28, December 2018

Former Nigerian president Shehu Shagari dies ⁰

Former Nigerian president, Shehu Shagari, has died at the National Hospital, Abuja, after a brief illness, his grandson and the president of The National Youth Council of Nigeria, Bello Shagari said on Friday evening.

He was 93. His death was also confirmed by the governor of his home state of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal.

“I regret to announce the death of former President Shehu Shagari who just passed away at National Hospital Abuja,” Tambuwal tweeted.

He was Nigerian president between 1979 and 1983. He contested and won re-election in 1983, but a military coup staged on December 31, 1983, terminated his second term. The coup brought in the then Major-General Muhammadu Buhari as the head of state.

After the coup, he was arrested by the military government on allegations of corruption. He was, however, cleared of the allegations, but that did not stop the military junta from banning him from active politics for life.

Before joining politics in 1951, Shagari was a schoolteacher. Four years after his entry into politics, he was elected a member of the Federal House of Representatives.

Source: The Guardian

28, December 2018

AFCON 2019 Palaver: Cameroon clubs take Caf to Cas over hosting rights ⁰

The body representing amateur clubs in Cameroon (ACFAC) have lodged two cases against the Confederation of African Football (Caf) at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) over the loss of the hosting rights for the 2019 Nations Cup.

Cameroon were stripped of the rights to host the 2019 Nations Cup on 30 November 30 by Caf due infrastructure and security concerns. “We have two cases at Cas, first is over Caf’s decision to increase the participating countries from 16 to 24 and a second to contest the decision to strip Cameroon of hosting rights,” ACFAC explained.

In 2014, when Cameroon were awarded the rights to host the finals, it was set to be a 16-nation tournament but that was increased to 24 teams in July 2017.

“Things were going to be difficult for Cameroon. Caf should shoulder the blame and this is why we have decided to take legal action against Caf,” ACFAC president Henri Claude Balla Ongolo told BBC Sport.

“We are viable as hosts. We are five months away and a lot of things can change.”

Caf has said that Cameroon will now host the 2021 Nations Cup finals instead of Ivory Coast, who were originally awarded the rights for that tournament.

The confederation has confirmed that Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has officially accepted the chance to host the 2021 event.

The confirmation came despite some executive committee members saying that no formal decision had been taken by them. Ivory Coast have also lodged a complaint with Cas against Caf over the apparent decision to ask them to host 2023 rather than in 2021.

Egypt and South Africa have both submitted bids to Caf to replace Cameroon as hosts of the 2019 Nations Cup, with a decision expected on 9 January when the executive committee meet in Senegal.

Source: BBC

28, December 2018

Gabon’s Ali Bongo to present New Year address from Rabat ⁰

The Gabonese president Ali Bongo will address his nation during a New Year’s speech from Rabat where is recovering, according to AFP which cited close sources to the presidency.

According to the news agency, Bongo has instructed his Prime Minister to respond to the expectations of the Gabonese people pending his return.

This will be Bongo’s first speech since he was hospitalized in Saudia Arabia on October 24 after treatment for what the presidency said was severe fatigue.

The Gabonese President was treated in a Riyadh hospital for more than a month before being transfered to Rabat, Morocco. Here, he was first taken to a military hospital, then to a private residence where is currently recuperating.

His Vice President, Pierre Claver Maganga Moussavou said Bongo suffered a stroke.

AFP

28, December 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: MAC releases statement on kidnappings in Mamfe ⁰

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The MAC wishes to inform the community that as a result of the repeated reported kidnappings and demand for ransom in Mamfe, especially and surrounding areas, your Manyu Ghost Warriors have in the past few days arrested two kidnappers.

They were taken into custody by your self-defense forces and upon interrogation, they were found to be local boys and not a stranger from any other area of Southern Cameroons. The interrogation was on conducted camera to ensure fairness, transparency and accuracy. After interrogation, one of victims was also identified and invited to confirm the identity the kidnapper, retrieve their assets and also received a fully apology from the kidnapper. As a result of their cooperation, this kidnapper was only severely punished and then released to the custody of his parent who were also warned about the behavior of their son. The second kidnapper escaped and is currently on the run after an initial interrogation.

As a result, MAC-Self Defense Council has now decided to establish an undercover unit of Manyu Ghost Warriors dedicated solely to tackling these thieves, kidnappers and armed robbers in a fairly no-nonsense and robust manner.

MAC therefore writes to inform everybody that kidnapping and demand for ransom is unacceptable anywhere in Manyu Region and anybody caught shall be severely punished.

MAC also informs the community to be vigilant and report any kidnapping or demand for ransom to MAC. The Ghost warrior visits shall be in the random, robust and effective and do not become the next arrested kidnapper as the consequences shall be more severe. Please do inform all relations to exercise restraint especially those young boys who neither fighters but whose education has been severely disrupted to refrain such criminal activities.

God Bless Manyu or MidWest Region.

Sincerely,The Manyu Advisory Council

28, December 2018

Michelle Obama is ‘America’s most admired woman’ ⁰

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s 17-year run as the woman Americans admire most is over. Another former First Lady, Michelle Obama, has deposed Clinton as America’s most admired woman, according to a Gallup poll published on Thursday.

Former president Barack Obama was named the man Americans admire most for the 11th year in a row, Gallup said. President Donald Trump finished second in the poll for the fourth year in a row.

Gallup has conducted the annual poll every year since 1946 with the exception of 1976. Fifteen percent of the 1,025 Americans polled said the woman they admire most is Michelle Obama, who is currently on a tour promoting her book “Becoming.”

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey was second with five percent followed by Hillary Clinton and First Lady Melania Trump with four percent. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and a former US senator and secretary of state, has topped the list 22 times including the past 17 years in a row.

Nineteen percent of those polled said Barack Obama was the man they admired most. Trump was second with 13 percent followed by former president George W. Bush and Pope Francis, who were tied with two percent.

Gallup said the survey conducted December 3-12 had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

(AFP)

28, December 2018

10 Burkina Faso police officers killed in ambush ⁰

Ten police officers were killed and three wounded in an ambush in northwestern Burkina Faso on Thursday, the west African country’s security ministry said.

“The toll is 10 officers who have lost their lives and three wounded,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that a police convoy from the Toeni region and reinforcements from the Dedougou area had been ambushed.

Security minister Clement Sawadogo confirmed the toll on national television, announcing an increase in police and army forces patrolling the area.

The officers were attacked while heading to the village of Loroni, near the border with Mali, after a school had been attacked and textbooks torched by armed assailants, a security source told AFP.

The wounded, including two in serious condition, were taken to a hospital in Dedougou, the source added.

“A convoy of defence and security forces who were scrambled from Tougan to come to the scene of the tragedy… also hit an explosive device that ripped through the lead vehicle but fortunately did not kill anybody,” Sawadogo said, adding that three of the four officers in the vehicle were wounded.

“This is an area that has recently been the target of a number of attacks. Arrangements have been made for regular patrols but we are working to strengthen the security system on all the sensitive axes of the zone,” he said.

Burkina Faso has been increasingly hit by deadly attacks over the last three years. They began in the north of the country but have since spread to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin.

On Wednesday, a police officer died during an attack on his station in the northern town of Solan.

Most attacks are attributed to the jihadist group Ansarul Islam, which emerged near the Mali border in December 2016, and to the JNIM (the Group to Support Islam and Muslims), which has sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Those groups are believed to be responsible for more than 255 deaths since 2015. The capital Ouagadougou has been hit three times and almost 60 people have died there.

(AFP)

28, December 2018

Egyptian soccer star threatens to quit Liverpool over Israeli player ⁰

An Egyptian soccer super-star playing for British football club Liverpool, Mohamed Salah has allegedly threatened to leave the premier league club over an Israeli player joining the team.

Salah threatened to quit Liverpool if Moanes Dabour joined the team, media reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, Salah said that he will leave Liverpool should Dabour be signed.

Salah in the past refused to shake hands with Israeli players.

However, people close to the Egyptian athlete said he needs to be left alone to focus on playing soccer and that he is a professional, and it is not his concern with whom Liverpool is discussing a possible contract.

Salah has had a very good debut season in Liverpool history, helping the club reach the Champions League final.

Salah also represented his country at the World Cup.

Egypt and Liverpool forward, who is currently the best footballer in Africa, has been voted BBC’s No.1 African Footballer of the Year for the second time in a row.

Prior to this Nigeria’s Jay-Jay Okocha had won the award in consecutive years.

Source: Presstv

28, December 2018

Christmas and Cameroon’s Redemption: Joy to a troubled Nation ⁰

Cameroonian Christians joined their counterparts the world over on December 25 to celebrate the great event of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Savior whose remarkable life of virtue, teaching and sacrificial death on the Cross of Calvary form the bedrock of the over two thousand-year-old Christian religion. Even in a nation overrun by materialistic wooliness, self-centered pedestrianism and other social vices impacting negatively on spirituality and morality, a nation witnessing an inexorable decline in public morality and Christian values, the continued influence of Jesus Christ is nevertheless unmistakable.

Cameroonian Christians should therefore reflect on Christ’s compassionate life and instructions and apply His teachings in their individual lives. Through His love, Christ demonstrated God’s mercy and compassion for mankind. So, Cameroonians should always show mercy to all in their communities with love and charity that touches the lives of those around them. In a nation begging for good exemplars, President Biya and the ruling elite occupy a unique place in that deficiency. The soul of the country is lost and the nation has been taken hostage by a cabal of octogenarians tottering on the borders of senile decay. The President is completely out of touch with reality and his underlings are stealing the nation blind in his name. In Cameroon today, it is now fashionable to steal only in billions. Just look at the scandalous contracts in the AFCON 2019 debacle. As a result, a blessed nation seems cursed and rudderless in life’s ocean.

This should engage the attention of all in this festive season. Christmas, of course, has come to be associated with festivities, the celebration of family and friendship, with the exchange of visits and gifts. For Cameroonians, however, this year’s Christmas is bringing to a close, a year of forlorn hopes and shattered expectations. The nation has been struggling to cope with poverty, worsening economic crisis, decaying social infrastructure and even more widespread insecurity, especially in the Northwest and Southwest regions; in the throes of a full blown armed insurgency by Ambazonia restoration fighters.

Reports of monumental corruption and mindless looting of the treasury continue with the scandalous contracts awarded in the countdown to the AFCON 2019 debacle. The fight against corruption appears lost as the regime has surrendered to the superior firepower of graft. The rising insecurity accompanied by kidnapping for ransom especially in the Anglophone regions has made every Cameroonian a prisoner in his own land. So hostile is the land that many youths would do anything including trekking across the desert to escape it and not minding the risks being taken. As a result, when not dying on the voyage, Cameroonians have ended up as slaves being sold in the open market in North African countries.

In spite of the agony and the social chaos that have buffeted in the country, the celebratory spirit of the Cameroonian is one that is most irrepressible. This incurable optimism in the average Cameroonian is what appears to have secured the peaceful quiet that prevails in many quarters today amid the subsisting trauma of life. Cameroonians, their pains notwithstanding, live the truism that Christmas is indeed the proclamation of good news. It is a celebration of joy and of hope. The Christ whose birth was celebrated on December 25 has given the world a roadmap to abundant life, peace and prosperity. Taken seriously and applied in individual and corporate lives, the values preached by Jesus Christ, namely, sacrificial love, justice, compassion, leadership by service, forgiveness, humility and purity of heart, will transform Cameroon for the better.

And so, in the middle of the festivities, Christians are once again challenged to live up to the core values of their religion, and impact positively on their socio-cultural and political environment. Christians are challenged to reject the prevailing cult of greed and selfishness, to shun the widespread cult of pleasure, to reject the dominant cult of money and strive to live purposeful lives devoted to the advancement of the common good. It is time for Cameroonian leaders to exhibit the attributes of Jesus Christ in order to build a just, peaceful and prosperous nation. Until that happens, Anglophones will continue to see no reason to belong to a country run by gangsters and kleptocrats.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

27, December 2018

Russia backs bin Salman, warns US not to interfere with Saudi throne succession ⁰

Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has “every right” to succeed his ailing father into power, says Russian Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, warning the United States against interfering with the embattled prince’s right to rule the kingdom.

Bogdanov, who is also President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Middle East, said Tuesday it was up to Riyadh to decide what was next for bin Salman when King Salman, 82, dies. “Of course we are against interference. The Saudi people and leadership must decide such questions themselves,” Mikhail Bogdanov said in an interview in Moscow, according to Bloomberg.

Bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler last year in an untraditional manner, replacing Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the late Saudi king’s son.

Wary of getting bogged down in a power struggle, bin Salman soon launched a widespread crackdown against other royals to cement his grip on power.

However, his actions went mostly unanswered until October this year, when Riyadh admitted to murdering dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The crown prince has also faced worldwide criticism for leading the ongoing deadly war against Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians.

US President Donald Trump’s reluctance to hold the crown prince responsible for his actions has prompted angry bipartisan calls in Washington to remove MbS from power.

Prominent senators have publicly blasted the crown prince, with Lindsey Graham, Trump’s staunch ally, calling him “crazy” and “dangerous.”

Bogdanov said Tuesday that Americans were in no positions to make such calls.

“The king made a decision and I can’t even imagine on what grounds someone in America will interfere in such an issue and think about who should rule Saudi Arabia, now or in the future. This is a Saudi matter.”

Culled from Presstv

27, December 2018

Leaked video shows jailed Francophone minister celebrating birthday ⁰

A video that was leaked out on social media showed former Minister of Water and Energy, Basile Atangana Kouna celebrating his birthday in his luxurious cell at the Yaounde central prison.

It is not clear when the amateur video was shot but it emerged on December 24 showing the jailed minister alongside his wife, son and other family members.

The luxurious nature of his prison cell has caused outrage on social media with many questioning the reasons of keeping people in luxurious cells without recovering money they are being accused of embezzling.

Basile Atangana Kouna has been behind bars for the past nine months after he was arrested in Nigeria on March 22 and flown back to Cameroon as he attempted to escape following his dismissal from the government on the 2^nd of March.

Culled from Journal Du Cameroun