Editorial

Where is the President of the Republic of Cameroon? It's been over 21 days now that the Cameroonian president left the country. Cameroonians are without news of him, according to close sources at the presidency who opted to be annonymous in passing over this information to Cameroon Concord.

On May 27 2016, a statement from the presidency indicated that Mr Biya had left the country for a brief private stay in Europe. No further details were given.
In the delegation accompanying the President were the following officials: Martin Belinga Eboutou, Director of the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic, Admiral Joseph Fouda, Special Advisor to the Head of State and BIKELE Pierre Simon, the Chief of State Protocol to Mr Biya. All close associates of the President.

But now, it is more than 21 days that Cameroonians are plaqued with the fate of Mr Biya and his whereabouts, including the reasons for this secretly kept trip, or better say his prolonged absence from the country.

In neigbouring Nigeria, the approach is different. Recently President  Buhari went on a medical trip to London for treatment for an ear infection,before leaving Nigeria, the media and public all knew of the reasons why he was leaving.Buhari gave the reasons for his trip and explained to his compatriots the reasons for the extension of his stay.

In Cameroon it is the opposite, communications on private trips of the Head of State, is particularly opaque and evasive.Mr Biya sees no reason to tell the public where he goes or what he does.

Paul Biya's holiday  in southern France in 2009  was the subject of articles in the Cameroonian and French press which alleged Mr Biya was spending $40,000 a day on 43 hotel rooms. Officials at the time defended the president's right to spend the money allotted to him the way he wished.

Because of his lengthy absences - sometimes two or three months at a time - he is known by his critics as the "absentee landlord".

When the Paul Biya lion died at Mvog Beti zoo in 2007, many said it was bad omen for the president.

Not long afterwards there were rumours that he had died in a Swiss clinic.

When he returned home after what had been a 43-day absence, he boasted on state television that those wishing him dead must wait for another 20 years.
Image caption Chantal the lioness at the zoo in Yaounde is now a widow

The late veteran reporter Pius Njawe spent a year in prison for suggesting the president was suffering from a heart problem when he appeared to faint while watching a football match some years ago.

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Jackson Tantoh

22.Jun.2016

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In 1993, when the President of the Republic decided to create new State universities, thereby decentralizing the then University of Yaounde, he transformed the Buea University Centre that came into existence in 1985 into a full-fletched University. In the organic text of the said University, the President specified loud and clear for everyone to understand that the Buea University was going to be Anglo Saxon in nature and run according to the same Anglo Saxon tradition.
That is why any visitor to the website of the University of Buea will be welcomed by this piece of information in the first paragraph at “About Us”; “The University of Buea was born in 1993 following wide-ranging university reforms in Cameroon. Conceived in the English-speaking tradition, the University of Buea seeks to foster the essence of that system, while situating itself within the larger bilingual and multicultural context of Cameroon. It is located in the historic town of Buea, former capital of German Kamerun, former capital of the federated State of West Cameroon and now the provincial capital of the South West Region of Cameroon. Although the University draws its students mainly from the English-speaking part of Cameroon, it also serves the other provinces of the country”.
In 2010, the Head of State again signed decree N0. 2010/371 of 14th December, 2010 creating the University of Bamenda and that decree was followed by another one in 2011. That was decree N0. 2011/045 of the 8th of March, 2011 to organize the University of Bamenda, outlining every structure and mode of operation.
The decree of 2011 in Part One on general provisions, article 1 states that; “This decree determines and defines the administrative and academic organization of the University of Bamenda”. In the same article 1 (a), it stipulates unambiguously as follows; “There shall be established a body corporate conceived in the Anglo Saxon tradition by the name of THE UNIVERSITY OF BAMENDA (herein after referred to as the University); it shall be constituted in accordance with the provisions of this decree”.These decrees taken by the Head of State in person demonstrate amply that there are two cultures in operation in Cameroon and which deserve to be protected by law. The decrees merely follow a pattern that already exists elsewhere. In Canada for example, the French speaking community is based in Quebec and no one has tried to harmonize anything there, the people are happy to enjoy their unity in diversity and that is what everyone expects to happen in Cameroon.

By attempting each time to absorb the Anglo Saxon system into the French sub system of education in the name of harmonization, the Minister of Higher Education and his close aides are in a way trying to tell the world that the President of the Republic who signed those decrees emphasizing that the universities of Bamenda and Buea are “conceived in the Anglo Saxon tradition”, is functionally “insane”, reason they have been doing all within their powers to correct his errors.

At this juncture, it is important to quote the late venerated Prof. Bernard Fonlon when he said; “It shall be wisdom and even a duty” for the authorities to consider leaving things the way they are in the interest of peace and unity of the country. This is so because attempts to destroy the Common Law tradition already have led to a serious threat to the unity of the Cameroon Bar Association, a not too negligible indication that worse things could happen if people like Fame Ndongo continue to take the laws into their hands

 

• John Mbah Akuroh

  ASMAC/IRIC Yaounde

  Msc in International Relations, Specialised in Communication and International Public Policy.

 

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John Mbah Akuroh

18.Jun.2016

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Cameroon presidential candidate  Ayah Paul Abine, writes on his Facebook page about veteran journalist and former World Bank Communications Officer, Boh Herbert.

---- Ayah writes-----

BOH HERBERT THE OBLONG BLOCKHEAD!

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Rita Akana

18.Jun.2016

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After ‘A People’s Call for an Anglophone for Presidency 2018’; after articulating the 10 good reasons why our majority francophone brethren would vote for an Anglophone candidate; after putting paid to rest claims that a minority cannot influence a majority by assembling jurisprudential evidence that historically, minorities have successfully influenced majorities and even in more complicating situations than ours; today, we begin critical and profound reflection on how to transform the wishes of Anglophone Cameroonians into concrete reality.

Given that it is incumbent on him/her who creates a need to seek to ways and means of fulfilling it, and given that time is not on our side; the team at Cameroon Journalists 4 Justice Solutions, CJ4J, and A Common Future-Cameroon, has been putting in the extra hour and extra energy to create an enabling environment for the Anglophone candidate to have an easy ride to Unity Palace.

Given that the Anglophone for Presidency Campaign largely draws inspiration from the Obama Organizing for Action campaign, OFA, where for the first time in American recent history, a Presidential candidate refused government and other lobby groups’ campaign funds, we are working hard to replicate that success story in

Cameroon in 2018 by making sure our candidate does not accept any form of government funding.

To make sure our candidate goes to Unity Palace on a clean slate without dirtying his/herself with some of the stolen money circulating in political circles and without influence from established interest groups and lobbyists, and to ensure that our next President is entirely accountable to the poor masses that voted her/him; it is our hope that both material and financial resources are put at the candidate’s disposal to cover caution and campaigns throughout the 10 regions of Cameroon.

Lifting the caution fee and campaign burden off the shoulder of the selected candidate in the upcoming Presidential election would inaugurate a new era of transparency and accountability in the management of public affairs in Cameroon as well as reduce personal and government expenditure during elections for public office in Cameroon.

So, what would I do if I had 2 billion FCFA from just 2 million Cameroonians of goodwill at home and abroad in the run up to 2018 Presidential elections?

This is the kind of life-changing question that revolutionalized entrepreneurship thinking in the United States of America. Frank Wakely Gunsaulus, educationist and preacher in his famous sermon, ‘What I Would Do If I Had a Million Dollars’ demonstrated in triumphant detail that ‘where there is a will, there is the way’, as he worked tirelessly to correct defects in the U.S educational system. By the time he ended the ‘million dollar sermon’, good will Americans showed an outpouring of support by contributing one million dollars to enable him introduce a new educational system in America where students were to ‘learn by doing’. It was the average American citizen’s widow’s mite contribution to Dr. Gunsaulus’ idea that America is what it is today, not the billions from government or some funding agency.

We are counting on just 2 million committed Cameroonians at home to chip in FCFA 1000 to special accounts created at various credit unions in all parts of the country for this cause. This way, we shall realize a total sum of FCFA 2.000.000.000.

This notwithstanding, our well-wishers in the Diaspora would have to chip in a minimum of $20 in to an account that would be created out there. The expected CFCA 10000 Diaspora donation would sum up to a total sum of $200.000 x 550 = 110.000.000 FCFA. Everything being equal, we expect that by December 2017, our expectations should be met.

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Gwain Colbert

10.Jun.2016

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Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  We call it the President’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit. An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value? The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.

Depicting the Special Criminal Court established to prosecute alleged corrupt government officials and the several Alibabas responsible for pilfering from the public treasury as the President’s court is no misnomer.  We call it the President’s court because it is one instrument of power through which the President is reining in on perceived opponents from within his CPDM power conduit. An attribute of a genuine court is the fairness of the trial proceedings in cases which are brought before the court for trial. It is not the number of convictions entered against accused.  A court is legitimate and recognized as such because of its exercise of judicial, executive, legislative and administrative independence.  A court that is independent must be accessible to all citizens after all, is equality before the law, not a constitutionally protected value? The Special Criminal Court is lacking in these attributes of impartiality, judicial independence and accessibility.  It is perceived more as the President’s Court than a Court of Justice.

Establishing this court was President Biya’s way of saving himself the embarrassment of being humiliated during his perennial trips abroad as the President of the most corrupt countries in the world.  This ranking of the country as the most corrupt or one of the most corrupt countries had a potential to hamper President Biya’s personal pecuniary interests far from the borders of Cameroon.  There was therefore a personal interest need to establish the court.  Another personal interest need was to avail himself of a legal tool under his direct control to consolidate absolute power, blackmail potential rebels and competitors within the system and to stifle any form of institutional opposition. He perceived the court as a tool with which to whitewash his more than thirty years of corrupt governance and the rape of the economy.

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Elangwe Pauline

08.Jun.2016

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Minette Libom Li Likeng, Cameroon’s Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (MINPOSTEL), with some highly placed government officials were interrogated by investigators from the judicial police unit attached to the Special Criminal Court on May 26, 2016. The MINPOSTEL was summoned by a pro CPDM police commissioner Enyegue Mbolong on May the 10th, 2016.

Minister Minette Libom was questioned over an issue of misappropriation of public funds during her time at the General Directorate of Customs. Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered from government sources that the Minette Libom Affair is connected to the “Project Nexus “launched ever since August 4, 2009.

The matter has become intractable following revelations that the complaint was filed to the court by the current Minister of Finance, Ousman Mey Alamine who reportedly was at daggers-drawn positions with Minette Libom  at the time she was  Director General (DG) of the Cameroon Customs.

It is now left for prosecutors of the Legal Affairs Division to shed light on the allegations listed in the Minister Mey Alamine correspondence. At the time of filing this report, our intel unit learnt that the Finance Ministry has forwarded the findings of an internal investigation to the Special Criminal Court.

Soter Tarh Agbaw Ebai

Editor In Chief

Cameroon Concord
cameroonconcordnews
Cameroon Intelligence Report

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Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

04.Jun.2016

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