Politics

The Laquintinie Hospital incident has not only shocked the entire nation, it has indeed thrown up many questions about healthcare in a country where elections focus more on individuals rather than on issues and policies that can enable the country address those issues that have blighted the people’s lives. The pictures of a woman slaughtering her own sister within a certified medical facility just to save her sister’s twins is an indication that the country’s healthcare system is suffering from serious issues. This is a job that was supposed to have been done by health officials of that medical facility, but since money has replaced humanity in our own country, lots of people, including medical doctors, have simply walked away from the theory of being there for their fellow citizens for a philosophy wherein money is the be-all-and-end-all of life. There is nothing else that can really beat this gross display of inhumanity by Laquintinie hospital officials. And this case is simply the tip of the iceberg. 

Many Cameroonians have lost their lives just because of inhumanity and carelessness in our hospitals. When you visit some of our hospitals, you end up shedding tears when you see how fellow citizens are treated. Not only are these hospitals not equipped, they have, at best, been reduced to consultation clinics and, at worst, funeral homes. Our hospitals are now places where people pay their transport fare to spend their last days.  The type of things that happen in Cameroon’s hospitals could kill a patient even before they get to meet the medical doctors who themselves have become businesspeople. Nowhere else in the world, except in Cameroon, is someone charged for being on the premises of a medical facility. In most hospitals around the country, access– not to the medical officials – is paid. Laquintinie is very much notorious for that. This underscores the point that even emergencies are not considered as emergencies, if the patient or their loved ones accompanying them do not have money to pay for access. This even gets worse if you have to meet with the medical doctors themselves. If you do not have money to deposit, then yours is the kingdom of pain and death. Nobody will attend to you and many hardworking, but unfortunate Cameroonians, have lost their lives just because of this type of mentality that is very much countenanced by a government that is more elitist than populist.

Of course, the Laquintinie incident seems to be a wake-up call. Even members of the ruling party are calling for disciplinary measures against officials of the hospital. But it is not the hospital that is the problem. Laquintinie is just a symptom of a disease that has affected the entire nation. Moral decadence and inhumanity have become the cancers of our country. This is a country where crooks are hailed as strong men, thieves are revered and con-men have become models to our children. Punishing Laquintinie hospital officials will be a welcome measure, but such a measure will not address the issues facing the entire nation. You do not eradicate a disease by striking at the branches instead of the roots. Cameroon is gone down the drain. Morals have disappeared from the country. The community spirit and strong sense of citizenship that characterized the country in the 70s, 80s and, maybe, the 90s have simply migrated to other parts of the world.  Go to most schools in the country, and you will be shocked beyond expression at the attitude of the teachers. If levels of healthcare and education have taken a nosedive in Cameroon, it is surely not in error or by accident. It is the way the government has run the system.

The notion of Garbage in, Garbage out (GIGO) also applies to human systems and not only to the computer. Take a look at the way teachers are recruited and you understand why standards of education have suffered over the last two decades. Most Cameroonian teachers are simply a bunch of people who are fleeing unemployment. They are not driven by the passion we saw in our teachers in the 60s and 70s. Teachers were the makers of men and they exuded knowledge wherever they were. Compare them to what we have today, and your mind will bleed for a country that is already on life support. For the medical field, the story is grimmer. Many of our medical doctors have simply transformed the Oath of Hippocrates into an Oath of Hypocrisy. For sure, these doctors were pushed into our faculties of medicine by some invisible hand and even when they cannot perform properly in school, they cannot be dismissed. That should explain why we have lots of butchers in our hospitals wielding long, sharp knives. They are always prepared to operate or to exaggerate the extent of the patient’s illness just to make a quick buck. Cameroon needs a new vision, a vision that will place the citizens of that country at the heart of every action.

One would think that after the colourfulcelebrations of the International Women’s Day in Cameroon, Cameroonian women will be treated like queens every day. But the nasty and unpardonable incident that took place at the Laquintinie Hospital in Douala underscores that the nation and its leaders are simply paying lip-service to the whole notion of women and their rights. Worse of all, is the public’s indifference; indifference that has pushed me into questioning the whole notion of a collective conscience in our country. While the hospital officials have gone mute since the incident took place, government officials, for their part, have been struggling to provide explanations, some of which have been at best annoying. How could a country endowed with some of the finest human resources on the continent be going through this for so many decades. Why should we be losing our women at a time when technology has simplified delivery across the world? And where is our collective conscience. Our silence in the face of this disaster is tantamount to acquiescence. While we may have been reduced to sorry spectators of events in our country, let’s not forget that our silence is being considered as approval of what is happening to some of us. If this can happen to Mr. A, then it will one day happen to Mr. B. This has nothing to do with tribe or region. Our leaders should be held accountable and this is one moment that can enable our leaders  understand that we cannot always be taken for a ride. Silence cannot always be golden, not when human life is involved.

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Dr Joachim Arrey

14.Mar.2016

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Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power since 1979 and is one of Africa's longest-ruling leaders, said on Friday he intended to step down in 2018 but gave no reason for his decision and did not name a preferred successor.

Angola, a member of OPEC and Africa's second largest oil exporter after Nigeria, has been hit hard by the slump in global crude prices. Oil export revenues account for more than 90 percent of foreign exchange revenues.

"I took the decision to leave active political activity in 2018," Dos Santos, 73, said in a speech to members of his ruling MPLA party's key decision-making body. He did not elaborate.

Angola holds its next parliamentary election in 2017 and the leader of the winning party will then become president. MPLA leader Dos Santos was re-appointed to a new five-year term as Angolan president in 2012 after his party won a landslide win.

Some Luanda residents expressed surprise that Dos Santos had decided not to step down before the next election.

"The elections are in 2017, not in 2018. He should quit before the elections in 2017," said Afonso Kangulo, 42, who is jobless and blamed the government for the weak economy.

But Frank Francisco, 48, a public service worker, said: "If he were to quit before the election, maybe people would say he ran away because he would have lost."

Weak oil prices have hammered Africa's third largest economy and the government is in discussions with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund about possible financial assistance.

Dos Santos' mild, inscrutable public demeanor belies his tight control of Angola, a former Portuguese colony where he has overseen an oil-backed economic boom and the reconstruction of infrastructure devastated by a 27-year-long civil war that ended in 2002.

Critics accuse him of mismanaging Angola's oil wealth and making an elite, mainly his family and political allies, vastly rich in a country ranked amongst the world's most corrupt.

Dos Santos, a Soviet-educated former petroleum engineer, is Africa's second longest ruling leader after Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Vice-President Manuel Vicente - former head of state oil firm Sonangol - is seen as a likely successor to Dos Santos.

"(Dos Santos) has been grooming Vicente for quite a while now ... He has deputized for him on a number of important occasions, which sent a strong signal," said Gary van Staden, a Johannesburg-based political analyst with NKC African Economics.

But another analyst said the president was grooming his son, Jose Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos, to succeed him. The younger Dos Santos currently heads Angola's sovereign wealth fund.

"It may mean the succession is in progress and that it will be a dynastic one," said Nelson Bonavena, an economics lecturer at the Catholic University of Angola and political analyst.

Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, an Angola expert at Britain's Oxford University, struck a more cautious note.

"Dos Santos' departure from power has been the talk of the town in Luanda for 15 years. He has always hinted that he wanted to leave but this is the most specific commitment he has ever made," he said.

"The fact that he put a date to it is a powerful marker and would come back to haunt him if he were to renege on it."

(Reuters)

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Rita Akana

13.Mar.2016

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President Ali Bongo of Gabon was confirmed on Saturday in Libreville by acclamation as the presidential candidate of the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) in the 2016 presidential election at an extraordinary congress that paired with the 48th anniversary of the party.

Bongo, who had announced his candidacy at Port Gentil with the slogan "Let's change together", received the torch from the hands of the party’s Secretary General, Faustin Boukoubi.

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Chi Prudence Asong

13.Mar.2016

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Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem has censured as “silly” a recent move by the Arab League to designate Lebanon’s resistance movement, Hezbollah, as a terrorist organization. “The latest Arab League decision was silly, and to be honest, I am not surprised by that [decision] from the same body, which authorized NATO to hit Libya... I thank God that we are not a member of this Arab League,” Muallem said during a press conference in the capital, Damascus, on Saturday. The top Syrian diplomat added that he had asked the Arab League back in 2006 to praise Hezbollah for its resistance against Israel during the 33-day war in the summer of that year, but the request was turned down. “Later, we understood that there were [countries within the Arab League], who were calling on Israel to hit the resistance,” Muallem pointed out. 

On Friday, foreign ministers at an Arab League meeting in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo branded Hezbollah a terrorist group in their final statement. However, Lebanon and Iraq refused to go along with the move and Algeria expressed “reservations.” In a similar move, the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a statement on March 2, labeling Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The Arab bloc comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Hezbollah later denounced the designation and described the GCC member states as “reckless and hostile.”

The measure came days after Riyadh retracted a USD four-billion aid pledge to Lebanon’s security forces. The decision was made in the wake of recent victories by the Syrian army, backed by Hezbollah fighters, against the Takfiri militants fighting to overthrow the Damascus government. Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said the Saudi regime seeks to provoke “strife” between Shias and Sunnis in the Middle East, urging the Lebanese not to be intimidated by threats being posed by Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

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Presstv

13.Mar.2016

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President Biya and his ruling CPDM party are now scaremongering that our nation is at war and needs continuity in leadership. MPs and top government officials are warning that any change in Etoudi could cause a political tsunami that may destabilized the nation. Mr Biya is directly behind these manouevers and he is expected to order a constitutional change soonest. Such a change could cause an unprecedented collapse of Cameroon as a nation. 

The French are not happy with the arrangement but have no neutral third option. It is hard to say which political grouping really thinks well for the country as the blatant scaremongering from Etoudi and Ngoa Ekele has been very efficient eventhough it has no grounding in reality. The Cameroon army is fighting the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram in the Far North region and the anti Belaka terrorist group in the East as a matter of principle not because of our absentee Commander-in-Chief. Clearly, Biya is in a blind panic over the failing motions of support.

The youth of his home constituency including those of the Far North region have all asked him to step aside.The claim that we are at war has been branded preposterous by Cardinal Tumi who say Biya no longer has the physical and moral ability to govern the nation. A new head of state and commander-in-chief in Cameroon would give our nation control of its borders policy and attract thousands of foreign investors from Europe and even beyond.

Any new constitutional amendment that will guarantee Biya’s continued stay in power will be making a mockery of our national assemblies, our judiciary and our military. A change of the current leadership in Cameroon is not only urgent but non-negotiable. There is need for an emergency brake on Biya’s attempt at holding on to power at 83.

The ruling CPDM party should organize a congress and elect a young and dynamic national chairman to take over from the frailing President Biya. Whether Biya changes the constitution or not, his days at the head of our nation and politics are drawing to a close. Any moment from now, the world will see Cameroon as a nation and not as a person.

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Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

11.Mar.2016

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4 large Boko Haram tankers transporting fuel, livestock, ammunitions and clothing have been seized by Cameroon specila forces in the town of Fotokol, near the border with Nigeria.

Our Maroua correspondent reported that the seizure was made on the 7th and 8th of March 2016. Boko Haram militants killed four civilians in the Bame- Kolofata locality town on Tuesday. A Kolofata villager was also killed and his cattle were taken away in an attack attributed to the Nigeria Islamic sect.

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Rita Akana

10.Mar.2016

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