Biya
He has sent policemen and soldiers to shoot at protesters in the Southwest and Northwest and ordered the arrest of a Supreme Court judge in Yaounde on Saturday night without any warrant of arrest. He has banned protests and curtailed the freedom of association and of speech. He is known for spending months abroad relaxing in luxury hotels while his countrymen struggle at home. He is accountable to no one but himself.
Cameroonian dictator, Paul Biya, who has been in power for 35 years since 1982, has turned his terribly underdeveloped country into another banana republic in Africa.
He has sent policemen and soldiers to shoot at protesters in the Southwest and Northwest and ordered the arrest of a Supreme Court judge in Yaounde on Saturday night without any warrant of arrest. He has banned protests and curtailed the freedom of association and of speech. He is known for spending months abroad relaxing in luxury hotels while his countrymen struggle at home with empty stomachs. He is accountable to no one but himself, and maybe Paris.
At almost 83 years old, Mr. Biya and his cabal have grown increasingly uncomfortable, especially, with developments in Ghana and Gambia, where sitting Presidents were defeated in the last presidential elections and had to go.
In the Northwest and Southwest, where residents are mainly English speakers, protests went on for months by lawyers and lecturers demanding justice and equality in a country where President Biya has spoken French for more than three decades and Anglophones feel left behind in many economic and political areas in Cameroon.
Mr. Biya reacted by sending trucks of policemen and soldiers to shoot at and suppress the protesters. Many were arrested, including students who were bundled into dirty trucks and sent to various tribunals for phony judgments.
If Angophones feel marginalised by the Biya government, the situation is not any better in any part of Cameroon. In the far north where Boko Haram has been bombing, shooting and killing for years, Mr. Biya has not visited to comfort the citizens or encourage soldiers fighting and dying in ambushes. And when the corpses of 38 killed soldiers were brought to Yaounde for burial, Mr. Biya did not even attend the event.
The level of poverty in the north is so appalling that most people are now used to living in squalor and hunger and do not know any other way. It is the same situation in the eastern part of the country where basic infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and electricity are rare to find.
Even in the capital, Yaounde, the underdevelopment and unemployment are palpable everywhere. Dusty roads and scattered houses in an unplanned city can be seen here and there.
The entire country is in a state of chaos where basic laws are not respected and protests are met with excessive force.
The international community should call the despotic leader to order and not allow him go down with the entire country in flames.
TheSimonAtebaNews, Washington DC
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- Simon Ateba
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Out of nearly 2,000 temporary staff in the Presidency of the Republic, only half received their monthly salary ranging from 16,000 FCFA to 20,000 FCFA. The transaction was suspended for lack of liquidity and was scheduled after the end of the year.
According to Le Quotidien L’Épervier Plus published on December 16, 2016, the temporary staff in the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon are angry and made it known. “Sources close to the stewardship report that, on behalf of December 2016, many temporary agents were unable to take their monthly salary, which ranges between 16,000 FCFA and 20,000 FCFA.
This despite the fact that these employees would already accumulate many months of wage arrears,“the paper said.
According to the source, it was on 9 December 2016 that some temporary agents were invited to receive their pay. Almost half of the 2000 agents went to the cash register. “But against all odds, while the payroll ceremony continued on December 14, 2016, those who were waiting on that day were informed that the payer no longer have cash. They will have to wait until the end of the year celebrations pass to take possession oftheir pay.
According to the newspaper, many observers wonder if the Presidency of the Republic is running out of liquidity.
In view of the number(2000) of young people recruited, it was foreseeable that at some point the Presidency would be confronted with difficulties related to the salary of the latter. Many young people have already thrown in the towel. Some of them prefer to be drivers of motorcycle taxis, “rather than receiving irregular salaries from catechists.”Others who have also gone with badges stamped Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon (PRC) indulge in scams from imprudent people.
There are also some who are unfortunately involved in cases of robbery and assault.
Cameroontoday
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Framed portraits of a youthful Paul Biya hang on office and hotel walls across Cameroon. The presidency released the picture when Mr Biya came to power in 1982 and it remains the official photograph of a leader who, now in his eighties, appears sprightly but has wrinkles and dyed black hair.
This weekend, Cameroonian officials and civil servants will head to their home villages, towns and cities to host parties honouring Mr Biya to mark the 34 years he has been in power in the central African nation.
While loyalists celebrate and pray for “continuity”, more and more young people are venting their frustration with the 83-year-old leader. Cameroonians who have lived their whole lives under Mr Biya’s presidency are increasingly saying, mostly on social media, that they have had enough.
“We are a nation of young people being led by elderly ones. They don’t listen to us,” said Jean, 25, who bags groceries at Casino, a French-owned supermarket in the capital Yaounde. “I have a Masters’ degree in law and I want to use it. Instead I’m doing this,” he said, adding that there are “too many” people like him.
Across Africa, only Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe have been in power longer. During his tenure, Mr Biya quashed any possible successors in his own government by sacking or jailing them and has successfully neutralised the country’s opposition by buying them off. With no obvious successor in place, there is growing alarm about what comes next for Cameroon.
“The country is very much unprepared. It’s dangerous because there’s so much uncertainty and no one knows what’s happening inside the black box of government,” said Denis Tull, a Cameroon scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
The small country’s geography — a neighbour of giant Nigeria and the Atlantic Ocean gateway for states including oil-rich Chad — means its stability matters far beyond its borders. This has kept western allies, especially former colonial ruler France but also the US, on Mr Biya’s side. With 220 American military personnel based in the northern city of Garoua, Cameroon has become a key US partner in the regional fight against Islamist militants Boko Haram.
“[Mr Biya] has always been able to portray Cameroon as a steady ally of western countries,” said Berny Sèbe, Francophone Africa expert at the University of Birmingham. “As a result, he’s been able to resist [external] attempts to democratise the continent.”
The perception that the elite has pillaged national resources at the expense of development is palpable, said Fred Eboko, a political scientist at the Institute for Research and Development in Paris.
Despite the fall in the price of oil, economic growth has not fallen as precipitously here as elsewhere on the continent. It still runs above 5 per cent. This is partly because it also has coffee and timber to exploit.
But from the lush southern lowlands to the picturesque hill country in the west and the remote north, signs of decay abound. Major highways are ridden with potholes. Universities lack reliable internet connections and contemporary textbooks. The airport in the largest northern city, Maroua, is a dust-covered reminder of a time before the tourism industry was killed off by the Boko Haram insurgency two years ago, when militants first streamed in from Nigeria. Hundreds of Cameroonians have since been killed in attacks and 200,000 displaced.
Anger flared following a train accident last month that killed 79 people and injured hundreds.
Returning home after the accident — he had been abroad for 35 days — Mr Biya declared his government’s handling of the accident’s aftermath “fairly positive”. He was pilloried on social media. Some called him heartless and one commenter labelled him a “crazy old man”.
AFP
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- Rita Akana
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Brenda Biya has been thrown again into the limelight, not because of her weird lifestyle or extravagance at the detriment of Cameroonian taxpayers, but because of circulating images on social media showing her in tight grip in the hands of an individual who calls her "My love" The images speak for themselves, more can be seen on the individual's Facebook page here attached to thei article
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- Mbi James
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My visit to the United Nations was an opportunity to remind people. Remind them that the General Assembly of that organization has, in the past, already adopted many agendas, declarations, and programmes for action. These raised tremendous hopes around the world among the youth, women and men, in the cities and in the countryside. They heralded a new world of peace and shared prosperity. But then, little followed in the way of concrete action. Let us therefore see to it today that the new goals for sustainable development meet a better fate.
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- Rita Akana
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Everyone knows the socio-political involvement of the First Lady of Cameroon, to reach out to the less privileged of our society. It is in this light that a Symposium under the Distinguished Patronage of Philemon Yang Prime Minister of the Republic of Cameroon has been organised from the 1st to the 3rd November 2016 at the University of Yaounde II premises.
This symposium whose theme is: Political and Fundamental rights of the solidarity on the Social Action Prism of the First Lady of Cameroon", will be concretely dwelling on the social actions of Chantal Biya, who is also UNESCO's Goodwill Ambassador.
However, Cameroon Universities authorities are against this symposium, as reported by "Le Jour Newspaper" of Oct. 10.
"We would like to question the importance of a symposium in a regime where public liberties are least respected and where those concerned by this symposium are still themselves in power. In this case, it is more of a propaganda than a symposium"declared Prof. Claude Abe a Social Politician.
The paper reports that according to Prof. Claude Abe, a group of political entrepreneurs have taken the political field hostage. "Thus, the target is more Politically Administrative than Scientific".
His point of view is opposed by Emmanuel Atangana, Editor in Chief at CRTV. To him, Chantal Biya is a political sociological topic, whose works have been subjects to important scientific productions.
"Personally, I am of the opinion that the works of a human person will always be subjected to scientific studies. Opinions on Chantal Biya can be shared, which is normal. I also reserve my ideas that are related to any diversion of the ideas behind this symposium, because to me, if this diversion is proven, it will seriously begin to doubt the well being of such approach" said Cabral Libi an International Jurist, who thinks if the Symposium has no hidden agenda behind it, then it will have a ground of attention.
This upcoming symposium seems to be some kind of pre-election campaign as some people are accusing Dr. Mathias Eric Owona Nguini, first son of Minister Joseph Owona, and Lecturer of the University of Yaounde , IRIC and other Higher Institutions, questioning his involvement as speaker in this symposium, whose ghost intentions are still unknown.
Mathias Eric who seems to be one of Chantal Biya's right hand persons has already received his own participation allowance, and is going around convincing others to do the same.
"What contributions will this symposium add to the Cameroonian Economy, if not only to put Chantal Biya in the spotlight, so that ignorant people will take this as a voting track in favour of her husband?, asked another university authority who spoke in anonymity.
henrietteslounge.com
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