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Members of MEME Lawyers Association marched across the streets of Kumba Monday June 27,2016 brandishing placards denouncing the adoption of the New Penal Code, as well as harmonization of education system, common law marginalization among others. Over 120 lawyers including Pupil advocates were seen on streets as they made their voices heard.They are demanding the head of state not to promulgate the controversial penal code into law. 

Their protest comes a week after those of NOWELA took to the streets for same reasons.According to reports from kumba,the lawyers have promised to boycott court sessions if such bill finally goes through at the level of the presidency.The revised version of 50 year old Cameroonian penal code has sparked reaction in recent times as the Cameroon bar through its president Barrister Jackson-Francis Ngnie Kamga writing a memo demanding on the process to be stopped.

The bar argues that the Council was not duly represented in the drafting of the bill and that most articles had serious judicial lapses.There have also been a general outcry on the article on the imprisonment of tenants who owe their landlords at least two months imprisonment .According to members of the civil society two months debt should not be punishable especially with the dwindling economic situation of the country.

SDF MPS who form the SDF parliamentary group at the national assembly expressed their dissatisfaction on the bill by walking out at the time of adoption,the MPS picked holes especially with article 127 which grants government ministers parliamentary immunity

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Rita Akana

27.Jun.2016

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We, members of the Cameroon Anglophone Newspaper Publishers’ Association, CANPA have taken keen interest in the on-going national debates on certain amendments being made on the country’s penal code. We have also found time to seek legal counsel with respect to some unacceptable, provocative and seemingly inhuman provisions included in the bill adopted grudgingly by members of the Lower House of the National Assembly.
Mr. President, there are two provisions of that law and an important omission that capture our attention, but which are sufficient enough to let you see the need to return that bill to the Lower House of Parliament for another reading, while receiving views from the broad spectrum of other stakeholders.
First of all, there is the section which states that tenants, who will find themselves owing their landlords rents for just two months, could face the prospect of imprisonment. This is the clause that seems more of a provocation than any intention to rid the society of delinquents.
On this issue, Mr. President, we would like to take the example of the public service alone, where new recruits into the various services often go for well over 24 months without pay while waiting to be integrated or are paid a little under half of their salaries to cope in villages and big cities alike. Where shall they be expected to live in order not to owe landlords rents for several months while hoping your government begins to fully honour its obligations towards them?
What of the case of employees whose employers accumulate months of unpaid salaries sometimes due to no fault of theirs, like it is the case of Camair-Co 

Staff members today and a lot of our poor councils; what sanctions have been set aside to make them pay the workers so that they do not get thrown into jail by landlords?
Worse still, the unemployment rate in Cameroon is officially above 20% and this country does not have any programme that enables the unemployed to get stipends to manage on like it is the case elsewhere; shall there be enough space in the streets to accommodate these people who are barely surviving?
Secondly, the law according immunity to your ministers in the discharge of their duties, simply seeks to worsen the current wanton rate of impunity this country is witnessing. It is also an official announcement of the end of the anti-corruption drive that had gradually emerged as a signature achievement of your tenure as President of the Republic. One wonders, Mr. President if this particular provision is not just brought in by your ministers to shield themselves against you, since no other citizen in this country had ever successfully dragged a sitting member of government to court? The move is simply ridiculous and aimed at thwarting all the noticeable advances Cameroon has made this far.
Finally, Mr. President, we are so surprised that several media outings by communication experts and journalists in the past few years, including members of watchdog organisations, have called for the decriminalization of press offenses and the removal of some obnoxious provisions in the law that make journalism practice in Cameroon too complicated, but nothing was mentioned about that. Rather, your justice officials preferred to favour issues like adultery that do not, for now, really pose any veritable threat to society, like the absence of a free press.
Mr. President, recently your government organized a huge come together of top business executives from around the world to brainstorm about investing in Cameroon. A lot of the tax payers’ money was spent in that initiative that was largely considered laudable; but the gains made- including the openness created by the April 18, 2013 law on incentives for investment are going to be completely mitigated by these hazardous amendments on the country’s penal code.

Within this framework, Mr. President of the Republic, we are calling on you to use your office to refuse signing the said bill into law. We pray you to return the bill to the justice department to organize an inclusive national debate on the proposed amendments before sending it again to Parliament for examination and adoption.
Were you by any chance to go ahead and promulgate that bill into law, then you would have, by that single act ordered the creation of many more prisons, worsened the plight of an already suffocating mass of common poor people and placed the peace reigning in Cameroon in danger.

Signed:
John Mbah Akuroh Ojong Steven Ayukogem
President Secretary General

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Rita Akana

27.Jun.2016

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The Niger Delta Avengers militant group that has been bombing oil installations in Nigeria’s oil-rich but ravaged region is calling for a referendum so that Nigerians can decide whether they want to continue with the current system of governance.

They asked President Buhari to learn from the lead of UK Prime Minister who called for referendum relating to whether or not United Kingdom should stay in the European union or not, a poll that the ‘leave’ proponents won by about 52%

‘‘President Buhari borrow a leaf from PM David Cameron, call for a referendum and let Nigerians decides like they did to vote you into Power,’‘ the group wrote in a tweet on Saturday night. 

An accompanying map in one of their tweets labeled ‘Flag and Map of the Future,’ split Nigeria into five main political blocs, the Northern ‘Arewa Republic,’ the middle ‘Niger Middle Belt’ and ‘Oduduwa Republic,’ ‘United Niger-Delta,’ and ‘Biafra Republic’ to the south.  

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Rita Akana

27.Jun.2016

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U.S. first lady Michelle Obama will travel to Africa on Sunday with daughters Sasha and Malia and her mother as part of an effort to promote girls’ education, her office said.

The upcoming, six-day trip will include visits to Morocco and Liberia.

The trip will highlight the work of Let Girls Learn, a U.S. government initiative launched by U.S. President Barack Obama and the first lady in 2015.

Let Girls Learn is part of “a U.S. government effort to address the barriers that keep over 62 million girls around the world out of school, particularly adolescent girls,” the first lady’s chief of staff, Tina Tchen, told reporters on a conference call.

Michelle Obama will be joined by actresses Meryl Streep and Freida Pinto in Morocco, where they will talk to adolescent girls on the challenges they face in getting an education. 

In Liberia, she will visit a U.S. Peace Corps training facility and a school with Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female elected head of state and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The first lady will speak to adolescent girls at Unification Town, Liberia, about the obstacles they faced in order to acquire education.

“The conversation will highlight both educational barriers girls face as Liberia moves beyond the Ebola epidemic, and the U.S. government’s efforts to continue to address those barriers and provide adolescent girls with equitable access to safe and quality education,” said Tina Tchen, Chief of Staff to the first lady.

Michelle Obama’s interest in education for young girls was heightened after militant Islamist group Boko Haram seized 276 girls from their school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, in April 2014.

Reuters

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Rita Akana

25.Jun.2016

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Opposition leaders in Gabon on Friday called for “each and every Gabonese” to counter the candidature of outgoing President Ali Bongo Ondimba in the election set to be held on August 27, citing “doubts” about his nationality.

“We invite each and every Gabonese to go, now and write a letter to the Election Commission to oppose the candidacy of Ali Bongo and require disqualification of the electoral process”, said three of the main opposition candidates received by the autonomous and permanent national electoral Commission (Cenap), just over two months before the country heads to the polls. 

“We encourage them to stand up against the denial of rights, deception, and the abuse of,” the opposition leaders added in a statement read outside the electoral body’s office.

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Rita Akana

25.Jun.2016

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President Paul Biya resurfaced at the Nsimalen airport in Yaounde today afternoon, without his wife Chantal after being out of  the spotlight for 28 days.

The head of State of Cameroon, has returned to the country after nearly a month out of touch with Cameroonians. 

The President of the Republic, left the country on May 27, 2016. Oficially for a private stay in Europe, according to press statements from the civil cabinet at Presidency of the Republic, which did not specify the country of destination,or reasons for the private departure.

Cameroon concord learned through media sources that  the "Absentee Landlord" (a term often referred to my Biya as a result of his frequent long term stays out of the country)had taken up residence at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, for family and private matters.

After arriving on Saturday, the Cameroonian strong man , gave nopress statement  to the local press. Cameroonians are left with questions  about the real reasons of  this  "private trip" .Many unanswered questions are being asked.

It should be noted that,the Cameroonian first lady,  Chantal Biya, who has been out of Cameroon  for over 45 days now, was not seen alongside her husband as he stepped out from his chattered jet at the Yaounde Nsimalen airport.

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Jackson Tantoh

25.Jun.2016

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