way to the competition by a Cabinda separatist group similar to the Bamenda separatist group in Cameroon. Then, Togo pulled out against CAF’s insistence. If CAF could demand Togo to partake in an event that they feared for their lives and encouraged other nations to stay behind, why use insecurity as an excuse to strip Cameroon of the event?

However, which African nation is safe? Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon are battling Boko Haram insurgents. Libya remains without a central government after Gaddafi. Kenya and Somalia are battling Al-Shabaab. West Africa is battling ISIS. Central African Republic is still on fire. The Congo wars have never really ceased. The same goes to Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. Separatist groups abound in Angola, Cameroon, Morocco and South Sudan just to mention a few. Elections spark violence in African nations, so triggering the insecurity clause will mean AFCONs will be taking place outside the continent. I didn’t even mention Ebola. In fact, sports governing bodies often refuse to move tournaments from previously rostered venues over security or political issues to make a statement that sport is a unifying tool that transcends unhealthy differences.

Enter Cameroon’s unpreparedness. When Cameroon was granted AFCON 2019, the event was a 16-team event to be played in the traditional months of January-February. All of a sudden CAF’s new leadership felt that Africa’s football showpiece be expanded to 24 teams and moved to June-July to align with the European football offseason. Nothing is wrong with expanding AFCON, but why the immediacy considering that qualifiers had already begun for a 16-team event? That is akin to changing the rules of the match in the middle of the match. This same argument and suspicion goes to FIFA’s plan of expanding the 2022 World Cup to 48 after awarding Qatar on a 32-team platform. So Cameroon is now made to change plans. More matches, more hotels, more stadia, more ground workers and they will now have to consider the rains. Yes, the rains.

Because Europe is increasingly becoming the hub of football, more and more tier one players gravitate there to ply their trade. This means that for AFCON to showcase its finest, participating nations have to call up Europe-based professionals. For this reason, there is usually an exodus of African players during the midseason to participate in AFCON. This irritates European club sides because they are made to do without their best legs during the weeks of the competition and worse if the players return with injuries. This has made CAF tinker with the scheduling of AFCON over time. Older ones can recall it used to be in March-April before it stabilised at January-February which I believe is the best compromise. Besides being in the African dry season, it also corresponds with when most European leagues take a brief winter break.

However, these European football oligarchs have cornered CAF into an unforced foul of moving AFCON to the European summer. Did CAF consider that AFCON will now have to muscle TV time with the oldest international football competition Copa America (South America’s Nations’ Cup)? Did they also ponder that the June-July date clashes with FIFA Confederations Cup, a competition for continental champions? Does it mean the African champions would have just few weeks or days to prepare for that event? With preseason friendlies becoming progressively essential and the expanding International Champions Cup, the problem of clubs releasing players for AFCON will not go away just like that. African players will be doing all to secure their shirts and transfers will be on at that time.

June-July is the peak of the rainy season in sub-Saharan Africa. Compelling prospecting AFCON hosts to build roofed arenas to avoid shifting matches due to rains is practically impossible for African countries. Besides, football festivals like AFCON are not narrowed to the field of play. There are several other out-of-field events and drizzles will dampen the excitement of the event. Except CAF is saying AFCONs will only be hosted in North Africa and Southern Africa which is apartheid.

Boca Juniors and River Plate just played the finals of Copa Libertadores (South America’s Champions league) in November while Son Heung-min will be leaving Tottenham Hotspur for three weeks in January like other Asian footballers to captain South Korea in the 2019 Asian Cup. So what is the big deal about aligning with the European calendar? What is most important is that there is orderliness in schedules. Actually, the angst expressed by European clubs when there is a flight of African players in January publicizes AFCON.

Asking Cameroon to now host the 2021 edition does not break the ice on the farrago of chaos created. Will Cote d’Ivoire that was initially handed 2021 and Guinea 2023 now prepare for 2023 and 2025? Shouldn’t Egypt or South Africa be given right of first refusal after losing the 2019 bid?

Aligning with European football calendar is not what Africa needs, it is aligning with European football character. Africa can’t continue to run football with a national team bias, it is club football that is the soul of the game. Creating parallel AFCON for home-based players or the obsolete staging of the event every other year has only left African football behind. A quadrennial AFCON like other continents in my opinion will be a better deal. This will not only give prospective hosts more time to prepare but also reduce the number of low-ranked teams that drop out in the middle of the qualifiers. Also the duplicated African Nations Championship (biennial nations’ cup for home-based players) should be dropped so that CAF and its affiliates can invest in local leagues which are the tributaries that supply national teams. This way the best of Africa will be in the continent and would not continue to be tossed to and fro by Europe.

Culled from ThisDay

30, December 2018

Chris Anu is Cameroon Concord Person of the Year ⁰

Today, Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report are pleased to announce the winner of this year’s Cameroon Concord Person of the Year. He is the Communication Secretary of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Chris Anu.

The winner was overwhelmingly elected by thousands of participants from among a list of four individuals comprising Paul Biya of neighbouring French Cameroun, Cardinal Christian Tumi, Barrister Agbor Balla Nkongho and Chris Anu, the Communication Secretary of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. The participants in their thousands overwhelmingly voted Communication Secretary Chris Anu as the Cameroon Concord Person of the Year. Most of the participants explained their choice and vote in messages sent to the head office of Cameroon Concord News Group.

Cameroon Concord News Group is please to share with its readership world-wide, the critical characteristics which the respondents have consistently identified as the qualities of leadership that impelled them to vote for Communication Secretary Chris Anu. The respondents held the candidates to the highest standards of stable universal leadership in conflict management. Focused, consistent and inspirational leadership were also critical attributes considered.

Most of the voters stated that Communication Secretary Chris Anu, is humble, passionate, steady, deliberate, probable, sincere and confident in his stewardship to his people. His dedication to the defense of his people is unwavering, undivided, and unassailable. He is a respectable, knowledgeable and effective communicator. He is a respectable voice and strong symbol of the Ambazonian war of self- defense and liberation.

Cameroon Concord News Group has critically examined the performance of Communication Secretary Chris Anu. Prior to his appointment by His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, Chris Anu was a successful communication expert, news media owner and practitioner; in addition to many successful respectable professional pursuits. He did not embrace the struggle for gain or for sentimental reasons. He did so out of conviction.

The genocidal war which arch criminal enemy Paul Biya the demented neo-colonial President of French Cameroun declared against armless peace-loving people of Ambazonia, is fought in several battlegrounds; at home and elsewhere world-wide. A critical background is the Federal Republic of Nigeria from where the President of the Interim Government of Ambazonia, nine members of the Interim Government and hundreds of Ambazonian refugees were abducted and handed over to the terrorist regime of French Cameroun. The deportation of hundreds of thousands of Ambazonian refugees from their ancestral homes are residing under dire conditions in Nigeria. Thousands of Ambazonian civilian settlements have been systemically torched and their subsistence economy pillaged and destroyed. The visit by Chris Anu to Nigeria after the abduction of His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe brought international spotlight to the plight of these Ambazonian victims. In this regard, he is an unchallenged fearless general leading from the front in the Ambazonia war of liberation against internal and external enemies of Ambazonia.

He is a fearless crusader for the liberation of Ambazonia. In critical moments in this struggle, he confronted the enemies of Ambazonia single handed. He so doing, he saved the train of freedom from being derailed. When the President of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine members of the Interim Government were abducted in a joint terrorist operation carried out by operatives of the Nigerian Directorate of State Security commandeered by Babagana Muganu and led by Duara Lawal and the Presidential Special Operations Unit of French Cameroun forces, Chris Anu, promptly moved to Nigeria and organized international press conferences that pressurized the execution squad to spare the lives of our leaders. The French Cameroun Special Operation Unit has been consistently used to eliminate real and perceived enemies or former allies to protect the devilish world of the crime syndicate in power. This is the unit that was deployed to abduct and assassinate the Bishop of Bafia in French Cameroun.

Thanks to Chris Anu, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Nigeria issued a press statement stating that the abductees were legally in Nigeria under the protection of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, thus protected under the United Nations Convention for the Protection of Refugees (1951). This press release provides unimpeachable evidence of the UN responsibility for the safety of the leaders of Ambazonia and others similarly placed. The inability of the UN to secure their release and sanction Nigeria and French Cameroun for the abductions, the same criminal methods employed by Boko Haram they profess to be fighting with international support and assistance, makes the UN complicit by default in the criminal conduct outlawed by international law.

The energetic condemnation of the criminal conduct of Nigeria and French Cameroun, at the Nigeria seat of power, alarmed and embarrassed the Federal Government of Nigeria and the corrupt political cartel within the immediate political environment of President Buhari. Buhari equivocated on the release or rendition of the Ambazonia leader, members of his government and several citizens to French Cameroun. The amount of money offered to Buhari enabled him to rekindle his dwindling chances of seeking a second mandate in the forth- coming elections against the backdrop of stiff opposition within his own APC party from party leaders who wanted to hold him to his promise to serve only one term was too enticing for him to ignore. President Buhari opted for the money but denied going along with the execution within the territory of Nigeria of the abducted leaders.

The force of the well-publicized pressure put on by Chris Anu forced Babagana Mugano the National Security Adviser to President Mohammadu Buhari and the corrupt ethnic power cartel surrounding the Buhari Presidency to make a rare public statement admitting to perpetrating the crime. French Cameroun through Boko Haram abduction- for -ramson go-between Isa Tchiroma Bakary was similarly pressured to call a press conference to confirm the rendition of the leaders to French Cameroun.

The theft of part of the money intended to corrupt the Buhari ethnic political cartel, had serious consequences for the handlers of the corrupt deal. Paul Biya was constrained to remove and conceal in his immediate proximity, his longtime mystical devil worshipping soul mate Martin Belinga Eboutou for misappropriating a sizeable part of the booty putting him in conflict with Buhari. Buhari on his part scapegoated his director of the State Security Service, Duara Lawal for stealing part of the money among a plethora of scandals, corrupt deals, and criminal acts which Buhari sanctioned but needed to sacrifice this zealous executioner to whitewash his tainted credentials.

The forced shameful public admission of criminality by Nigeria and French Cameroun saved the lives of our leaders and with it the Ambazonian revolution. While Chris Anu waged this battle from the Nigeria front, time seemed to stand still for many within the struggle who claimed to be frontline leaders with several decades experience in the battle for the liberation of Ambazonia. Many of them failed to confront the combined assault of French Cameroun and Nigeria united to crush the Ambazonia revolution through the abduction and the rendition of our God given leader His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe at a critical moment in our young nation’s history.

Many did not realize the lethal effect and symbolic impact of the abduction, assassination or rendition of the only leader who has gone down in history for mobilizing millions of Ambazonians on September 22, 2017 to come out with peace plants to call for the restoration of the independence of Ambazonia and declaring it on October 1, 2017. The corrupt deal was intended to destroy this symbol of the Ambazonia statehood and the spirit of the revolution.

Chris Anu denied the enemies their moment of glory and rendered the continued holding in captivity of the President of the Interim Government of Ambazonia, members of the Interim Government and hundreds of thousands of Ambazonian citizens by French Cameroun in complicity with the endemic corrupt cartel within the immediate power cycle of President Buhari, poison chalices that will with time determine their own fates. Thanks to Chris Anu, the Ambazonia liberation, the President and members of the Interim Government will outlive the Biya and Buhari presidencies and the corrupt power cartels sustaining them.

Communication Secretary Chris Anu has come under constant attacks by some opportunists, profiteers and power mongers who hoped to gain from the abduction of the President and members of the Interim Government to make fortunes out of the liberation war and the ferocious genocidal enterprise preplanned by French Cameroun and supported by the Buhari presidential god fathers of political Islam and their French Cameroun co-conspirators. They fault Chris Anu for pre-empting their adventure by going to Nigeria when it was considered unsafe by many people and confronting the united resolve of the enemy and their co-conspirators to eviscerate and destroy the Ambazonia revolution and the symbol of its independence from within and outside of Ambazonia. They have not and may never forgive him. Rather than succumb to their pedestrian tactics, Chris Anu has remained steadfast and focused on serving the Interim Government and the people of Ambazonia with undivided loyalty. For this and more, he merits the Cameroon Concord Man of the Year award.

He is respected by his peers world-wide. He is an articulate counter-point to enemy propaganda. He is a strategist and an admirable public face of the liberation struggle.

Early in this struggle, Communication Secretary Chris Anu articulately and promotionally, defined the guiding principles of Ambazonia self-defense war. He cautioned Ambazonia soldiers to be disciplined and to protect civilians. A majority of Ambazonian soldiers have prosecuted the war humanely and protected Ambazonia civilians from the genocide and the rape of our girls and women by French Cameroun terrorist forces.

Unlike some Ambazonia leaders, Chris Anu does not believe in self-engineered or pedantic publicity. It has become a common fixture of the Ambazonia liberation struggle for some supposed leaders to make lengthy political addresses which are high on self-inflated rhetoric without any reasonable record of field achievements to support. True revolutionary leaders do not make political speeches. They are engaged in shock and awe discreet guerrilla warfare to surprise, isolate, incapacitate and destroy the enemy. Chris Anu is not one of these armchair leaders.

He has succeeded in helping the Interim Government to hold together a very complex web of hundreds of thousands of Ambazonians worldwide who are working behind the scenes to help move towards victory to Buea a reality. He has demonstrated through this quality that he knows the quality human resources that Ambazonia has and the sensitivity of securing critical information that allows them to participate fully in the armed liberation struggle without putting their identities out for neophytes, disrespectful power seekers and profiteers to destroy. He knows so well that there are millions of Ambazonians in Ground Zero and in the Diaspora who strongly support the Interim Government and strongly want the Interim Government to stay focused on GZ actions, the protection of our civilian population, care for our refugees and a discreet sustained diplomatic effort to secure our total liberation and hold Paul Biya, his terrorist forces, and his entire genocidal crime syndicate network to account.

His handling of the Batibo situation and distancing the Interim Government from the crimes committed by the Cho Ayaba gang was enormously satisfying to the people of Southern Cameroons. The actions of these men including Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert were going to cause more harm to the revolution. The Reboot Conference Ambazonians have all become a turncoat of our struggle.

Cameroon Concord News Group congratulates Communication Secretary; the Honourable Chris Anu for the well-merited recognition accorded him by an overwhelming majority of participants. Cameroon Concord News Group thanks all those took part in this poll and wishes all our readers’ world -wide, a very merry Christmas and a rewarding prosperous new year. With Cameroon Concord News Group’s man of the year, Communication Secretary Anu and the demonstrable resolve of all Ambazonians, 2019 will bring more successes to the liberation struggle. Cameroon Concord News Group strongly calls on all Ambazonians, friends of Ambazonia, and the International Community to support the Ambazonia liberation quest more robustly.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman/Editor-in-Chief

30, December 2018

Biya Regime Suspending Pay for 25,000 ‘Ghost Workers’ ⁰

Cameroon says it is suspending the payment of wages to 25,000 civil servants who it says may have died or left the country, but payments to whom continue to defraud the state.

Cameroon Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze says after a census of employees taken in April, the government realized it was losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year to people claiming salaries as state workers.

Motaze says some had died but their deaths went unreported. Others had abandoned their posts, or were drawing double salaries with the help of fellow workers.

He says authorities have started removing such workers from the state’s payroll.

“An average of 310,000 people were concerned and after this census, we did not see more than 25,000. That means we are going to suspend them.”

Motaze did not say how much money the government will save by eliminating the fictitious state workers.

Minister of the Civil Service Joseph Le says this year’s census of state workers was very efficient because police tracked down some 8,000 workers who were living in Europe and America.

“You cannot continue paying a salary to somebody who does not exist. There are some who never work here in the country. They stay abroad and when it (the census) started, many Cameroonians came from abroad just to sign their presence here and [went] back. This should stop.”

The government says some of the illegal workers previously lived in the country’s restive English-speaking regions, where fighting between government forces and separatists has killed nearly a thousand people.

This is not Cameroon’s first purge of so-called “ghost workers.” The country said in 2015 it was cleaning its payroll of 10,000 dead or fictitious employees, who cost the treasury some $12 million every month.

However, lawyer Akere Muna, founder of the Cameroon chapter of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, says corruption is widespread in Cameroon and targeting “ghost workers” will not entirely solve the problem.

‘Cameroonian civil servants do not live from their salaries. They live from a system where they have put toll gates everywhere. You cannot get people who are thieves to look over thieves.”

Muna said whistleblowing is the key to fighting graft, but that many people are afraid to come forward as they feel it is too dangerous or ineffective.

Source: VOA

30, December 2018

Presidential election starts in Congo-Kinshasa ⁰

People have started voting in the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, amid delays and reported disorganization.

On Sunday, polling staffers were setting up voting machines in stations minutes before opening.

Reuters cited a witness in the eastern city of Goma as seeing residents casting their vote, but another polling station in the city was still closed 90 minutes after polls opened at 06:00 a.m. local time (04:00 GMT).

President Joseph Kabila, who has been in power since his father’s assassination in 2001, is not standing for re-election and will step down after the vote.

Kabila’s party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), has designated former Interior Minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, 58, as its presidential candidate.

As well as Ramazani, the front-runners are Felix Tshisekedi, 55, of the mainstream opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), and Martin Fayulu, 62, a little-known lawmaker and former oil executive, who has made a late surge after being named the joint candidate for several opposition parties.

This combo image shows Felix Tshisekedi (L), the leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party, and Emmanuel Ramazani Sh

A total of 21 candidates are running in the presidential race.

United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday urged rival candidates to participate in a peaceful competition.

Guterres urged citizens to “seize this historic opportunity to participate in the consolidation of the country’s democratic institutions.”

The call for a peaceful vote came a few days after clashes between the supporters of rival candidates left at least one person dead and over 80 injured.

DR Congo is one of Africa’s most volatile countries and has never known a peaceful transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.

In the past 22 years, two massive wars have shaken the country, claiming many lives and sucking in armies from around Southern and Central Africa.

Lower-level conflicts are burning in the center and east of the country, which analysts say could easily flare into fully-fledged wars.

Source: Presstv

30, December 2018

“Whether we accept it or not, Ambazonian leaders are in the Diaspora” ⁰

Those who are backing Cardinal Tumi’s initiative and condemning restoration advocates are making a mistake. When in 2016, the government sat down with the Consortium to negotiate but turned around and arrested the same people they were negotiating with them the previous night, would anyone in their right mind trust such a government?

Holding the so-called AGC in the Republic of Cameroon or in Ambazonia, any frontline leader who venture to attend such a so-called conference is abandoning freedom to jail. If Cardinal and his spiritual leaders were serious and want those advocating for restoration of Southern Cameroon independence, they would arrange in a neutral country.

Cardinal Tumi knows very well that he himself is afraid to say what is in his heart of heart. Someone will ask me if I am God to know the mind of the Cardinal, I would say I am not God but those spiritual leaders are talking with fear. Has anyone of them ever mentioned that the views of the majority of Southern Cameroonians that we get our independence from the Republic of Cameoon?

All they have been talking is federation and discentralisation. The so-called ten regions is already discentralization. We tried federation but it failed. Let the spiritual leaders take the meeting out of Cameroon. It may be their passports have been confiscated. If they are serious, the AGC should be held outside Cameroon. It is only then attendees will be frank. Whether we accept it or not, Ambazonian leaders are in the Diaspora. That’s the simple fact. God bless.

30, December 2018

Southern Cameroons: Acting President to address the nation after IG bans on ADF, AMF ⁰

The Ambazonian Acting President Dr Ikome Sako will be addressing the nation tomorrow at exactly 8 pm Southern Cameroons time. This information was made public by Communications Secretary, Hon. Chris Anu. The Southern Cameroons Interim Government did not provide any further details of the anticipated political discourse on the state of the Ambazonian revolution.

However, people in the know have opined that Acting President Sako’s December 31^st message will focus on the decision taken by the Interim Government to ban the ADF, AMF and SOCADEF. We understand the activities of some traitors of the Southern Cameroons revolution including a certain Cho Ayaba and his collaborators have been shameful, disgusting and disgraceful and the people on ground zero are tired of them.

By these measures, the Ambazonian Interim Government has saved the Southern Cameroons restoration forces from being branded terrorist organizations as the Biya Francophone government has been lobbying. The execution of many Ground Zero forces by members of the Cho Ayaba ADF gang and the extortion by the Ayaba and Akwanga forces including from missionaries and sealing the Church in Muyenge are serious excesses the international community has expressed concerns about.

The Interim Government has preempted sanctions by the US which could have crippled the revolution. Our Buea city reporter who contributed to this report noted that banning these traitors is the most responsible action.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

30, December 2018

Ambazonia: Understanding the Tapang Ivo-Barrister Kongny Nsahlai Affair ⁰

Meet Barrister Emmanuel Kongnyuy Nsahlai, the California lawyer who is suing Ambazonia front line activist, Tapang Ivo Tanku in a US court. His father, Christopher Nsahlai, from Jakiri in the NW region was a former minister of transport and ambassador to the Central African Republic. His mum is Beti and a relation of the former first lady, Jeanne Irene Biya; which means Nsahlai and Biya are “moyos” since they married from the same family. A graduate of University of Arkansas, Barrister Nsahlai was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2000 but in 2002, his law license was suspended for failure to pay his Bar fees.

The California Lawyers Association describes Nsahlai as a Workers Compensation attorney and this raises a red flag why he would be involved in a complicated human rights case. The address of Nsahlai Law Firm provided in the lawsuit -3250 Wilshire Blvd, Ste 1500, Los Angeles, CA-90010 – happens to be the same address of another law firm, Onwaeze & Nwabuzor. The phone number provided by Nsahlai-(213-797-0369) has a voice recording referencing the law offices of Onwaeze & Nwabuzor; owned by Emmanuel Nwabuzor and Victor Onwaeze, with 4 employees and an estimated annual revenue of $429,288.

All these red flags raises fundamental questions why a relatively obscure attorney without even an office, would decide to engage in such a lawsuit on behalf of some anonymous plaintiffs who claim to be US citizens. The questions then becomes: if the regime really wanted to take action against Ambazonia activists in the US, why pick this featherweight lawyer?

The answer lies in the relationship between Paul Atanga Nji and the Nsahlai family. In the countdown to the 1997 presidential election, Atanga Nji, then general manager of a mafia money-laundering outfit called Highland Cooperation Bank, whose only office was its headquarters at the Yaounde Hilton hotel, hatched a sinister plot to ban the SDF from contesting the election after repeated threats from Fru Ndi that another stolen victory risk precipitating all out war. The plot involved presenting Ambassador Nsahlai as the candidate for a potential coalition of CPDM-satellite opposition parties led by the UDP of Lawan Bako; as a counterpoise to Fru Ndi and its boisterous base of supporters in Bamenda.

The regime hoped such a move would incite SDF militants to target Nsahlai and his family. To crown it all, Atanga Nji conspired with the Nsahlai family to fake the kidnapping of Mrs Nsahlai; to give the regime the excuse it wanted to blame the SDF, ban Fru Ndi and impose a state of emergency on the NW region. The Nsahlai family knew the story was fake, and did not bother to alert the police. Rather, one of the Nsahlai daughters came to The Herald office in Yaounde to report her mum has been kidnapped in Bamenda. Her story was contradictory; she hadn’t called her Dad to inform him and her reason for not alerting the police was unconvincing. After grilling her, I let her know that I will be writing the true story that the kidnap of Mrs Nsahlai was fake. Atanga Nji came to the rescue. Atanga Nji paid FCFA 1, 000, 000 to get the fake story published as a missing person’s report, but all that was inconsequential because the SDF decided to boycott the election.

So, does it surprise anyone that Ambassador Nsahlai’s son will agree to do the dirty job for the Biya regime? Atanga Nji has been getting away with murder. He and his handlers are war criminals. He is directly responsible for the Ambazonia genocide. His death squads are killing innocent Anglophones and blaming it on rival Ambazonia fighters; all in a desperate effort to divide Anglophones and weaken the resistance. The Beti cabal are looking the other way shrugging their soldiers and saying: if Atanga Nji wants to slaughter his own people to protect Biya’s power, then so be it! Atanga Nji is too ignorant to understand that there is no military solution to the crisis. So all his antics, including frivolous lawsuits by fifth columnists and regime apologists targeting Ambazonia activists abroad will never defeat the resistance. Ambazonia shall overcome.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

29, December 2018

French prosecutors probe Macron ex-bodyguard over passports ⁰

Paris prosecutors on Saturday opened an investigation into illegal use of diplomatic passports by President Emmanuel Macron’s disgraced former bodyguard in another potential scandal for the French leader.

Alexandre Benalla, a former campaign bodyguard who got a senior job after Macron’s election victory last year, has been caught up in scandal since July when accusations emerged he had roughed up protestors.

Macron’s office and Benalla have clashed this week over accusations that he may have used diplomatic passports after he was dismissed in August, which the foreign ministry said would be a crime.

Prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into “abuse of trust” over Benalla’s failure to return two passports after he was no longer in office, state prosecutor in Paris Remy Heitz said in a statement.

The probe is also investigating the illegal use of a professional documents and other possible charges. The passports were seized by the foreign ministry after press reports emerged alleging Benalla used them to enter several African countries and Israel in recent weeks.

But sources close to Benalla said he had handed over the passports to the presidential palace, but that they were given back to him again. More negative headlines over Benalla have emerged at a sensitive time for Macron, a former investment banker who has seen his popularity plummet during weeks of anti-government protests over some of his economic reforms.

The French leader, who has styled himself as a pro-business reformer, has been forced to acknowledge widespread animosity to his way of governing, seen by critics as out of touch with the economic plight of ordinary French.

– Centre of scandal –

Benalla was at the centre of a major scandal this summer after accusations emerged he had beaten up demonstrators at a May Day rally in Paris while he was wearing a police helmet. He was working for the presidency at the time.

He was not fired until after the media revelations, prompting a wave of accusations from government opponents that Macron’s office covered it up.

Uproar over the diplomatic passports and how the presidency has handled the issue has been growing since local media reported Benalla met with several African presidents, in what officials fear was an attempt to profit from his former insider status.

The president’s office said it has no information about the use of Benalla’s passports, which it said were assigned only for work in his official capacity.

Macron’s chief of staff, Patrick Strzoda, called on Benalla to explain himself on “any personal and private missions” carried out “as a consultant” while he was in office at the Elysee, following the press reports.

But Benalla replied in a letter, seen by AFP, to the Elysee Palace, that he never carried out any private missions during his time with the presidency.

Benalla has denied boasting of insider influence to win work after his sacking and has accused members of Macron’s entourage of trying to “wreck” his life.

AFP

29, December 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 1 dead, 1 injured in Bamenda shooting ⁰

A man was violently killed in Bamenda the chief city in the Northern Zone of Southern Cameroons as fresh fighting erupted between French Cameroun government forces and Ambazonian Restoration fighters on Friday December 28.

The body of the French Cameroun service man killed during sporadic exchange of fire was abandoned on the road as residents escaped the scene for safety. A Southern Cameroons civilian was seriously injured.

We gathered that business men and women operating around the Azire New Church were forced to flee. The fighting reportedly affected the Food Market area including the Hospital Roundabout.

In Yaoundé, the government is losing its grip on power. Scandals are destroying the crime syndicate that has ruled the country for 36 years. CAF’s withdrawal of the right to host the 2019 African Nations Cup has opened a can of worms that might sweep an entire government out of power.

The country’s ministers are accusing each other for the collapse of the plan put in place to hoodwink the world into believing that things are working out well in Cameroon. The population is devastated while the government is trying to put on a brave face.

It never rains, but it pours. After CAF, there was more embarrassment for the criminal enterprise made in the mold of the Sicilian Mafia. The World Bank recently released a report indicting the country’s government of corruption, overspending and misappropriation of funds.

This has left many government officials scrambling for solutions, as the country’s president, Paul Biya, also known as the “monarch” keeps an ominous silence which is destroying many of his ministers who fear they could be arrested anytime or kicked out of government.

The regime has never been this weak. Those who have been propping the government are gradually showing signs of fatigue. Years of lying and defrauding the state are clearly taking a toll on the health of these key actors.

The economy is crumbling; the population has lost hope in the country. The government’s mismanagement of the country and its determination to hang on to power despite losing many elections has pushed the population into the worst form of despair.

29, December 2018

The three front runners in Congo Kinshasa’s elections ⁰

Three men dominate the field of 21 candidates vying to become next president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s second-largest nation:

– Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary –

Little known outside DRC circles, Shadary, 58, is a faithful supporter of President Joseph Kabila and, some say, his likely puppet if he wins Sunday’s election.

Kabila would “almost certainly remain the string-puller behind the scenes,” said Indigo Ellis from risk analysis company Verisk Maplecroft.

“Shadary has no special qualities other than absolute loyalty” to Kabila, an analyst at a political NGO based in Kinshasa told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Typically dressed in a smart suit and tie, Shadary served as interior minister during a period marked by violent crackdowns on demonstrators after Kabila held onto power beyond his constitutional mandate at the end of 2016.

He and 13 other officials have been hit with EU sanctions for rights violations. In retaliation, the DRC has told Europe to withdraw its envoy from Kinshasa by polling day.

Shadary initially entered politics as a member of the UDPS, DR Congo’s oldest and biggest opposition party.

In 1997, after the fall of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, he was elected vice-governor of Maniema province and a year later became governor.

After Kabila took power in 2001 following the assassination of his father, Shadary helped him found the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) a year later. He is now its permanent secretary.

Shadary speaks Swahili and Lingala, the two languages used respectively in eastern and western DRC. He is a devout Catholic, with eight children.

– Felix Tshisekedi –

Felix Tshisekedi, 55, hopes the elections will hand him the presidential prize that eluded his late father Etienne, who founded the DRC’s mainstream opposition party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), in 1982.

Tshisekedi junior took the helm of the party after his father died in February 2017. Known to his friends as “Fatshi,” he gained a Belgian diploma in marketing and communication and rose doggedly through the party ranks.

But he has never held high office or had management experience and is hobbled by the lack of his father’s charisma. “Etienne was stubborn and proud,” says one observer of the country’s opposition.

“(But) Felix is more diplomatic, more conciliatory, more ready to listen to others.” On November 11, Tshisekedi joined six other opposition leaders to rally behind a single unity candidate, Martin Fayulu, to take on Shadary.

But the deal was rejected by the party’s rank and file. Tshisekedi and fellow opposition leader Vital Kamerhe swiftly abandoned the deal and ran on a joint ticket, effectively weakening and splitting the opposition. A father of five, he attends the same Pentecostal church in Kinshasa as Fayulu.

– Martin Fayulu –

Martin Fayulu, 62, is an outsider who shot to front-rank status in the final weeks before the elections. Fayulu came to prominence two years ago as a fiery critic of Kabila’s efforts to cling on to power.

Often seen at the front of protest marches, he was arrested several times and was even struck on the head by a rubber bullet. Although his Engagement for Citizenship and Development party holds just three seats in parliament, Fayulu was thrust into the limelight last month when he was named the consensus choice of opposition stalwarts meeting in Geneva.

Two days later, the deal fell apart when Felix Tshisekedi, bowing to grassroots pressure, decided to pursue his own election bid.

Fayulu has relentlessly toured the country to make his pitch. He is also backed from behind the scenes by two political heavyweights — ex-warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba and businessman Moise Katumbi, an exiled former provincial governor, both of whom were blocked from running.

Fayulu studied in France and the United States, later taking up a role in 1984 with the US oil group which became Exxon Mobil. He stayed with the oil giant for nearly two decades, working in Africa and eventually rising to the rank of director general.

If elected, he has pledged to invest $126 billion in the economy and create 20 million jobs over five years. A Lingala speaker, Fayulu owns a hotel in Kinshasa located between Kabila’s residence and the president’s office.

AFP