Society

5 suspected highway robbers were neutralized this weekend in Ngoura, a border town with the Central African Republic, in the Lom-and-Djerem region In eastern Cameroon,by an elite unit of the national gendarmerie.

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Rita Akana

06.Feb.2017

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Yaounde-Cameroon:For the first time, since the outbreak of the Boko Haram insurgency in Cameroon, Paul Biya, will be present at a ceremony to pay tributes to military officers, engaged in the defense of Cameroon's national borders, specifically General Jacob Kodji and three other members of his crew that perished in the helicopter crash on January 22nd in Mora extreme north.

According to the official program, the ceremony will take place at the courtyard of the brigade headquarters in Yaounde, from 11 AM this Friday 3 February 2017.

The Cameroonian president, supreme commander of the armies, will hand over the attributes and honorary attributions, posthumously to the four soldiers who died in the helicopter crash.

The last trip of Cameroonian officers who were victims of the helicopter crash on 22 January began yesterday at the Yaounde General Hospital mortuary.The precincts of the Yaounde General Hospital were jammed to capacity as some Cabinet Ministers, a cream of senior officers of the Defence Forces, family and friends of the four deceased turned up to pay their last honour to the brave soldiers who perished in the January 22 helicopter crash in Bogo, Far North Region.

As the caskets bearing the remains of the Brigadier General Jacob Kodji, Colonel Alphonse Kameni, Lieutenants Basile Soulounkna Ngrassou and Brice Aurélien Chinda were brought in by cadet officers of EMIA, colleagues, relations and friends could not hold back their emotions as they grieved to the loss of the brave soldiers.      

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Rita Akana

03.Feb.2017

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Cameroonian Brigadier General Valère Nka was temporarily appointed at the head of the 4^th Inter-army Military Region (Rmia4) in the Extreme-North, a branch of the Cameroonian army leading the ground operations in the fight against the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram.

General Nka takes over from General Jacob Kodji, who died a few days ago in a helicopter crash, with three other army officers, as he was coming back from a zone operation. The new Rmia 4 Commander is well acquainted with the war against Boko Haram.

Indeed, this senior officer in the Cameroonian army, who was Defence Attaché at the Cameroonian embassy in Nigeria, is also the second in command for the multinational mix Force, set up by the countries in the Lake Chad basin to put an end to the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram.

BIC

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Rita Akana

02.Feb.2017

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The south west region of Cameroon is bereaved with the death of Governor oben Peter Ashu who died in limbe over the weekend.He died peacefully at his residence in the coastal city.

Oben Peter was highly credited with setting up a "Neo-Nazis" rule in the SW Province of Cameroon while serving under the regime of President Paul Biya.In mid 2014, while already on retirement,

Governor Ashu made Peace With God.He attended a special service  at the Bokwango Parish in Buea during that period, accompanied by his close family members.Reports from those who saw him at the church service say he had a cheerful appearance as he greeted parishioners after service.

In conclave with the Parish Council, Peter the Cameroon Hitler explained his Reign of Terror in Buea as "Human Weakness". He is said to have confessed and requested "Forgiveness from Anglophones of North West origin" saying he acted the way he did because his Paymasters expected nothing less from him...

"I was merely trying to please my Paymaster, President Biya because that is what he expected of me in order to maintain my Governor job".

In a remorseful tone that amounted to a Mea Culpa from a previously very arrogant Governor, massa Peter Oben pleaded for clemency, understanding and the human milk of forgiveness..."I am asking my NW brothers to forgive my trespasses. It was not deliberate. The truth is; I don't really hate Bamenda people as I am being characterized. That is not really who I am for those who know me"

Oben Peter Ashu is also remembered to have incited ethnic hatred as he onced people from the North-West region, who resettled in parts of the South-West region,as "Come No Go", a derogatory local coinage for an immigrant. In other words, the governor of a region calling Cameroonians "foreigners" simply because they resettled in his native region. Although this earned him the sack from the administration in due course, the government failed to speak up against such corrosive and divisive tactics by politicians of hiy type at that time.

While serving in Bamenda, Oben Peter Ashu was well received and treated with affection, for which reason he even acquired land and built a house in Nkwen. He equally made many good friends, as far as Ndop even, all of whom he later betrayed by his political campaign strategy of calling the North-Westerners in the South-West, "Come No Go".

His death is however a big lost to his family and friends.

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Rita Akana

30.Jan.2017

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Cameroon's Camrail bears "total and entire responsibility" for a passenger train accident that killed at least 79 people last year, concluded one of the four experts reports commissioned by the government for an official inquiry that was seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The packed train operated by Camrail, a unit of French industrial group Bollore, derailed in the town of Eseka on Oct. 21 en route from the capital Yaounde to the central African country's port city of Douala.

Soon after, President Paul Biya ordered an inquiry, including reports by four different teams of experts, to establish the cause of the accident. Reuters was unable to determine when the government will release its findings, which are expected to draw upon on information from each of the four reports.

One of the experts reports seen by Reuters outlined a chain of technical and administrative shortcomings by Camrail that it said contributed to the accident.

"There was no force majeure, and we have not noted an external cause either. The catastrophe is therefore totally attributable to Camrail and its managers at the highest summit of the hierarchy," the report stated.

When asked for a comment about the report, a spokesman for Bollore's Camrail unit said on Thursday: "We respect and continue to respect the confidential nature of the inquiry."

Contacted late on Thursday, Cameroon's government spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the report.

In the document, whose conclusions may not necessarily be reflected in the government's final report, railway expert Benoit Essiga wrote that Camrail had disregarded passenger capacity and weight limits as it sought to accommodate increased demand from travelers.

The train had not been properly inspected and 13 of its 17 carriages had malfunctioning braking systems, the report found. It added that Camrail's management had disregarded complaints from personnel regarding technical defects.

Reuters could not independently confirm the assertions contained in the report.

Eric Melet, chairman of Bollore Africa Railways, acknowledged to Reuters in October that the train had been traveling at about twice its normal speed when it derailed. He also said carriages were added before the train's departure with the permission of the authorities, but denied it was overloaded.

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Rita Akana

30.Jan.2017

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With the complete shutdown of the internet in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon and the inability of the populace of these two regions to access the social media to get “breaking news”, the old glorious days of the traditional media is beginning to gain stem in the above mentions regions.

Unlike in the past when the social media used to occupy almost 80% of the news market with denizens relaying predominantly on it for daily information, the shutting down of the internet in Anglophone Cameroon is not just playing positive for owners of traditional media especially the private media, but is equally bringing back the old glorious days of the traditional media.

Newspaper sales are at its best as vendors who spoke to Cameroon Concord affirm that their kiosk recently receive unprecedented numbers of buyers daily who come to update themselves with recent happenings and latest information as regard the ongoing strike action in Cameroon. With the sales hitting the ceilings, it is now a common practice to pass and see a group of youths in their twenties reading a newspaper and debating on a topic. The immediacy of radio and its ability to break and report on events as they occur place it at the top of preferred media in the Anglophone Cameroon these days.

In Buea for example, rather than seeing youths walking with their heads down, tweeting and commenting on post on one of the social media networks, almost everyone has an ear bug connected to their phones.

But just that this time they are not listening to the latest hit they just downloaded but to various radio stations be them local, national or international. Marvelous Ngale, manager at a Buea-based radio station who spoke to Cameroon Concord avowed that the number of calls he get for his call-in programs has tripled since the shutdown of the internet. His words “…it is actually unbelievable; sometimes we receive calls such that the presenter and panelist have no time to chip in their own contributions.” As regard the audiovisual media, the story is almost the same with a constant increase in viewership and contributions per-program.

A Buea-based TV anchor boasted to Cameroon Concord how her program recently signs two partnership agreements because of the audience it pulls. While confirming that the program which is a morning show sometimes hardly read all its contributions sent via Short Message service, SMS, the anchor sound optimistic that even when internet will be reconnected to the North West and South West Regions, traditional media despite what some critics say will hardly be exterminated.

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25.Jan.2017

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