Cameroon is a highly divided country along linguistic lines, and authorities of the nation are doing their best to promote the divide. When it finally explode, probably most of them would have died and their children living abroad.Almost all occasions that bring Anglophones and Francophones together, have become harbingers of what is known today as the Anglophone Problem.

In the just ended All University Games of Cameroon for example, there were very visible signs of the divide as manifested in the way officials threated Anglophone participants. It appeared to have been carefully thought out and orchestrated by Francophones and some few Anglophones who have no consciences.

During the games, in any duel between a school from Anglophone Cameroon and a school from French Cameroon, Francophones officials would do all to make sure their team goes ahead, most often bending the rules. In one of the quarter finals of female football pitting the University of Bamenda (UBa) against the University of Ngaoundéré, for example, as Yaoundé authorities grew surprised at the collective play style of the Bamenda girls, they appeared resolved to do their best to make sure Bamenda girls didn’t sail through to the semifinals.

Consider this for example. The girls from Bamenda scored three goals but they were all canceled by either the referee on the centre of the field or his assistants in an incoherent manner. Sometimes the referee would allow the goal but his assistant would disallow it and vice versa. In spite of that, UBa girls finally won after post-match penalties.A similar situation was witnessed at the male football finals where the rules were interpreted to the favour of Yaoundé I University to allow them play a finals that, as per FIFA and FENASU rules, University of Buea had won since those of Yaoundé I came very late.

The question many asked is, if it was Buea that had come that late would the match not have been given to Yaoundé I?But the worst was yet to come. And this wasn’t at the pitch. On the eve of the closing ceremony, mobile telephone company MTN, organized what it called Miss Games. Despite the brilliant performance of the ladies from the University of Bamenda, who won the Gold, MTN chose to give the crown to a lady from the University of Douala who could not even address the people. The decision received booing from Anglophonesas well as some conscientious Francophones who observed that the partiality was so glaring.

It is a fair thing to say that the Games were all about Francophones. The rules were made by Francophone officials and imposed on Anglophones. The working language was French and instructions were given to teams from the North West and South West in French, whether they understood or not – their problem.

But the marginalization appeared to have strengthened solidarity amongst Anglophones at the Games. English speaking students from schools in French speaking cities could be seen rallying behind any team from either Buea or Bamenda each time they had a match. Students from the Catholic University Institute of the Diocese of Buea and their Fan club abandoned their sister school, Saint Jerome of Douala and Catholic University of Central Africa, based in Yaoundé and chose to rather rally behind any school from Buea and Bamenda.

Whether by accident or by design, in the official tribune, all Anglophones Vice Chancellors and Rectors of State Universities sad at one end where they could easily speak their common language. And when players and top officials of the Anglo-Saxon universities could no longer take it, they complained bitterly in public that it is because they are Anglophones. They have vowed not to let the mess repeat in 2017 as the games go to the University of Bamenda.

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Laarry Uchenna

02.May.2016

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YOU will be fondly remembered as a dynamic patriot from manyu division. Some saw you as a controversial patriot,wanting to have all for yourself.

Some saw you as the Messiah of the manyu division. Truly,you died a great man,distinguishing yourself as a great manyu son,elite,father,leader and above all,the man whose courage and determination saw manyu sons and daughters in all of the best professional institutions in Cameroon,given a professional numerical strength above all or many of the divisions in the south West Region..Yet many of your own blood detested you because of you out spoken nature and your purported(will) to tilt your kins and kindred to where you thought guaranteed all good things in life.

SOME you achieved but some you were disillusioned but like "Spartan"you never gave up,for you believed in your convictions. Today you are just a shadow that in a short while,it is going to fade completely out of our memories,but one thing is clear,your input to your people will remain indelible and therefore "let the good be interred with their bones"Amen

Kinge John Lysonge

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Kinge John Lysonge

29.Apr.2016

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Dictionary.com defines lies telling thus; “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood, an inaccurate or false statement; something intended or serving to convey a false impression”.

Dr. George Simon says; “lying serves to give a manipulator an advantage over someone else. They want to keep you in the dark and keep you guessing. One of the best ways to do this is by deception. One subtle approach to lying is lying by omission. When someone wants to pull the wool over your eyes, they don’t have to make an obviously absurd or bogus claim. Many times, all they have to do is make sure they don’t tell the whole truth about something. It’s as simple as leaving out a very important detail or something crucial to understanding the whole picture”.
There are several forms of lying, but one approach Dr. George Simon highlights appears to describe vividly what is happening in Cameroon. He says; “Another type of subtle lying is the use of vagueness. When you confront a manipulator about an issue, they may give you an answer, but they might also be so vague about the details that you end up remaining largely in the dark. Sometimes, the disordered character can manipulate you effectively by doing just the opposite — by using specificity in a response in such a way that it may provide a limited answer to the question you’ve asked, but without providing additional detail that would better address the intent of your question”.

The over thirty-year rule of President Paul Biya has, from many perspectives been characterized by the glorification of lies telling to the point that lies telling has virtually been accepted in Cameroon as a way of life. The main thing here is that, as Jean Paul Satre put it; “In politics all means are good, provided they are efficient”.
In the early 1990s when the wind of democracy swept through Cameroon, the government found it hard to contain the thirst of the people for change. The growing unpopularity of the Head of State and his CPDM Party pushed the authorities to chosing the easy wrong against the hard right. That is how people like Prof. Augustin Kontchou Kouemegne rose to prominence, for telling vital lies that bailed the President out of complicated situations.

Prof. Kontchou’s lies were blatant, provocative and ended up being simply amusing, but no one ever found the opportunity to tell the regime a terrible foundation was being laid for the Republic and that the younger generation shall grow up with the notion that telling lies is not only normal, but acceptable. Elsewhere, fact checks would lead to the resignation of such congenital liars, but in our country, Cameroon, it rather attracts rewards at the highest level.

One striking thing is the degree to which public authorities get away with some seemingly ridiculous lies. In 1994, Cameroonians of all social strata contributed money to facilitate the participation of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon at the FIFA World Cup jamboree, hosted by the United States of America. Contributions came in from truck pushers, market women and even students anxious to see their heroes rekindle the miraculous performance of the World Cup organized by Italy in 1990. The collections were launched because government openly expressed difficulties sponsoring the team due to the raging economic crisis at the time.

Unfortunately for those who contributed, the money never reached the Indomitable Lions, not a single Franc of that money got to the team in the United States of America. The players found it difficult to carry themmselves around to the point where some benevolent American stars even organized concerts to raise funds and assist them. As could be expected, the performance of the squad was far below average and the team went on to concede 6 goals in one encounter against Russia, handing Salenco as many as 5 of those goals, making him by the same token, one of the top scorers at the tournament. It only took the genius of play maker, Roger Albert Milla for Cameroon to at least score a goal against Russia.
While the public expected government to render accounts on the money contributed, the spokeman at the time, Prof. Kontchou reduced the whole thing into a joke. He told Cameroonians on National media that; “The money was in the air between Paris and New York” and that was it until date. Nothing has ever been said again and no one has been brought to book for mismanaging the money.

Today, Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary has been seen widely as having replaced Prof. Kontchou, churning out what many see as blatant lies at every standpoint. The Minister recently received a missive from the Kondengui Maximum prison from one-time Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, Jean Marie Atangana Mebara who sought to correct what he considered outright lies and fabrications the told the public about the matter relating to the purchase of a presidential jet. The view that the Minister’s press conferences are mainly manipulative is somewhat widely shared and he is often compared to the infamous Prof. Knotchou.
As if that were not enough, members of the National Order of Medical Doctors of Cameroon have made a rare unpopular outing in support of their colleagues and their Minister in the Monique Koumateke affair. The Order corroborated a version, mostly considered as inaccurate, by the Minister of Public Health- Andre Mama Fouda, claiming Monique died at home before being ferried to the Lanquintinie hospital in Douala.

The report unfortunately came amidst press reports that members of the Order were trying to bribe late Monique’s sister who performed the operation to claim was a trained nurse, indict the mortuary attendant and admit that Monique died at home, in exchange of the sum of 50 million CFA F and a visa to any European country of her choice.
Without any surprise, the press reports alleging corruption attempts have been ignored by the authorities. Rather, the major pre-occupation remains the need to conceal the truth as much as possible from Cameroonians. A government that bribes its top ranking officials to manipulate election outcomes and confiscates all civil servants to the service of one man, cannot in any way ever lay claims to accountability, transparency and moral rectitude.

It is for this reason we hold at The Times Journal that the much heralded attainment of emergence by the year 2035 is a fallacy as long as this regime stays in place.

BY AKUROH JOHN MBAH

Senior Journalist(The Times Journal)

Communications Consultant

Cameroon||Media Production

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John Mbah Akuroh

13.Apr.2016

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On the night of  the 5th and 6th of  April 1984, gun shots were heard around the presidency of the republic.  On  the 6th of April, a message was read over state radio which Cameroonians were later on told was limited only to the residents of Yaounde the nation’s capital by a brave technician. The message indeed had confirmed that a coup had been staged and the Biya regime was now a thing of the past. Forces loyal to the regime came to the fore and on April the 7th, President Biya Biya was back in action. He took the floor and addressed the Cameroonian people informing them that he had survived a coup fomented by troops still loyal to his predecessor, the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo. 

Following these "sad" events, the remnants of the Ahidjo men in the presidential guard were executed and ever since the attempted 1984 coup, the 83 years old dictator now approaching his 34^th year in power is still holding firmly the helm of the Cameroon ship. He has resisted every form of opposition. He survived the civil disobedience campaign in March and April of 1991. He successfully neutralized Ni John Fru Ndi and the Social Democratic Front. Biya was victorious after the ghost town operations.  Since 1984, the Cameroonian strongman has organized 4 presidential elections. In 1992 he declared himself  winner and placed his main challenger , John Fru Ndi under house arrest. He says he genuinely won the presidential elections of 1997, 2004 and 2011. In April 2008, he changed the constitution of the nation and made himself head of state forever and ever.

Whatever Biya wants, Biya gets!! He launched the so called anti corruption campaign known as  "Operation Sparrowhawk", ostensibly to clean up the malpractices in the management of public affairs. When age started telling on him, he carriedout his own version of “A Hundred Flower Campaign” when he dished out news that he had passed on in a Swiss hospital. His agents identified those within his ruling council who celebrated when the news was made public and immediately he made a dramatic u turn and transformed Operation Sparrowhawk into a reckoning tool and eventually eliminated potential dolphins for the post of president of the republic. Since then several barons of the regime have been imprisoned, ostensibly for "embezzlement" of public funds. Now he wants another constitutional amendment to enable him hold early presidential elections.  Our Right Royal President lives on

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Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

05.Apr.2016

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For more than 40 years in the political arena of Spain two parties had been dominating, the People’s Party and the PSOE Party (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), which alternated in power. The last catalytic elections of December 20, 2015 resulted in a significant weakening of these traditional political forces and the emergence of new antiregime parties. Thus, the People’s Party of Mariano Rajoy got the lowest percentages since 1993 (28.72% of votes and 123 seats out of the 350 of the Parliament, compared to 44.6% of the votes and 186 seats in 2011), while the PSOE Party of Pedro Sanchez recorded the worst result in its history (22% of the votes and 90 seats, compared to 28.73% of the votes and 110 seats in the previous elections of 2011).

The emergence of the left party Podemos of Pablo Iglesias – product of the so-called movement of the “Indignant” – and of the center-right party Ciudadanos of Albert Rivera (which was supported by some mass media), in the third and fourth place respectively with high percentages (20.6% of the votes and 69 seats and 14% of the votes and 40 seats), shows the end of the forty-year-old two-party system and marks a new period for Spain.

This result, of course, is due largely to the economic crisis in Europe. The anti-popular austerity policy which was faithfully implemented by the government of Mariano Rajoy in the past four years, combined with a corruption scandal regarding his party, transformed the party map of Spain and led to the emergence of a new four-party political scene. 

The new parliamentary reality, where no party has an absolute majority, leads inevitably either to a coalition government that the majority of Spaniards seems to prefer or to new elections. After four years of governance with strong majority, Spain is now facing the prospect of some kind of political instability that torments the other European countries as well, since the fragile government coalitions and the traditional parties that dominated the political scene for decades, feel strongly the pressing effects of the years of economic hardship and the growing wave of immigration. The new Spanish government, whenever it may occur, with or without new elections, shall immediately be confronted with very serious problems and challenges. Although this European economy came out of the recession and entered the road to recovery, it will take several years, without regressions, to recover the lost ground. Otherwise, if the Spanish economy gets into reverse mode again, this precarious recovery will resemble the suspended step of the stork.

The country is beset by the second highest unemployment rate (21.18%) in the Euro-zone following Greece, and the unemployed Spaniards are more than five million. Poverty increases on a daily basis and threatens to disintegrate the social web of the country. “Poverty is the worst form of violence” once Mahatma Gandhi declared. With the applied vast neoliberal policies the gap between the rich and the poor is constantly growing. In 2013, 22.2% of the households, based on the most recent data of the National Statistics Institute (INE) of Spain, lived below the poverty line, i.e. their income was less than 60% of the mean national disposable income. Many people are living today without heating and without electric power, countless families face eviction and have no other residence (34.680 first houses, that is 95 a day, were confiscated in 2014 by the banks to be sold, according to the INE), many pensioners cannot pay for their medicines. Also, more than one in three children - or 2.6 million – are now faced with the risk of poverty and social exclusion, according to the most recent data of the European Commission. The high percentages of the long-term unemployed combined with the drastic cuts in expenditures on health and education have led more families and children to poverty in spite of the financial recovery.

The public debt is continuously showing an upward trend and based on the latest official figures, is at 98.8% of the GDP, approaching the high level of 100% of the GDP that reached or exceeded in the years 1900 and 1909. The “informal economy” is estimated at 25% of the GDP, i.e. 235 billion Euros that have not been declared, thereby depriving the Spanish State from some very substantial financial resources.

Meanwhile, the new Spanish government shall have to tackle the urgent issue of Catalonia. The election of the separatist Carles Puigdemont, who shall be responsible for starting the process of independence, to the presidency of Catalonia, is a resounding wake-up. “We need to commence the process to create an independent State in Catalonia, so that the decisions of the Catalan Parliament are sovereign”,  he declared on Sunday 10th  January 2016, under the cheering of the Members, only hours before the Catalan Parliament elected him head of the local government and successor Artur Mas.

The direct consequences of the unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia, which is the richest region of Spain with a product of about 200 billion Euros, shall undoubtedly be extremely painful: without Catalonia, Spain shall lose 16% of its population, 25% of its exports, and 19% of its GDP according to the OECD.

More than 586,000 companies are based in Catalonia – out of those 2,150 large companies employing more than 200 workers each, such as Gas Natura and the giant of garments Mango. In Catalonia there is the factory of the Volkswagen group as well producing cars of the brand Seat.

Besides, Barcelona is by far the first tourist destination across the country and one of the leading worldwide, with net proceeds from the arrival and stay of tourists reaching tremendous heights. Meanwhile, both in the commercial and the industrial sector, Barcelona is perhaps the most fundamental pillar of the Spanish economy.

The tendency of Catalonia for independence, this should be emphasized at this point, was born and acquired gigantic dimensions due to the austerity policies imposed by Brussels and mainly Berlin on Spain and of course throughout the Euro-zone. This is the main reason why the Catalans want to become at least autonomous. They want to have their own laws and their taxes not to go to Madrid to pay the austerity programmes. The reasons for the apparent break-up are therefore primarily financial, but also cultural.

In conclusion, the extreme austerity policies have hurt obviously and heavily Spain, like other countries in the Euro-zone. Therefore it is needed by the new Spanish government, which will be faced with a historic crossroad, to formulate a very clear progressive policy that will be built upon the re-examination of the Constitution, the direction of specific popular social reforms, the inhibition of uncontrolled privatization suffering, among other things, from issues of transparency, and the protection of the first housing to low income groups. The effective combat against tax evasion and financial crime is also needed, as well as the appropriate restructuring of the production model and the significant easing of major structural imbalances, such as unemployment, budget deficits, and the public debt.

 

About the author

Isidoros Karderinis was born in Athens, Greece in 1967. He is a novelist, poet and economist with postgraduate studies in tourist economy. His articles have been republished in newspapers, magazines and sites worldwide. His poems have been translated in English, French and Spanish and have been published in literary magazines and literary pages of newspapers. He has published seven books of poetry and two novels. Five of which have been published in the USA and in Great Britain.

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Isidoros Karderinis

31.Mar.2016

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After the drama of Lady Monique koumate who died during childbirth with her twins on March 12, 2016 and whose case aroused anger among the population, Cameroon has just experienced another public health disaster involving four children born six months earlier who all perished at the Yaoundé Central hospital. Cameroon Concord gathered that the babies were miraculously born and "instead of taking care of them, they were placed in a room without test tubes while the newborns were still fragile." All attempts at getting help from the so called Chantal Biya Foundation were futile. The babies were placed in a plastic bag and they all died some few minutes later.

The quadruple infanticide has revealed a new scandal involving medical negligence and failing incubators. Public Health Minister, Andre Mama Fouda who was combative, defiant, and ignored the Lady Monique scandal entirely including his loyal attack-dogs within the administration are now maintaining a kind of deliberate silence. Our senior health correspondent who contributed to this report hinted that, “What is more important in this whole medical crisis is for the ruling CPDM to emerge strong and still in control of state affairs”. 

Despite the maelstrom of accusations and counter-accusations, the Lady Koumate-L’hopital Laquintinie and the Yaounde Quadruple Infanticide affairs are now strikingly simple. It stands entirely on whether Minister Mama Fouda, the Littoral Governor and Co. were telling the truth—and not just a partial truth, but the whole truth. The general opinion is that President Biya, Minister Andre Mama Fouda and his gang of health officials have committed high crimes and misdemeanors requiring the intervention of the Special Criminal Court.

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Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

26.Mar.2016

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