The long-awaited election of the SDF Littoral Regional Chairman billed for Sunday, October 16 promises to be an event filled with political intrigues.

First, three of the four candidates pitted in the race find faults with Senator Jean Tsomelou, head of the team organising the election.

The trio – Celestin Djamen, Abel Elimbi Lobe and John Ndangle Kumase – also claim that Tsomelou’s team is not neutral in the election.

Djamen, Elimbi and Kumase are complaining that Senator Tsomelou and his team, assigned by the SDF National Executive Committee, NEC, to reorganise the party in the Littoral, are supporting Hon. Jean Michel Nintcheu, who is gunning for re-election.

Djamen and Elimbi have gone public with the allegations, and are insisting that the Tsomelou-led team is biased, hence will not be able to organise a free and fair election on October 16.

For his part, Tsomelou said he thinks Djamen and Elimbi in particular, are raising the allegations as a pretext because they know they cannot win the election as they lack support in the filed or among the electorates.

“I have closely observed the situation in the field across the Littoral Region during the reorganisation of the basic organs of the SDF that we have carried out so far.

From my observation, I do not see Djamen’s list getting more than two votes, including his own, at the election for a new bureau of the Littoral SDF,” said Tsomelou

As for Elimbi, he said, “I do not see his list getting more than one vote and that one will be his own vote.

All they know to do in an election is to make noise over TV and radio, instead of working in the field to win the support of militants or delegates to the Elective Regional Conference.”

Referee Celebrates Team’s Victory?

When The Post asked Djamen why he and Elimbi seem to disagree with Senator Tsomelou and other members of the NEC team, he insisted that the Senator and his team have taken sides with Nintcheu in the election and deserve no respect.

Asked if he has evidence to substantiate his claim, Djamen mentioned a number of things that he alleged happened at an election organised at Penja, to choose the Mungo SDF Divisional Coordination.

According to Djamen, when the NEC team declared the list of Nintcheu’s candidate as the winner, Tsomelou joined Nintcheu on the floor in dancing to celebrate the so-called victory.

“I was there. Many SDF militants were there. We all saw what happened. How could a referee join the President of a club at end of a match, to celebrate victory? This was a scandal,” Djamen told The Post.

He also alleged that even the food that members of the NEC team ate in Penja on that day was provided by Nintcheu’s niece.

“The truth is that Tsomelou, who started off well in his assignment to the Littoral by trying to be neutral, has, unfortunately, become partial.

As for the other members of the team, most of them were bought over by Nintcheu right from the very beginning,” Said Djamen.

Smear Campaign

It should be recalled that when NEC assigned Senator Tsomelou in 2014 to take over the task of reorganisng the Littoral SDF from the National Organising Secretary, Ferdinand Asapngu, he ran into trouble with Nintcheu’s camp when he refused to dance to the camp’s music.

Apparently, the Nintcheu camps spread a rumour that Tsomelou, who is the SDF West Regional Chairm, had been banqueting with the CPDM in the West to the detriment of the SDF.

By then, the camp against Nintcheu in the Littoral with Djamen, Kumase and Elimbi as frontline members dismissed the allegation spread against Tsomelou as spurious and malicious.

Interestingly, the two camps have now changed position on the issue. While the Nintcheu camp is now hailing Tsomelou, the opposition camp is calling him names.

Nintcheu Won’t Be Candidate

As the mudslinging intensifies ahead of the October 16 election so does the controversy as to whether or not Hon. Nintcheu can run for re-election.

There is also a controversy over the registration fee of FCFA 400,000 per candidate.

As for the registration fee, which Senator Tsomelou is insisting that each candidate must pay, Djamen swore to The Post on October 7 that he will not pay a franc.

“There is no NEC resolution which requires a candidate to pay a franc as registration fee. Tsomelou wants to grab money from us to pay his hotel bills.

Why did he accept the assignment that NEC gave him if he had no money to take care of his hotel bills? Let him get money from Nintcheu as some members of the NEC Commission have been doing,” Djamen said.

As for Nintcheu’s candidature, Tsomelou insists that NEC’s decision to dissolve the Littoral Regional Bureau of the SDF headed by Nintcheu did not bar him from running for re-election.

“The NEC decision was not a sanction against Hon. Nintcheu,” Tsomelou claimed in a chat with The Post.

But then, Kumase, Elimbi and Djamen contend, based on their interpretation of Article 18.8 of the Constitution of the SDF that NEC applied to dissolve the Nintcheu-led bureau, that the sanction disqualifies him from running for re-election.

Djamen swore to The Post that Nintcheu will not be allowed to be a candidate at the October 16 election, though he did not say how he plans to stop Nintcheu from running at the election.

Cameroonpostnewsline

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Rita Akana

16.Oct.2016

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Boko Haram has freed 21 of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group

in April 2014 in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok, the government said on Thursday.

Around 270 girls were taken from their school in Chibok in the northeastern Borno state, where the Islamist militants have waged a seven-year insurgency to try to set up an Islamic state.

"The release of the girls ... is the outcome of negotiations between the administration and Boko Haram brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government," a presidency statement said. "The negotiations will continue."

Nigeria will continue its military operations against Boko Haram, the country's information minister said. He also said Nigeria did not swap any Boko Haram prisoners for the release of the girls, who would be brought to the capital Abuja later on Thursday. 

Here are 10 key facts about the Chibok schoolgirls and the Islamist militant group Boko Haram:

Since 2009, Boko Haram has waged an insurgency to carve out an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria that has killed at least 15,000 people and displaced more than two million.

The most high-profile attack took place on April 14, 2014, when Boko Haram kidnapped 276 school girls, from a secondary school in Chibok in northeast Borno state. About 50 of the girls escaped in the initial melee but 219 were captured.

Nigeria's government and military, then under the command of former president Goodluck Jonathan, faced heavy criticism for their handling of the incident, with towns and cities across the nation witnessing protests.

The kidnappings prompted a strong social media reaction, with the phrase #bringbackourgirls tweeted around 3.3 million times by mid-May 2014, and the campaign which followed backed by U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama.

Hope for the girls was briefly raised in April 2015 when the Nigerian military announced it had rescued 200 girls and 93 women from the Sambisa forest, northeast of Chibok. It was later revealed that the Chibok girls were not among them.

One of the Chibok girls, Amina Ali, was rescued in May. Held for months by the Nigerian government, she told her mother that the girls were starved and resorted to eating raw maize, and that some had died in captivity, suffered broken legs or gone deaf after being too close to explosions.

Boko Haram in August published a video showing footage of dozens of the Chibok girls, and a masked man saying some of their classmates had been killed in air strikes. In the video, unidentified bodies could be seen on the ground.

About 2,000 girls and boys have been kidnapped by Boko Haram since the beginning of 2014, according to Amnesty International, which says they are used as cooks, sex slaves, fighters and even suicide bombers.

Boko Haram used 44 children to carry out suicide attacks in West Africa last year, up from four in 2014, with some as young as eight, mostly girls, detonating bombs in schools and markets, according to the U.N. children's agency UNICEF.

Boko Haram, which last year pledged allegiance to Islamic State, controlled a swathe of land in northeast Nigeria, around the size of Belgium, at the start of 2015 but was pushed out by Nigerian and regional troops, which are now in a final push to defeat the militants.

Reuters

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Rita Akana

14.Oct.2016

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Barrister Roland ABENG

We need an official release from the Minister saying that the OHADA law will be translated into English.
I would have loved the news to come from the President of the Bar not the president of the General Assembly. 

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Rita Akana

14.Oct.2016

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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

13.Oct.2016

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Media report that 21 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram have been released to the Nigerian government

Another 21 of the 200 girls kidnapped over two years ago by Boko Haram have been released to the custody of the Nigerian government.

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Rita Akana

13.Oct.2016

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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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Rita Akana

11.Oct.2016

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