Editorial

The republic of Cameroon will celebrate the 49th edition of the National Youth Day tomorrow Wednesday, February 11, 2015. There seems to be an absence of the excitement that usually comes with this day throughout the national territory. The CPDM think tank has chosen as theme "Youth and preserving peace for an emerging Cameroon". For the first time ever since the Ahmadou Ahidjo government concocted and implemented this so called National Youth Day celebration, the Far North region will not be a part. Reason: nearly 170 schools closed, 150,000 Cameroonian citizens internally displaced, over 300,000 Nigerian refugees now face starvation. The one time beautiful Far North region of Cameroon that occupied more than half of the cabinet positions in the Biya government is under the threat of a humanitarian crisis.

The traditional parade of the Youth Day will not take place in Logone and Chari, Mayo-Sava, Mayo-Tsanaga, Mayo-Danay--to be sure, in 4 of the 6 divisions of the Far North region.  In a country where the ruling party spends hundreds of millions every day all in a bid to stifle the opposition, there are now new signs that the real opposition to the Biya hegemony will come from soldiers returning from Nigeria and the Far North region of the country. Worsening urban violence is placing increasing demands on the Cameroon police force. The Cameroon army, the Gendarmerie including the police force are typically woefully underresourced, inadequately trained, unaccountable and distrusted by the local communities, leaving them ineffective in addressing the security challenges posed regularly by Boko Haram. This is what we of Cameroon Concord see as we cover the war on terror.

The special blood donation campaign announced by the Movement for the Revival of Cameroon on March 2015 to help save, wherever possible, persons injured in the war on terror in the Far North seems to suggest that Etoudi can no longer handle things alone.  John Fru Ndi has criticized the marginalization suffered by the people of the Far North region. However, President Paul Biya will address the Cameroonian people tonight. With age telling on him, a young family and his entire cabinet under a privileged form of “house arrest” due to many interrogations by the Special Criminal Court in Yaoundé, President Biya is expected to focus his speech on the Fotokol massacre. This also will be too little too late as the youth are not happy that nearly a week after the attack by Boko Haram on Fotokol, Biya is yet to issue a statement despite calls from the political class of the country.

Truth is like surgery, it may hurt, but it cures while a lie is like a pain killer, it gives temporal relief but has side effects later. We of Cameroon Concord think President Biya should announce his successor to the Cameroonian people soonest. The ruling CPDM party is no longer in need of grease but a new engine. To be accurate, the leadership of the party now functions like a teenager who has been given a new car and he keeps driving all over the place without having any destination in mind. For the first time in our nation’s history, thousands of our service men and women have come under enemy fire. Once they start returning from the war, they will longer be afraid of bullets!! This ageing regime should be making way for the new generation. A stitch in time saves nine

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Feb.2015

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Ghana discovered its offshore oil and gas Jubilee Field in 2007. By 2010, it had started pumping the first oil – a historic moment. Since then, oil has been produced in commercial quantities, and over the next 20 years it could earn up to US$20 billion in export revenue for the country. It is expected that this will present an opportunity for the growth of the country’s economy, reducing the poverty rate amongst the people living in the coastal towns where the exploration work is carried out. But four years after entry into the oil business, critical issues have begun emerging from communities living close to where the exploration takes place. The sea provides a major source of employment for people living in the coastal towns. They fish to get their daily bread. But recently, their work has virtually halted as a result of the frequent washing ashore of dead whales.

Between August 2013 and December 2014, the carcasses of 23 whales appeared on the beaches of Ghana. Traditionally, in the coastal towns such an occurrence was seen as a sign of a bumper harvest of fish, and the local people celebrated and made merry. They buried the whale and gave it a befitting funeral, just like a human being. This was the practice in the olden days. But the number of dead whales recently has changed people’s ancient beliefs. They are now worried. Whenever a dead whale is washed ashore, they are out of business. They cannot undertake their daily work routines until the mammal has decomposed. In Asanta, a small fishing village of about 2,000 inhabitants located in Ellembele District in the Western Region of the country, more than seven dead whales have appeared. The chief fisherman of the village, Joseph Ebambay, explained in an interview that this development was unusual in the past and blamed it on the oil exploration in the area. “I can say there is a change in the environment, because we are now having oil fields and oil companies running within our deep seas. So, you cannot deny the fact that, as we say, it may be because of the oil find. We may be thinking like that, we may be thinking because of the oil drilling some chemicals fell into the sea and maybe these whales … drink some of the water or whatever it is,” said Mr. Ebambay.

Not only the chief fisherman and his people in the village suspect the oil exploration. At the Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Ghana, Professor P. K. Ofori-Danson, a sea mammal expert, said in an interview that the current rate at which the whales are being washed ashore is something that must be investigated. “The frequency of the occurrence of death is going higher. What new thing have we put there that made it go high? The sound waves inserted into the ocean floor during the exploration are 100 times the sound of a jet plane taking off. So, if you send strange waves to the sea bed, it interferes with [the whales’] echo-location and prevents them from moving, and they are likely to swim to the shallow area of the sea and eventually be washed ashore. So we suspect the oil drilling”, the professor said. The Ghanaian government representative in the area is worried about the rate at which the dead mammals are being found. District Chief Executive, Daniel Eshon said Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not doing enough to help solve the problem, but declined to comment on whether the oil exploration is responsible for the death of the whales or not. “It will interest you to know that if it happens, the EPA people will call and say try and solve this problem, because they think that as the assembly is there ‒ the assembly is the local government in this particular area ‒ so you have to oversee everything. So in this case, most of the time, they rely on me to solve these kinds of issues. But for them … [to] do this kind of post mortem and proper analysis to determine the cause of death of the whale, they will not come,” he said.

Before oil exploration began, an environmental impact assessment was done for the government by the companies involved. In the assessment, it was identified that the exploration could cause some potential threats to marine mammals. But the mitigation measures that were outlined to reduce these threats have not been properly reviewed by Ghana’s environmental authorities. Friends of the Nation, an environmental issue advocacy group, has kept a close eye on the incidents and said in an interview that people in the area have reason to believe that the oil activities are responsible, since it was predicted that it could happen.But the environmental authorities have denied that the deaths of the mammals could be linked to oil extraction. ‘You must have evidence to say so; there has been speculation as to whether the oil activities might be responsible for this, [that] by generating seismic sounds that could disorientate the whales. But recent studies by the International Union for Conservation of Nature have shown that the evidence does not support it,’ maintains Carl Fiati, the EPA’s deputy director of natural resources, marine and costal environment.

Ghana’s environmental authorities are not making any concerted effort to uncover the mystery behind the deaths of the whales. Meanwhile, the migration period of the whales has just begun this year. From August 2014 till March 2015, they will be traversing Ghana’s waters, and probably more of them will be washed ashore, which will continue to disturb communities living along the coast.

 

Note: This article was first submitted to the Haller Foundation as an unpublished article. It was selected as the 1^st Runner Up in the Haller Prize for Development Journalism held in Nairobi-Kenya.

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Feb.2015

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The republic of Cameroon will celebrate the 49th edition of the National Youth Day tomorrow Wednesday, February 11, 2015. There seems to be an absence of the excitement that usually comes with this day throughout the national territory. The CPDM think tank has chosen as theme "Youth and preserving peace for an emerging Cameroon". For the first time ever since the Ahmadou Ahidjo government concocted and implemented this so called National Youth Day celebration, the Far North region will not be a part. Reason: nearly 170 schools closed, 150,000 Cameroonian citizens internally displaced, over 300,000 Nigerian refugees now face starvation. The one time beautiful Far North region of Cameroon that occupied more than half of the cabinet positions in the Biya government is under the threat of a humanitarian crisis.

The traditional parade of the Youth Day will not take place in Logone and Chari, Mayo-Sava, Mayo-Tsanaga, Mayo-Danay--to be sure, in 4 of the 6 divisions of the Far North region.  In a country where the ruling party spends hundreds of millions every day all in a bid to stifle the opposition, there are now new signs that the real opposition to the Biya hegemony will come from soldiers returning from Nigeria and the Far North region of the country. Worsening urban violence is placing increasing demands on the Cameroon police force. The Cameroon army, the Gendarmerie including the police force are typically woefully underresourced, inadequately trained, unaccountable and distrusted by the local communities, leaving them ineffective in addressing the security challenges posed regularly by Boko Haram. This is what we of Cameroon Concord see as we cover the war on terror.

The special blood donation campaign announced by the Movement for the Revival of Cameroon on March 2015 to help save, wherever possible, persons injured in the war on terror in the Far North seems to suggest that Etoudi can no longer handle things alone.  John Fru Ndi has criticized the marginalization suffered by the people of the Far North region. However, President Paul Biya will address the Cameroonian people tonight. With age telling on him, a young family and his entire cabinet under a privileged form of “house arrest” due to many interrogations by the Special Criminal Court in Yaoundé, President Biya is expected to focus his speech on the Fotokol massacre. This also will be too little too late as the youth are not happy that nearly a week after the attack by Boko Haram on Fotokol, Biya is yet to issue a statement despite calls from the political class of the country.

Truth is like surgery, it may hurt, but it cures while a lie is like a pain killer, it gives temporal relief but has side effects later. We of Cameroon Concord think President Biya should announce his successor to the Cameroonian people soonest. The ruling CPDM party is no longer in need of grease but a new engine. To be accurate, the leadership of the party now functions like a teenager who has been given a new car and he keeps driving all over the place without having any destination in mind. For the first time in our nation’s history, thousands of our service men and women have come under enemy fire. Once they start returning from the war, they will longer be afraid of bullets!! This ageing regime should be making way for the new generation. A stitch in time saves nine

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

10.Feb.2015

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Ghana discovered its offshore oil and gas Jubilee Field in 2007. By 2010, it had started pumping the first oil – a historic moment. Since then, oil has been produced in commercial quantities, and over the next 20 years it could earn up to US$20 billion in export revenue for the country. It is expected that this will present an opportunity for the growth of the country’s economy, reducing the poverty rate amongst the people living in the coastal towns where the exploration work is carried out. But four years after entry into the oil business, critical issues have begun emerging from communities living close to where the exploration takes place. The sea provides a major source of employment for people living in the coastal towns. They fish to get their daily bread. But recently, their work has virtually halted as a result of the frequent washing ashore of dead whales.

Between August 2013 and December 2014, the carcasses of 23 whales appeared on the beaches of Ghana. Traditionally, in the coastal towns such an occurrence was seen as a sign of a bumper harvest of fish, and the local people celebrated and made merry. They buried the whale and gave it a befitting funeral, just like a human being. This was the practice in the olden days. But the number of dead whales recently has changed people’s ancient beliefs. They are now worried. Whenever a dead whale is washed ashore, they are out of business. They cannot undertake their daily work routines until the mammal has decomposed. In Asanta, a small fishing village of about 2,000 inhabitants located in Ellembele District in the Western Region of the country, more than seven dead whales have appeared. The chief fisherman of the village, Joseph Ebambay, explained in an interview that this development was unusual in the past and blamed it on the oil exploration in the area. “I can say there is a change in the environment, because we are now having oil fields and oil companies running within our deep seas. So, you cannot deny the fact that, as we say, it may be because of the oil find. We may be thinking like that, we may be thinking because of the oil drilling some chemicals fell into the sea and maybe these whales … drink some of the water or whatever it is,” said Mr. Ebambay.

Not only the chief fisherman and his people in the village suspect the oil exploration. At the Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Ghana, Professor P. K. Ofori-Danson, a sea mammal expert, said in an interview that the current rate at which the whales are being washed ashore is something that must be investigated. “The frequency of the occurrence of death is going higher. What new thing have we put there that made it go high? The sound waves inserted into the ocean floor during the exploration are 100 times the sound of a jet plane taking off. So, if you send strange waves to the sea bed, it interferes with [the whales’] echo-location and prevents them from moving, and they are likely to swim to the shallow area of the sea and eventually be washed ashore. So we suspect the oil drilling”, the professor said. The Ghanaian government representative in the area is worried about the rate at which the dead mammals are being found. District Chief Executive, Daniel Eshon said Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not doing enough to help solve the problem, but declined to comment on whether the oil exploration is responsible for the death of the whales or not. “It will interest you to know that if it happens, the EPA people will call and say try and solve this problem, because they think that as the assembly is there ‒ the assembly is the local government in this particular area ‒ so you have to oversee everything. So in this case, most of the time, they rely on me to solve these kinds of issues. But for them … [to] do this kind of post mortem and proper analysis to determine the cause of death of the whale, they will not come,” he said.

Before oil exploration began, an environmental impact assessment was done for the government by the companies involved. In the assessment, it was identified that the exploration could cause some potential threats to marine mammals. But the mitigation measures that were outlined to reduce these threats have not been properly reviewed by Ghana’s environmental authorities. Friends of the Nation, an environmental issue advocacy group, has kept a close eye on the incidents and said in an interview that people in the area have reason to believe that the oil activities are responsible, since it was predicted that it could happen.But the environmental authorities have denied that the deaths of the mammals could be linked to oil extraction. ‘You must have evidence to say so; there has been speculation as to whether the oil activities might be responsible for this, [that] by generating seismic sounds that could disorientate the whales. But recent studies by the International Union for Conservation of Nature have shown that the evidence does not support it,’ maintains Carl Fiati, the EPA’s deputy director of natural resources, marine and costal environment.

Ghana’s environmental authorities are not making any concerted effort to uncover the mystery behind the deaths of the whales. Meanwhile, the migration period of the whales has just begun this year. From August 2014 till March 2015, they will be traversing Ghana’s waters, and probably more of them will be washed ashore, which will continue to disturb communities living along the coast.

 

Note: This article was first submitted to the Haller Foundation as an unpublished article. It was selected as the 1^st Runner Up in the Haller Prize for Development Journalism held in Nairobi-Kenya.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

10.Feb.2015

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The republic of Cameroon will celebrate the 49th edition of the National Youth Day tomorrow Wednesday, February 11, 2015. There seems to be an absence of the excitement that usually comes with this day throughout the national territory. The CPDM think tank has chosen as theme "Youth and preserving peace for an emerging Cameroon". For the first time ever since the Ahmadou Ahidjo government concocted and implemented this so called National Youth Day celebration, the Far North region will not be a part. Reason: nearly 170 schools closed, 150,000 Cameroonian citizens internally displaced, over 300,000 Nigerian refugees now face starvation. The one time beautiful Far North region of Cameroon that occupied more than half of the cabinet positions in the Biya government is under the threat of a humanitarian crisis.

The traditional parade of the Youth Day will not take place in Logone and Chari, Mayo-Sava, Mayo-Tsanaga, Mayo-Danay--to be sure, in 4 of the 6 divisions of the Far North region.  In a country where the ruling party spends hundreds of millions every day all in a bid to stifle the opposition, there are now new signs that the real opposition to the Biya hegemony will come from soldiers returning from Nigeria and the Far North region of the country. Worsening urban violence is placing increasing demands on the Cameroon police force. The Cameroon army, the Gendarmerie including the police force are typically woefully underresourced, inadequately trained, unaccountable and distrusted by the local communities, leaving them ineffective in addressing the security challenges posed regularly by Boko Haram. This is what we of Cameroon Concord see as we cover the war on terror.

The special blood donation campaign announced by the Movement for the Revival of Cameroon on March 2015 to help save, wherever possible, persons injured in the war on terror in the Far North seems to suggest that Etoudi can no longer handle things alone.  John Fru Ndi has criticized the marginalization suffered by the people of the Far North region. However, President Paul Biya will address the Cameroonian people tonight. With age telling on him, a young family and his entire cabinet under a privileged form of “house arrest” due to many interrogations by the Special Criminal Court in Yaoundé, President Biya is expected to focus his speech on the Fotokol massacre. This also will be too little too late as the youth are not happy that nearly a week after the attack by Boko Haram on Fotokol, Biya is yet to issue a statement despite calls from the political class of the country.

Truth is like surgery, it may hurt, but it cures while a lie is like a pain killer, it gives temporal relief but has side effects later. We of Cameroon Concord think President Biya should announce his successor to the Cameroonian people soonest. The ruling CPDM party is no longer in need of grease but a new engine. To be accurate, the leadership of the party now functions like a teenager who has been given a new car and he keeps driving all over the place without having any destination in mind. For the first time in our nation’s history, thousands of our service men and women have come under enemy fire. Once they start returning from the war, they will longer be afraid of bullets!! This ageing regime should be making way for the new generation. A stitch in time saves nine

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Feb.2015

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The fight against the Nigerian Islamic terrorist sect-Boko Haram in Cameroon is now a complex multifaceted war dear to all Cameroonians making President Biya and Cameroon a fragile State vulnerable to terrorist take-over in the Grand Nord regions despite the creation finally of a multinational 8,700 strongman force.  After the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Fotokol in the Far North region of Cameroon recently by the Nigerian Islamic terrorist  sect Boko Haram, Cameroonian civil society groups and the opposition have all edged the Biya regime to call for a national day of mourning.  

As Cameroon Concord earlier observed the perception that the atrocities of Boko Haram are wedged by disaffected and jobless youths who oppose and hate Western Education is becoming pedestrian. The sophistication of the command and operational structures of Boko Haram leaves no one in doubt about this reality.    The weapons deployed to commit the ongoing pogrom appear to have been acquired and brought to the war zones through a complicated network. It is hard to believe that a conflict of this magnitude can occur without a complex network of individuals and organizations supporting Boko Haram’s criminal war effort. It may be reasonably suggested that it is a political establishment serving distinct interests in Nigeria and Cameroon. In Nigeria, it has never sought ransom for the many victims it has abducted. In Cameroon although officially classified as a nebulous or illusive enemy, it has turned abduction for ransom into a lucrative business. 

However, three days after the massacre of innocent Cameroonian citizens, our Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief is yet to address the nation or even to issue a statement via his Secretary General at the presidency of the republic. The nation’s Roman Catholic Bishops are also maintaining a kind of silence of the lamb while the Protestants are busy commenting on the aftermath of the election of their new moderator. Many opposition figures condemned the attacks through the social media making it look like a kindergarten kind of stuff. Correspondingly, Cameroon Minister of Communication and government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary gave a vague press briefing without any information detailing what actually happened on February 4^th 2015 at Fotokol. It was then followed by another press conference this time around by the Minister for Defense Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o who spent the whole time allocated to challenge the correctness of Cameroon Concord’s report of 400 civilians killed at Fotokol. Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o told the world that only 81 Cameroonian citizens were killed including 13 Chadian officers. This to our intelligence officer based in the Far North is making a mockery of the 92 people slaughtered inside the great mosque not including those who met their day on the streets of Fotokol. Our senior political correspondent in Yaoundé revealed that nobody loved the Minister Mebe Ngo’o press conference. It is hard to tell who really the Cameroon government spokesman is. So even at these difficult times in our nation’s history, the Biya Francophone Beti-Ewondo government still thrives on Grand South and Grand Nord acrimony.

The point we are making here is simply that no one in the Biya administration takes responsibility, no one apologize and no one resigns. Why is President Biya quick to announce the release of foreign hostages be they French or German citizens but is yet to comment on this war crimes committed by the Nigerian Islamic sect on the Cameroonian people? It is evidently clear that our president needs help. The failure on the part of the Secretary General at the presidency Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh to make public a statement on behalf of President Biya immediately or after such horrible incident raises concerns about the President’s men!! Is President Biya really working with the good guys? We of this publication believe and fervently too, that the right thing to do is to provide President Biya with the help he badly needs at this time. Cameroon Concord is sounding it loud that these are extra-ordinary times that require extra-ordinary measures. President Paul Biya in his fight against Boko Haram should start putting in place a strategy to develop the entire Grand Nord regions in areas of education [schools], creation of jobs that has gone largely unaddressed by his predecessor. This will bring a meaningful change of mentality and a multiplier effect.

Cameroon Concord is asking the Head of State to appoint with immediate effect a real crisis government involving retired army Generals and Colonels at the head of the Ministry of Defense, National Police Force, the Secret Service- Department of External Research and above all, a military governor in the Far North region. We are calling on the Prime Minister and Head of Government Yang Philemon to order the establishment of a daily time slot in all television and radio stations operating in Cameroon dedicated to information on the ongoing war and the precautionary measures to be observed by the citizens.  Finally, like the Higher Judicial Council meeting, President Biya should summon the Supreme Military Council forum and grant the media complete access to deliberations and discuss the war on terror, the presence of foreign troops in our homeland, mapping out the way forward that will continue to make the people of the Far North region see themselves and other Cameroonians as one person. A stitch in time saves nine.

 

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

08.Feb.2015

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