Politics

Following the turbulent waves ignited by the Anglophone crisis, Paul Biya appoints for the first time an Anglophone as Minister of Territorial Administration and Secondary Education. The President of the Republic appointed ministers from the Anglophone regions to key positions in government.

Unfortunately this strive to quell the ravaging crisis rocking the very foundation of the nation has failed because its timing is too late and its effect of too little effect. It's for the very first time that the emblematic ministry of Territorial Administration is being headed by an Anglophone according to the Presidential decree signed on the 2nd of March, 2018.

Paul Biya did choose Paul Atanga Nji to occupy this important portfolio. Minister in charge of special duties at the Presidency for more than ten years,as well as the permanent secretary of the National Security Council. He was born in Bamenda in 1960. This banker represent the central opposing figure to John Fru Ndi's Social Democratic Front in the region.  

It's by chance that Atanga Nji Paul is the President of the Mezam 1 Section President of the CPDM. His promotion sounds as a response to the revindication made by the Anglophones that has rocked the nation. Amongst the revindication sent to the authorities in Yaoundé during this sociopolitical crisis rocking the North West and South West Regions for more than one and half year,the absence of the peoples of Anglosaxon culture in key positions was glaring and worth complained. Another Anglophone appointed to a key ministry is Madam Nalova Lyonga Pauline Egbe, former Vice Chancellor of the university of Buea.

This University don appointed in 2017 as the Board Chair of the Douala General Hospital is a native of Buea of the South West Region of Cameroon. The choices of appointment aren't unrelated to the upcoming Senatorial election, Municipal elections, Parliamentary and Presidential Elections.  

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Rita Akana

04.Mar.2018

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The weak have been transformed into uncontestable traitors and time killers. Paul Biya installs three close collaborators within the his close collaborators in a manner that facilities the precipitation of the head of state in governance. The Close collaborators of the President of the Republic are as follows: Ngoh Ngoh Ferdinand:   Minister, Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic aged 56

. Diplomat Elung Che Paul, assistant Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, aged 49, Treasury Inspector.

Cabinet: Mvondo Ayolo Samuel: Minister Director of the Civil Cabinet, 61 years Former Ambassador. Bakoke Oswald:

Minister Delegate at the Director of Civil Cabinet, Diplomat, aged 46 The used personalities who are leaving the presidency but retained as Ministers are

: Atanga Nji Paul appointed Minister of Territorial Administration 58 years.

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Rita Akana

04.Mar.2018

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Rita Akana

04.Mar.2018

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In Southwest and Northwest regions, security forces continued to clash with Anglophone separatists and attack civilians; separatists could intensify attacks around senatorial elections planned for 25 March. Security forces killed civilians and burnt houses in Bole Bakundu, Southwest 1 Feb.

In clashes and attacks in Northwest 1-8 Feb three security personnel and nine others killed. Separatists killed three gendarmes in Kembong, Southwest and abducted local official in Batibo, Northwest 11 Feb. Incidents involving security forces left three people dead: one in Banga Bakundu, Southwest 14 Feb, one in Angie, Northwest 14 Feb and one in Ndongo, Southwest 17 Feb. Separatist armed group Tigers of Ambazonia 16 Feb killed one gendarme in Kumba and another in Bebensi 18 Feb, both Southwest. Marines killed four armed men in Mundemba, Southwest 20 Feb.  

One gendarme killed in Munyengue, Southwest 24 Feb. Security forces killed armed separatist and several civilians in Ebonji, Southwest 25 Feb. Separatist armed group Ambazonia Defence Forces abducted local official in Batibo, Northwest 25 Feb. Soldiers in pursuit of separatists crossed into Cross River state, Nigeria 26 Feb, reportedly killing at least one civilian there. New separatist armed groups formed: Banso Resistance Army and Donga Mantung Liberation Force. Separatist Interim Govt of Ambazonia Governing Council 19 Feb warned against holding senatorial elections, planned for 25 March, in Northwest and Southwest.

EU, U.S., France and Equatorial Guinea called for dialogue to end violence and UK minister visited 13-14 Feb urging de-escalation. In Far North, Boko Haram (BH) continued attacks: militants killed military officer in Limani 1 Feb and 25 other people in multiple places 3-24 Feb. Security forces killed BH suicide bomber, while another detonated explosives killing only himself in Kordo, near Kolofata 11 Feb. President Biya 7 Feb scheduled senatorial elections for 25 March; opposition Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun (MRC) 19 Feb decided to boycott on grounds that most councillors and mayors who will vote belong to ruling party. Main opposition party Social Democratic Front 24 Feb elected MP Joshua Osih as candidate for presidential elections later in 2018.  

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Rita Akana

03.Mar.2018

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Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, likes to travel abroad. As a result, he’s missed some far-reaching events in the country he rules from afar. In October 2016, when an overloaded train derailed in the small town of Eseka, killing over 75 people, Biya was on a “brief private visit to Europe” which is how his office refers to his regular jaunts to Geneva. The president only returned from Switzerland two days after the catastrophe, finally voicing his condolences on the airport tarmac.

A year later, Biya was away on another “private” visit to Switzerland when protests broke out in western Cameroon over marginalization of the English-speaking minority population. He didn’t return for another three weeks. While he was away, his security forces violently repressed demonstrators, setting off what has since become a simmering guerilla war.

The 85-year-old Biya has led his West African nation since 1982, winning four elections by sometimes improbably huge margins (while being accused by the opposition and observers of massive fraud). His country’s citizens have become increasingly frustrated with his repeated absences.

An investigation supported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) gathered information about the president’s travels from 35 years of editions of the daily government paper, the Cameroon Tribune. They show that, over that time, Biya has spent at least four-and-a-half years on his “brief private visits.” This total excludes official trips, which add up to an additional year. In some years, like 2006 and 2009, Biya has spent a third of the year out of the country.

These calculations are conservative because some editions of the Tribune are hard to find, and archives in Cameroon, France, and the United States have gaps in their collections that span several years.

The president is not in 
Cameroon is a low income country: A quarter of its 23 million citizens earn less than US$ 2 a day farming or hustling small jobs. The average life expectancy is under 60. In hopes of a better life, many of the country’s youths set off for Europe illegally in precarious vessels. Some are among the over 3,000 migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean in 2017.  

Like them, the president seems to prefer a life in Europe. But the similarities stop there. Biya’s official salary is modest (reportedly just $271 per month, plus bonuses), but he travels and lives abroad in luxury -- thanks, at least in part, to his country’s taxpayers. According to Cameroonian political scientist Achille Mbembe, nobody really knows what he does on his frequent trips to Geneva, although speculation ranges from hospital treatments to shopping sprees.

While his palace in Yaoundé is rumored to be luxurious, Biya prefers to spend a large portion of his “private trips” at the five-star Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, which offers a swimming pool and striking views of Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc. He does not travel alone. His wife Chantal, renowned for her gravity-defying hairdos, accompanies him on nearly every trip, as does an entourage of up to 50 people that includes ministers, bodyguards, butlers, and various other staff.

One of Biya’s closest confidants, Joseph Fouda, a military officer and special advisor, has accompanied him on at least 86 trips, amounting to more than three years of travel since 1993. He prefers a room on a top floor of the Intercontinental. Another close confidant, Martin Belinga Eboutou, 78, has spent nearly three years travelling with the president starting in 1987, when he was Cameroon’s ambassador to Morocco. Eboutou soon became a fixture on Biya’s journeys as his chief of protocol, and later as director of the president’s Civil Cabinet.

According to reporters’ conservative calculations -- based on publically available hotel room prices and a compilation of entourage lists -- the total hotel bill of Biya and his colleagues for one stay at Intercontinental, adds up to around $40,000 per day. At that rate, the cost of all of the president’s private trips (1,645 days in total) would add up to about $65 million since he came to power -- and that’s not counting food, entertainment, and the rental of a private plane. The president’s office did not comment on this issue.

The president attempted to buy a brand new private jet in 2004, but his staff reportedly cut corners on the deal, buying a defective plane covered by a fresh coat of paint that nearly crashed on its first flight. Since then, the president has chartered at least several private aircraft, including a luxury jet formerly owned by the government of Kazakhstan. Used for regular journeys, such a plane would be large enough to carry some 300 passengers, but for an elite clientele it has been fitted with amenities such as full-size beds and an office, and seats about 60 people.

Travel by chartered plane isn’t cheap. Invoices from 2010 apparently sent by a company called CS Aviation to Director of the President’s Biya Civil Cabinet, and reviewed by OCCRP, bill the Civil Cabinet nearly $855,000 for one round trip for 50 passengers from Yaoundé to Geneva and back. Other invoices show that, in 2013, the plane was kept on standby for two weeks at a daily cost of nearly $157,000. The company did not reply to reporters’ requests for comment.

At these rates, the cost of Biya’s flights since he came to power could add up to at least $117 million. It is not clear how much of the president’s travel money comes from the part of the national budget allocated to his office, which totaled $104 million in 2018.

According to the International Monetary Fund, more than $300 million of the revenue of Cameroon’s national oil company in 2017 was not accounted for. The president has oversight over the company, whose oil sales, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, have historically been used as a slush fund.

According to Transparency International, Cameroon is one of the world’s most corrupt countries, ranking 145th out of 176 countries on its Corruption Perception Index.

Who pays, who plays
Cameroonians pay in other ways for the president’s jaunts abroad. Every time he returns to Yaoundé, his motorcade crosses the whole capital from Nsimalen International Airport to his home, the Unity Palace. A dozen gleaming cars, including an ambulance, whizz through the streets. To ensure a smooth journey, traffic is blocked on the main roads, at times for the whole day.

Snipers are positioned on top of buildings. Taciturn soldiers in green camouflage stand at every corner with assault rifles slung over their bulletproof vests. Cars, motorbikes and pedestrians are forbidden from crossing, and so huge traffic jams pile up against both sides of blocked avenues. The city’s yellow taxis must spend the day parked, earning no revenue.

Urban legends circulate about these grand displays, like the one about a bride and groom who ended up stuck, separated by the president’s motorcade, on opposite sides of an avenue. When the president passes, the city stops breathing.

President Biya’s party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, arranges for crowds to line the closed streets and cheer for the president. But Florian Ngimbis, a Cameroonian blogger, says that Biya’s trips are seen not just as lavish outlays, “but very much also as a kind of contempt for the Cameroonian people.”

Those few Cameroonians who have the most reason to cheer Biya’s return are the dancers and musicians paid to perform on the tarmac when his plane lands. One drummer, afraid to have his name appear in this article, remembers earning $60 a few years ago: “We didn’t complain… we could drink beers for three days.” Nonetheless, says the drummer, security concerns have trumped the thirst for pomp and ceremony lately, and fewer musicians are being invited.

Decrees upon departure
When Biya lands in Yaoundé, he also meets his government -- at the airport. Formal ministerial councils are organized infrequently, every year or two at the most. But while Biya has used public funds to sustain a bureaucracy of 65 ministers and state secretaries, he mostly governs by decree or through a handful of laws sped through a rubber-stamp parliament.

Biya signs a flurry of acts between each of his trips. For example, in 2017, he signed a dozen laws -- the entire legal output for that year – in a couple of days. It took him just three days to sign the entire year’s decrees. According to Mbembe, the Cameroonian political scientist, Biya’s decrees mostly nominate civil servants to certain positions rather than directing any substantial course in policy.

“His way of exercising power is to not decide,” Mbembe said in a phone interview, “nobody knows what Biya thinks, or what he’ll do… everything can be changed from one day to the next”. He has become a “ghostly figure” leaving civil servants without direction. According to Mbembe, the unpredictability allows Biya to instil a fear of retribution in his ruling apparatus, as well as hopes of nominations to positions rendered lucrative by corruption.

It’s a system that has kept everyone in check for 35 years -- including those with ambition to take over power. But it could lead to a chaotic vacuum when the 85-year old president passes – whether he’s in his West African homeland or in a luxury hotel room far overseas.  

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Ekenneh Agbaw Ebai

03.Mar.2018

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Joshua Osih" It's scandalous that only two or three persons could come and kidnap a Sub Divisional Officer on the 11th of February 2018. According to the Social Democratic Front Presidential candidate for the 2018, the state security agents in the affected regions of the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon aren't assured or secured. Since the 11 of February 2018, the date of the kidnap of the Sub Divisional by unknown assailants, who had stormed the 11,February 2018 took away the Sub Divisional officer. The Sub Divisional Marcel Namata Diteng hasn't been released from captivity ever since he was kidnapped.

On the spectacular kidnapping of the Sub Divisional Officer, that of the Regional Delegate of Social Affairs for the North West Region, Animbom Aaron Ankiambom, kidnapped on the 24th on February in Batibo. Coronated as the Presidential flag bearer of the Social Democratic Front for the 2018 elections, last week end in Bamenda. Osih Joshua sees this situation very disturbing and scandalous. " we are in a situation where there is the declaration of war against against separatist fighters whose mode of warfare is asymmetric and no military can win in such warfare and the security agents are unable to provide security to state officials within these localities.  

It's scandalous that only two or three persons could cause such panic within the military that could only watch the Sub Divisional officer being kidnapped. This therefore means that if a war declaration is made against such a resilient group, the Military should be given adequate material and finances that could sustain the war" He was saying this on Monday night during the 8pm political program on Equinox television.

The extreme vulnerability of state agents within these localities having turbulent crisis isn't at all reassuring to the citizens of the Anglophone regions, according to the Social Democratic Front Member of Parliament. " When the population is wrongfully accused and when the people are collectively punished for the crimes that weren't committed by them, it's just because the population is simply saying" Have you even succeeded in providing security for yourselves" How can the military bring that security much trumpeted about in such a very tense sociopolitical climate"? This is the root cause of the problem . "The main challenge is that the problems aren't logically synchronized and given the desired push to resolve permanently this problem.

It's for this reason that we are convinced that the procedure taken to resolve this crisis isn't the right solution . We can't prosper using this procedure and dream of ushering in that much cherished peace. The situation is only inflamed and fanned" decried the native of Kumba.It's never late to make amends and call for that inclusive dialogue which remains as the only means through which peace can be reestablished, within the regions its been disrupted for two years. " The Government of Cameroon has the responsibility of maintaining law and order as well as peace. Then it's an obligation for the Government to reestablish peace withing these regions.

It should be taken into account that since two years ago, schools haven't reopened and that there have been ghost towns as well for these two years Insecurity has always been in the increase and lots of state employees as well as state Administrative staff have absconded their jobs in these affected regions. It can then be observed that the military approach in seeking for a sociopolitical crisis wasn't the most appropriate solution to this crisis.

It was outrightly stupid and cynical. Therefore let's try talking with those with dissenting voices, listen to them , ask from them what they really want. Dialogue doesn't mean that you concede to everything brought forth on the negotiation table" as proposed by Osih Joshua. This dialogue appears on his eyes more important than the forth coming Presidential Elections that the Country wants to organize this year, 2018.  

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Rita Akana

03.Mar.2018

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