Politics

President Paul Biya,Friday January 6 received New Year wishes from members of the Diplomatic Corps and national dignitaries during a ceremony that took place at the Unity Palace.Even Friday’s Unity Palace event was heavily attended, the absence of leading opposition leader, John Fru Ndi, was very conspicuous.

Though it is not exactly clear why the National Chairman of the leading opposition party, whom we gathered was officially invited, boycotted the annual event, SDF sources who spoke to The Cameroon Journal Saturday on condition of anonymity said Fru Ndi’s absence was deliberate and was in protest against the unserious manner in which the Biya regime is handling genuine concerns raised by Anglophones.Our source said Fru Ndi was vehement that he could not afford to go to the Unity Palace to wine and dine at a time when his fellow Anglophones are suffering under the weight of gross injustices and marginalisation from the Yaounde regime.

In 2016, it would be recalled, Fru Ndi was amongst the several national dignitaries who showed up at the Unity Palace for a similar ceremony. Both President Paul Biya and the SDF Chieftain on the occasion discussed at length.Our reporter also contacted Fru Ndi yesterday to have him comment on the subject but he didn’t take his callon several attempts.
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Friday’s ceremony as it unfolded
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The ceremony to present New Year wishes to President Biya was in two parts. The President first received best wishes from Members of the Diplomatic Corps before later meeting with national dignitaries.It was Mgr. Piero Pioppo, the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea who is also Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, who opened last Friday’s ceremony with an address presented to the Head of State.

Delivering his address in both English and French, the prelate commended Paul Biya and the People of Cameroon for their outstanding hospitality toward refugees from Nigeria and the Central African Republic while equally lauding the country’s remarkable stability.In response to the message delivered by the Apostolic Nuncio, President Biya observed that Mgr. Piero Pioppo’s appraisal was objective, and used his response to reiterate the need to protect what he described as “Cameroon’s unity in diversity.”While meeting with members of the national constituted bodies, Biya, besides the normal hand shakes, also engaged in brief chats with some state personalities.

Cameroontoday

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Rita Akana

10.Jan.2017

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The president of Anglophone teachers association has today issued a press statement praising God for the effectiveness of the ghost town that paralysed businesses and schools in the English speaking regions of Cameroon on Monday, 9.01.2017:

Dear brothers and sisters of West Cameroon, yesterday was a day like no other I have witnessed before. I am sure you and I new the ghost would come to town. We all, I am much surer did not foresee the size of the ghost.

In our last communication, we did affirm from the Good Book that when the Lord fights, He make sure that none doubts who fought. In Judges 6, Gideon physically led the army that God had reduced to 300 heads. In 2nd Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat gathered the spoils for days without drawing a bow.

Dear comrades, in Judges 6:17, Gideon asked the Lord for a sign. We did ask Him of a sign that He is with us in this struggle. Monday, Jan 7th 2016, the Lord released a host of angels who effortlessly chased everyone off the streets of our towns and villages.

This morning, our God says if we will only harken to His directives, He will fight for us and we shall take long to gather the spoils. He says those He has put at the helm of the Consortium may not come with big titles from the academia and the Bar, but He, the Lord of heaven's armies has chosen them to confound the "wise" and the "prudent".

I pray that we allow the Lord to lead His army. He has laid out a plan for this struggle part of which the Consortium has published, part which shall be unveiled with time. Let it be known however, that in this plan, there is no room for arms of any sort, neither is room made for killings and destruction of any time.
Rather, great room is made for holy worship and praise, prayer and fasting, and most of all, love for one another, including love towards Yaoundé; great love.

If you doubt God, then ask yourself what was it the Consortium did to achieve the success registered yesterday. 10% effort for 110% success! That's our God. He tells us we shall inhabit cities we did not build and harvest from fields we did not plant.

If we trust Him, then we should listen and follow the Consortium.

The GHOST from heaven has returned.
Today, normal activities resume, BUT no schools, no courts.
Praise God.
Communication of Jan 10th 2017, 06:15am.

Deacon Tassang Wilfred
NESG CATTU
Programmes Director of the Consortium

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Rita Akana

10.Jan.2017

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In 2011, this is what was published in the book "A Global State through democratic federal world government" by Unity Elias Y. in pages 362, 363, 364; on the Anglophone problem. For reading purposes, get it here;

"The secret behind all successful democracies of the world is their strict adherence to Jefferson’s advice of respecting the opinions of mankind, and a fitting example in this case is to examine and compare the state and situation of bilingual Canada, an advanced democracy, with bilingual Cameroon, an amateur democracy. Both nations have English and French as official languages of government, business and teaching in school. The two nations have secessionist movements operating in their minority territory; which, for Canada, is the province of Quebec (French-speaking), and, for Cameroon, is the former state of Southern Cameroons (English-speaking), which was induced into a federated union with the former East Cameroon by the UN. In the case of Quebec in Canada, the province has all possibilities of attaining independence through democratic channels, whereas Southern Cameroonians have not even got the freedom to express their grievances; even when they do express them they are silently ignored, and instead, the government goes ahead to implant more structures to suppress any secessionist activity.

If wisdom were easy to come by, the government in Yaoundé should have been preoccupied with opening the cover of the boiling pot to reduce the pressure inside by engaging in purposeful dialogue with the anglophone opinion, rather than trying to pull off the wood that burns to boil the water inside the pot, because the wood can always be replaced with more from the vast forest, which nurtures even more violently burning wood as the days pass by and the realities of life are confronted by the younger trees, which usually have expectations and intensions to grow taller than their parents.

‘A stitch in time saves nine,’ the saying goes. While the Ottawa government spends time in dialogues with Quebec and with ever-increasing intensions to please this minority French community, the hegemony in Yaoundé does not want to hear of any anglophone problem, and under the pretence of national unity and integration, such a sensitive, time bomb issue is relegated to the list inconsequential in government priorities. In fact, it entails free and genuine education for the French-speaking community to realise that the English-speaking Cameroonian might have a better story to tell about what holds for the tomorrow of the nation.

After all, every practical man knows that the English culture from experience is more functional than the predominantly French procedural way of life. Grave error number two is in trying to cage the anglophone folk by removing their political liberty, which is unworkable, because political liberty and maturity are amongst the inalienable rights enshrined in every human being by natural law and re-emphasised by human law, and when one tries to arrest such rights by forceful confiscation, one commits a crime as a result.

The victim is pushed to the wall, from where he fights back. Should the anglophones in Cameroon resort to violence as a means of restoring their political rights, which are strongly required for self-determination and development, Yaoundé alone stands to blame for nurturing the dissatisfaction amongst a people who got up one morning to realise that the marriage was an aching one rather than a comforting one. This is quite authentic because a union is purposeless if it does not breed harmony, peace and progress, and if the true picture of life rather than its caricature is to be tackled. If Yaoundé wants to handle caricatures rather than substance, then undoubtedly, the whole system will grind to a halt subsequently. Greed should not continue to block the foresight of politicians and governments.

Great men have existed, men who placed reason ahead of self-pride men of humility, compromise and peace. Anwar al-Sadat, the pioneer searcher for peace in the Middle East pandemonium, extended his hand, which was still stained with the blood of Israeli combatants and civilians to Prime Minister Begin, whose own hand, too, was still shaking off the fresh blood of Egyptians just after the famous 1973 war. Ever since this unprecedented show of compromise, a perfect peace had reigned between the two nations. Sadat used the ensuring peace to build the Egyptian economy. "

Click here to buy your copy of this book.

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Elias Yang

09.Jan.2017

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The CPDM Member of Parliament from Momo East Constituency, Member of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, Hon. Enwe Francis Abi has rattled the Governor of the South West Region, Okalia Bilai Bernard over utterances he made over CRTV Radio’s magazine programme- Cameroon Calling this Sunday the 8th of January, 2017.

The Deputy wondered aloud how a man who considers himself a senior civil administrator could demonstrate so much ignorance in techniques of conflict management. He said; “It is a great embarrassment to hear someone in whom the State could bestow trust and so much power to descend so low as to be threatening to suspend salaries of teachers when the Head of State has personally recognized the problems they are posing as pertinent and the government at very high level is on the field negotiating a truce”.

The MP blamed Okalia Bilai for causing the peaceful strikes by lawyers and students in Buea to escalate by sending out troops to desecrate the wigs and robes of lawyers and ordering the merciless onslaught on armless students on their own campus at the University of Buea. He said such high-handed approaches belonged to an era that is long past and today there are modern methods of handling crisis without the use of force.

Hon Enwe could not understand how the Head of State would recognize the right to strike in his end of year address to the nation and someone who is supposed to represent him in the region goes about issuing threats and calling peace loving Cameroonians only asking for their rights “terrorists”.

“I think he does not understand the meaning and functioning of trade unions; I am from South Africa and trade unions go on strike every day and the government goes into negotiations, no one goes out threatening to suspend workers’ salaries when their union leaders call for strikes”.

The MP wondered aloud; “Would he suspend the salaries of all the teachers at a time we are even looking for means to train more teachers? Is he the Minister of Finance and what does he hope to achieve?”

Visibly irritated, the MP noted that when “We, CPDM Parliamentarians from the two Anglophone regions met with the striking lawyers in Yaounde and signed some resolutions, the South West Governor reported us to the Minister of Territorial Administration, to the Presidency and to other quarters, complaining that we did not have to open discussions with the lawyers; what an affront?”

He noted with dismay that Okalia Bilai’s reckless words would only go a long way in making on-going negotiations with the union leaders more complicated; a thing government, led by the Prime Minister, Head of Government is putting in all efforts to achieve. He hailed the North West Governor, Adolphe Lele l’Afrique for operating a more mature approach in handling the problems related to the strikes.

The young deputy urged government to ensure that the young men arrested in Bamenda and taken to Yaounde be immediately released and driven back to Bamenda where they were picked up. He re-iterated that if government insists they must be tried, then the Criminal Procedure Code should be respected; meaning the boys should be sent to Bamenda to be tried where they purportedly committed offenses and where their families can be of assistance.

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Akuroh John Mbah

09.Jan.2017

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Two Cameroonian soldiers (BIR) were killed yesterday in heavy fighting with a large group of Boko Haram fighters in the Iyawa Mountains in neighbouring Nigeria.

Cameroon has been engaged in heavy fighting with Boko Haram insurgents for the last two years.The terrorist group has staged more than 500 attacks and incursions, and around fifty suicide bomb attacks in Cameroon, making it the second most targeted country after Nigeria. According to Cameroonian soldiers, they fought fourteen fierce battles in Kolofata, Amchidé, Fotokol and Bargaram in 2014 and 2015 against sometimes hundreds and even up to a thousand heavily equipped Boko Haram fighters from mainly Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad.

In total, in two and a half years the insurgents have killed at least 1,300 civilians, 120 soldiers and abducted an estimated thousand people in Cameroon.

They have burned down hundreds of schools and businesses and forced thousands to flee. Today, there are over 190,000 internally displaced Cameroonians in the Far North and around 65,000 refugees from neighbouring Nigeria, according to OCHA figures.

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Rita Akana

09.Jan.2017

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MESSAGE FROM FON GORJI DINKA.
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Fellow Ambazonians, Fellow Children of God

I am Fon Fongum Gorji-Dinka

I had no intention to speak out at this time but I decided to do so in response to phone and emails calling on me to speak out as the Father of Ambazonia.
I want to first of all say I am not the father of Ambazonia; the father of Ambazonia is the Lord God who thousands of years ago, created the Ambas Bay, the zone of which geography identifies as Ambazonia. I am only the little creature the lord God used to put Ambazonia into writing through the pamphlets I wrote in 1985 on the Ambazonian Revolt.

It is the Lord God himself who kick started the Ambazonian Revolt by making President Paul Biya enact Restoration law 84/01 on 2 January 1984 dissolving the illegal union of our two countries and restoring them back as mutually sovereign and independent of each other again, as they were before the illegal union which was first called Federal Republic and later United Republic of Cameroun.

President Biya only realized it when I called on him to withdraw from Ambazonia in compliance with his restoration law. This is proof positive that the restoration of Ambazonia’s independence is an act of God. President Biya arrested me and I was tortured till I suffered a stroke which paralysed my left side. He then charged me before the Cameroun military Tribunal with high treason punishable with death by a firing squad.

The Lord God made the tribunal dismiss the case, but President Biya rearrested me and put me under indefinite house arrest; from there I made my escape into exile in 1988.

In 1990 I went to the United Nations with our case and after studying they advised (i) that a Proclamation should be made formalizing the restoration of our country's independence with its geographical identity as Ambazonia; (ii) that a formal request be made for a seat at the United Nations including a request for the UN to put Cameroun out of Ambazonia. This we did. And the UN said Ambazonia's seat at the UN would only be available when our elected representatives stop attending Cameroun Parliament.

Meanwhile in 1992 we made President Biya acknowledge Ambazonia as an independent nation, through the Bamenda High Court case HCB/28/92. The proceedings appear verbatim in the English edition of the Cameroun News Paper LE MESSAGER of 10 February 1993.

With that News Paper I approached Nigeria's Head of State General Sani Abacha to use his Good Offices to get President Biya withdraw from Ambazonia in compliance with the Cameroun restoration law 84/01 and Cameroun High Court judgement HCB/28/92.

When president Biya rejected Nigeria's Good offices General Abacha sent Nigerian troops to occupy Ambazonia's oil rich Bakassi Peninsula. General Abacha offered to withdraw from the Peninsula when President Biya withdraws to the east of the Mungo River.

Cameroun sued Nigeria at the International Court of Justice; and the Court ordered both Cameroun and Nigeria to withdraw to their boundaries as obtained at independence.

Then in January 2005 the United Nations got both Nigeria and Cameroun to sign a treaty to comply with the judgement of the International Court of Justice. And Cameroun's President Biya signed it saying “I President Paul Biya of the Republic of Cameroon, in a bid to provide lasting peace to the Bakassi conflict, do hereby commit myself and my government to respect the territorial boundaries of my country as obtained at its independence." And Cameroun's independence was on 1 January 1960 when Ambazonia was still part of the Nigerian Federation.

In 2009 the Lord God made the United Nations surveyors go and build huge pillars along the international boundary line which separates Cameroun from Ambazonia.
When President Biya says Cameroun is one and indivisible we say yes but Ambazonia is not part of Cameroun. Cameroun constitution says the National Assembly President becomes interim Head of State till a new president is elected within 90 days, but when Ahidjo resigned Paul Biya was illegally made Head of State in order to prevent then National Assembly President S T Muna becoming interim Cameroon Head of State because he being an Ambazonian was not a Cameroonian. So President Biya has been illegal President from day one to this day.

Let me reaffirm that with effect from 2 January 1984, Ambazonia’s independence became no longer a matter for debate. And Ambazonia would take its seat at the United Nations once our elected representatives resign from Cameroun Parliament.

We therefore salute and hail our Hon. MP Wirba for leading the way in standing tall to be counted in support of our people's demand which is summarised in these 12 words:
Cameroun Public Servants Go Home, Ambazonian Senators and MPs Come back Home.

We are therefore thankful to our lawyers, the teachers and the masses who have made the strike a national one enabling us to have the Civil Society Consortium as our home front leadership.

We call on the Consortium to stand firm with the strike till illegal President Biya withdraws from Ambazonia and till our Members resign from Cameroun Parliament; so that Ambazonia can take its seat at the United Nations. This will provide legal cover for the foreign assistance we need to reconstruct our governing organs in accordance with Ambazonia's constitution, and that is our 1960 constitution modified to replace the Queen of England with a native Ambazonian as Ambazonia's Head of State.

In this connection we issued one ordinance creating Ambazonian Civil Defence Force to absorb our boys from Cameroun security forces, and another ordinance creating an interim Ambazonian government consisting of the 12 most important ministries. We will appoint persons to head the ministries only after consultations with the Civil Society Consortium which is leading the Home Front Activities.

Fellow Ambazonians together let us pray to our most merciful and everlasting Father almighty, to glorify Himself early by giving us victory sooner than later. This we pray in the name and through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; Now and for evermore Amen. Thank you Father.

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Rita Akana

08.Jan.2017

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