Politics

A group of German Parliamentarians have visited Buea, capital of the South West Region. The Governor of the South West Region, Bernard Okalia Bilai received the German delegation who were accompanied by the Ambassador of Germany to Cameroon, H.E. Holger Mahnicke.

Holger Mahnicke hailed Cameroon’s efforts towards ensuring security in the country and decried terrorism, calling for a global response to stamp out terrorist incursions. This visit was a remarkable one considering that Buea was the capital of Cameroon during the German administration from 1901 to 1909.

The German visitors stopped over at historic German structures like the German Governor’s residence which is as old as 1902 and the Bismarck Fountain constructed in 1899.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 05.Nov.2015; Hits: 2335

Homelessness, disease, poverty, poor maintenance culture, corruption, the complete absence of an acceptable transport network is rocketing and millions languish in poorly equipped hospitals around the country. But this CPDM Government are oblivious to the human suffering this is causing. The government dither over rent controls in urban centres, do nothing to answer the urban questions and propose miniscule home-building no more accepted even in mother France. They allow sell-offs of land in Southern Cameroons territory when these could be used to alleviate the poverty crisis. They actually cut salaries, increased social insurance contribution and gave sweeteners to the local population by pretending to decentralize the National Social Insurance Fund.

There are currently so many concocted judicial proceedings which have generated clashes among senior dignitaries of the regime. Biya is a political disaster that has been around for the last 33 years. We can’t and won’t wait any longer for action. The new anti- terrorism law was enacted to stifle the right to protest-just so the rich CPDM families can get richer. The so called emergency plan is a bonanza for Mr. Biya and members of the CPDM Central Committee including those of the National Executive Committee of the SDF to increased their wealth. The new economic plan is built on very low salaries and diminished rights for the majority. To be sure, it is inherently unfair and offers no future.

Yet, the CPDM government and its SDF collaborators are defending this inequality by attacking those who resist it. Soldiers killed innocent students at the University of Buea protesting against dubious admission policy into the School of Medical Science. Now those who ordered the killings are running away from doctors made in Cameroon and are seeking treatment abroad. Consequently, the French now have the bill of health of all senior Cameroon government officials.

The recent reorganization of the CPDM Government by President Biya painted a picture of a system that is bound to fail. Many of the ministers are the same men who have ruined the country. One of the most incompetent Cameroonian citizens ever, Laurent Esso, Minister of State in charge of Justice in the new cabinet, was appointed Minister of Justice in 1996 and headed the justice department till 2000. He was successively Minister of Public Health in 2000; Minister Delegate in charge of Defense in 2001; Minister of State in charge of External Relations and Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic in 2006. In 2011 he returned as the head of the Ministry of Justice succeeding another recycled CPDM minister, Amadou Ali. So, his appointment on October 2nd, 2015 as Minister of Justice is simply an excellent backward trend.

Martin Belinga Eboutou, Director of the Civil Cabinet at the presidency of the republic is the cold schemer plotter of the regime. He was Director of State Protocol since 1989. He was later appointed Director of the Civil Cabinet from 1996 to 1997. He was sent as Cameroon Representative to the United Nations. In June 30, 2009, a presidential decree brought him back as head of the Directorate of the Civil Cabinet-a post he still holds even after the last cabinet shakeup.

Pierre Ismael Bidoum Mkpatt was a Cameroonian artist and a relation to the first lady Chantal Biya. Appointed Minister of Sports and Physical Education from 2000 to 2004, the October 2nd, 2015 presidential decree gave him back the same job he left in 2004. Philippe Mbarga Mboa was appointed Minister in charge of Missions at the Presidency on August 2002 to December 2004. In 2004, he was appointed Minister of Sports and Physical Education. In 2011, he was back again as Minister in charge of mission at the Presidency of the Republic.

Louis Paul Motaze, current Minister of Economic Planning had been in that ministerial department from 2007 to 2011, when he was appointed Secretary General at the Prime Minister’s Office. Martin Mbarga Nguele, the national police boss, had already been Delegated General for National Security from 1983 to 1984. He returned to the policing business in 2010. Amadou Ali has been everything but Head of State. No wonder, some cabinet ministers from the Far North were quick to tell Prime Minister Philemon Yang recently that they wanted to visit their own head of government in a hospital in France.

If we aim to build a movement for fundamental change where wealth is used to benefit the majority not the few in the CPDM Central Committee and House of Senate, Anglophones and Francophones should and must read from the same script. There should be a general demand for the closure of the Special Criminal Court. All the members of the special police unit carrying out spying operation on the Cameroonian Diaspora should stop doing so. The Cameroonian Diaspora should suspend indefinitely all economic activity with the country and clamour for regime change.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 03.Nov.2015; Hits: 2478