The tally of newly listed voters was released in Yaoundé during the second ordinary session of the Electoral Board of Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) for the year 2017 on Thursday, April 6. Cameroon’s elections management body, ELECAM says it has registered over 100,000 new voters since the re-opening of electoral registers in January 2017.

According to the statistics presented during the second ordinary session of the Electoral Board of the electoral management agency in Yaounde on Thursday, April 6, the Centre region tops the chart of the tally while the West and Far North regions follow in the second and third positions.

The South West region, one of the Anglophone regions that has been rocked by crisis for several months now is top from the bottom with just slightly over 2,000 newly registered eligible voters for the past three months. During the Board meeting that was chaired by Samuel Fonkam Azu’u; chairman and president of the Electoral Board of ELECAM, members were also briefed on the progress of work at the construction site of the institution’s head office.

The registration that targets the 2018 elections in the country will end on August 31, 2017 for the currently year. Should the electoral calendar be respected, four major elections will take place in the country next year; municipal, legislative, senatorial and presidential elections which observers say president Pau Biya would seek another mandate.

Cameroun Info.Net

The Government Delegate to the Limbe City Council, Andrew Motanga Mojimba, the Francophone Senior Divisional Officer for Fako, Zang III and some CPDM elites resident in Limbe, Fako Division in Southern Cameroons, have embarked on an ‘Operation Zero Ghost Town’ in a bid to combat the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium.

The Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo agents staged a peace walk though the City of Limbe and claimed they were sensitizing the population to desist from ‘ghost town’ spearheaded by the banned Consortium. The Francophone surrogates foolishly observed that ghost town has done great harm to the people of the area especially businessmen than the shutting down of the internet services.

The walk reported Cameroun Info.net was intended to paralyze the ‘ghost town’ and send a strong message to Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium that the people of Limbe will not condone with their tactics. However, an operations manager of the Consortium was quoted as saying Yaounde no longer has legitimate authority in Southern Cameroons and that ghost towns will be intensified and schools will remained closed until the new generation of Southern Cameroon leaders and all the young men and women abducted in West Cameroon are freed.

The Francophone SDO recently attempted to invoke the North West/South West divide when he publicly stated that the Limbe food market was set on fire by a young man who travelled all the way from Bamenda. Those who took part in the so-called Operation Zero Ghost Town were CPDM Victoria members who were hired and paid by the SDO. The presidency of the republic had channeled huge sums of money to the Beti Ewondo SDO in Limbe to help fight against the Southern Cameroons uprising.

By Rita Akana with files from CIN

Mayor Patrick Ekema Esunge has distanced himself and the Buea City Council from the anti-North West pronouncements that were made by the Grand Chancellor, Peter Mafany Musonge and his gang of South West political elites. Patrick Ekema has now joined the long list of South West CPDM barons running away from the former prime minister.

The Buea mayor made public his opinion on the ongoing Southern Cameroons crisis in Bamenda recently and further pointed out that the Buea Council was never part of declarations of the South West Forum which took place in February in which certain xenophobic speeches were made against the North West community resident in the South West.

Patrick Ekema Esunga who is under surveillance ordered by the operation manager of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium Buea Chapter for his excessive use of force on businessmen and women respecting ghost towns, revealed that he was never part of the nasty political meeting where former PM Peter Mafany Musonge, Senator Chief Tabe Tando and Dr Nalova Lyonga launched a scathing and vicious attack on the people of North West region.

The Buea mayor noted that out of 18 top positions in the Buea city Council, 7 are occupied by people from the North West region- an indication that he is implementing the policy of National Integration. In a scantily attended media forum Patrick Ekema said he is also a son of the North West region. He appealed that the people should live as one regardless of their region of origin and tribes.

A sister publication, Cameroun Info.Net reported that the Mayor was trying to clean an already damaged image in the face of the Anglophone uprising.  Mayor Patrick Ekema has reportedly participated in the arrest, rapes and killings going on in Southern Cameroons.

By Rita Akana

A panel of Cameroon Anglophone Common Law Lawyers appeared skeptical over the recent move made by the Francophone regime to get Southern Cameroons lawyers back to work with one of the lawyers saying at one point that the government’s argument was pretty abstract.

During a teleconference moderated by our London bureau chief, the lawyers who all sued for anonymity questioned Justice Minister, Laurent Esso’s fairness and competence in managing the issues with evidence from the Anglophone lawyers strike connecting it to its detained leaders currently being tried for terrorism.

The lawyers unanimously opined that Biya has not concerted to anything and that it was just an attempt by the Francophone cabinet ministers to calm down the tension already mounting in Southern Cameroons. ‘Biya cannot be announcing those kinds of sweeping changes from a hotel in Swiss and through a poorly organized press conference”.

The Southern Cameroon lawyers have reportedly told the Justice Minister that the recent changes announced by the Biya Francophone regime will not send them back to the courts. The lawyers have made public a list of demands including the release of their colleagues and arrested Anglophones, redeployment of Civil Law magistrates, reconnection of Internet services, implementation of resolutions of Prime Ministers Ad Hoc Commission and the demilitarization of the Anglophone regions of the country.

The Southern Cameroons lawyers say by littering all state universities with Common Law departments is indeed a “nonsensical nonsense.” The lawyers also rejected the merging of Political Sciences and Law under on faculty according to the new plan. However, some moderate Anglophone lawyers have expressed satisfaction on the Biya plan but say it will only be concrete when it is decreed with written material to back it.

By Chi Prudence Asong

The Speaker of the French Cameroun National Assembly, Cavaye Yegue Djibril has said that the people of the South region love him because he loves his boss President Paul Biya. Cavaye made the declaration during a ceremony to promote entrepreneurship and agro-pastoral professions in the South region. The MP who hails from the Far North region was knighted as Ntôtône Zingui, the “intrepid gladiator” who is the master of ancestral wisdom.

In reaction to the honour from the traditional chiefs of the South, Cavaye Yeguie Djibril said: “I was made an honorary citizen of the city of Sangmélima. Today I am enthroned Ntotônr Zingui. The South loves me because I love my boss, President Paul Biya.”

Cavaye Yeguie Djibril who has offered only a second hand ambulance vehicle to his Far North constituency ever since the Boko Haram incursions was accompanied by some 100 MPs, ministers in charge of Youth and Civic Education, Agriculture and Rural Development, Employment and Vocational Training, Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries. They met more than 3,500 young people from the 29 districts of the Southern Region.

By Eyong Johnson

The so-called Special Criminal Court in Yaoundé has finally issued an arrest warrant against Lazare Essimi Menye, former Minister of Finance and then Agriculture. The Francophone state prosecutor stated that Lazare Essimi Menye, former Cameroonian Minister of Finance and Agriculture, is under an international arrest warrant. He is charged with complicity in the misappropriation of public funds estimated at 1,756,570,380 (one billion seven hundred and fifty-six million five seventy thousand three hundred and eighty) CFA francs, as part of the unrequited payment of one Ordered by Challenger Corporation, of which Tchakui François is the developer. The former IMF staff member was sacked from the government on October 02, 2015, and received a medical evacuation that raised controversy among the public and the media. He is currently in the United States.

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.

With the war against Boko Haram, the fight against corruption using the Special Criminal Court has afforded Paul Biya justification contest in the next institutionally flawed elections in order to eternalize power purportedly to direct the war against terror and the war against corruption.  True to the name the President’s Court, the President has exclusive preserve in referring cases to the Special Court and the power to terminate them. He decides who will be arrested, who will be investigated and who will serve time and who will not.

By Chi Prudence Asong and Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement has celebrated 32 years in power in a ceremony described as outrageous domination of the politics of the country. The Biya crime syndicate has molded the political environment in the country to its favor. The party has successfully reformed the laws of the country and eliminated all attempts to challenge its ascendancy.

The CPDM is 32 years old, and those holding to power are at least twice as old.  They have always advocated consolidation of power. However, the National Chairman is extremely lacking in leadership finesse.  The party is run by a generation of men and women who had free education, had scholarships at universities, were recruited into the public service as soon as they returned to Cameroon and given early positions of power before they inherited the supreme power.

To be sure, it is a generation that does not know how to pay water or electricity bills and has never rented a house. To be accurate, it is a generation that never paid neither the wages of their own drivers, nor cooks including its private security guards.

The leadership only knows how to confiscate power. The Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH) is their piggy bank and finances criminal activities of the regime such as the purchase of the Albatross plane.  Marcel Niat Njifenji and Cavaye Yeguie Djibril will both remain in the perch of the Senate and the National Assembly and have no interest in the Anglophone crisis. To Biya and his gang, Anglophones are not part of the deal.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

With dozens of people already packed into stands pretending to be CPDM militants and music blaring to warm up the crowd, CPDM’s Eyumojock rally to celebrate the party’s 32 anniversary was abruptly abandoned over security concerns as Southern Cameroon protesters chased away the so-called external elites out of town.

Minutes after Chief Obenofunde Moses former General Manager of PAMOL described by the late Prof. Peter Agbor Tabi as the worst Manyu MP ever was to have taken to the podium, the announcer suddenly pronounced the event as illegal in Southern Cameroons territory and stones and sand started raining on those who had taken up sits in the grand stand.

Scores of Southern Cameroon protesters raided the venue and the high powered delegation including security agents had to escape for their lives. Chief Moses Obenofunde and the members of the CPDM delegation ran at lightning speed abandoning their cars, shoes and hand bags.

Around Manyu, West Cameroonian protesters have interrupted virtually every CPDM event and Nigerian flags have been hoisted all over Akwaya Sub Division. Elsewhere, Francophone security agents tried to identify and exclude potential demonstrators before they enter any CPDM events, but large groups of protesters had waited in line for seats in Mamfe and Tinto and engaged in tense disputes with highly placed government officials.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Eyumojock

The Anglophone problem is, without a doubt, very bad news to many Cameroonians, especially government officials, many of whom are losing both sleep and weight. Every blessed day comes with new apprehensions as the government and the protesting Anglophones stick to their positions.The Anglophone problem seems to be an effective weight loss program for government officials and this is being compounded by rumors of an impending cabinet reshuffle that may bring significant changes in the country. The current crop of ministers,according to Anglophones,has failed to deliver the results expected of it, especially as the crisis rocking the country was triggered by their inability to find reliable solutions to the issues raised by the Anglophone minority. It is also believed that the boastful and disrespectful rhetoric of the Minister of Higher Education, Fame Ndongo, and the condescending attitude of the Minister of Justice, Laurent Esso, are to blame for the violent escalation of the crisis.

From every indication, the Anglophone minority has lost confidence in its political elite; an elite that has gotten richer while the people have gotten poorer. Poor economic policies of the past decades have simply melted the middle class and the ordinary Anglophone is perpetually struggling to make ends meet. Anglophones hold that Prime Minister Yang Philemon, Peter Mafany Musonge and others who purport to represent them are simply feathering their own nests and that they clearly belong to the past. They contend that the region needs new leaders, as current leaders have fallen short of their glory. These leaders, they say, have been useful, but only to their families. While their immediate families are living in the lap of luxury, the ordinary Anglophone is stuck in grinding poverty, with many being unable to have access to quality health care and decent housing even when their region accounts for 60% of the country’s wealth. They argue that these services were readily available to all West Cameroonians prior to the region’s reunification with East Cameroon.

As both the government and the protesters remain frozen in their positions, many administrative officers in the Anglophone region are at their wit’s end. The current crisis playing out in the two Anglophone regions has become a permanent nightmare to administrative officers in the Anglophone regions. All efforts to tackle those fostering the strikes and civil disobedience have crumbled like a pack of cards. The strikes that are being run from abroad are hard to nip in the bud. The population is calling for a new political elite and the failure of the current elite to put smiles on the people’s faces has made the population to take its marching orders from the Anglophone Diaspora that is keen to play a key role in Cameroon’s politics. The Diaspora has been playing the government’s role for so many years. It has been providing education to many children. It has been paying the health bills of its loved ones even when the health facilities have declined over the years. It has been providing housing to desperate parents. And today, it is clear that he who has been paying the piperis finally seeking to call the tune. The Diaspora is behind the strikes and civil disobedience and the government’s inability to rein in the protesters is causing the conflict to metastasize like a malignant tumor.

The protesting Anglophones are digging in their legs and in some parts of the region; administrative officers have simply lost their authority. In Manyu Division, ghost town operations have been very effective as the people are upset with the arrest of Barrister Agbor Balla and Justice Paul Ayah, both of whom are prominent sons of Manyu Division. In Akwaya, whence hails Justice Paul Ayah, administrative officers have simply been fired by the people and the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of the people and this is not only giving the government a bad name, it is also sapping the economy of its vitality. The people of Akwaya have hoisted the Nigerian flag in strategic locations, claiming that they are now Nigerians till further notice.This explains how disaffected the people of this region are with the government. They want their son to be released, failure of which there will be no peace and reconciliation. Many hold that the government has neglected them for too long and they point to the lack of roads in their sub-division. They argue that to travel from their region to any other part of the country, they must first of all go to Nigeria before coming back into Cameroon due to the absence of roads. This has been a torn in their side for decades. Years of promises by politicians of the ruling party have not delivered any results and the region is permanently in the throes of an economic crisis as the people cannot even move their agricultural produce to the markets. Poverty seems to have taken up residence in this part of the country and rooting it out will take decades of hard work and determination.

For many Cameroonian administrative officers, this is not a good time to be transferred to the two Anglophone regions of the country, especially in the North West region where the people are reputed for their mercurial and explosive temperament. The governors of the North West and South West regions have lots of stories to tell in this regard. Ever since the Anglophone crisis began, they have been running all over the place like neckless chicken to douse the fire. But all their efforts and tricks have come to naught, as a peaceful demonstration that the government thought had been organized by some low-class, ill-behaved commoners has turned out to be a very hot potato in its hands.

However, after four months, there is enough evidence to prove that this situation will linger for a long time if the government does not make concessions. From every indication, the government has taken a powerful blow to the liver. Its failure to restore its authority in the English-speaking region is testimony to its inability to wrestle this issue to the ground. Anglophones are determined to change the status quo. They have successfully made the English-speaking region ungovernable despite the presence of heavily armed government troops. Schools are not functioning, courts have been closed, calls for ghost towns are being heeded and even the ruling party could not celebrate its thirty-second anniversary in the Anglophone zone. With courts closed,criminals are having one big party, as even policemen are scared to arrest them, especially when it implies going to chaotic and unplanned neighborhoods. Some uniformed officers even work with the criminals to make a quick buck. They rent out their weapons and uniforms to these men of the underworld for them to operate however they want in order to have another income stream. Poverty hardly breeds virtue. With meager salaries, many policemen cannot really make ends meet in an environment where food and healthcare costs are continuously and permanently escalating.

Though reeling from the blow it has taken to the liver, the government still has an opportunity to defuse the stalemate that has been created by its violent reaction to the strike that was started by armless lawyers calling for the practice of the Common Law in West Cameroon and Buea University students protesting against the imposition of a late fee payment charge. Current measures and actions have failed to retire the problem. Anglophones are hard to please and despite the indiscriminate and illegal arrests, the government has not been able to deliver a deadly punch to the strikers. Old tricks have also failed and money has not performed the miracle it usually performs. Skirting around the main issue in the hope that it will go away is not an effective conflict resolution strategy. If anything, it only keeps the parties apart and there is nothing that destroys a relationship like silence.

If this problem has to the solved, the government has to show a lot of goodwill. It must release Anglophone leaders and all those arrested over the last four months as a result of the strikes. It has to listen to the people in order to understand their grievances if this dark period of its history has to be relegated to the ash heap of history. This problem has already dented its reputation. If sustainable solutions are not sought, it will linger for a long time and it will continue to stalk the government and its administrative officers like a stubborn shadow. Lives have been lost, a whole region has been rolled back into the dark ages following the decision to disconnect the Internet and many West Cameroonians are fleeing the country, with Nigeria serving as the first port of call as the government continues to pursue its “pest control” policy. Anglophone lawyers, teachers, business people and even members of parliament who have shown sympathy to the striking Anglophones are all fleeing the country for fear of persecution. The government has turned the heat on them, as special military squads have been dispatched to the English-speaking part of the country to cow the people into submission. But this does not seem to be the ideal strategy. The results are mixed and the population is not yielding to any threats by the government.

With the situation deteriorating on a daily basis, both parties must understand that the negotiating table holds the solutions to this conflict. Since both parties lack confidence in each other, they should therefore call on the international community to mediate. The international community should step in to help Cameroon heal. The country is hurting. If the international community fails to play its role, it will carry a huge scar on its conscience if Cameroon goes the way of the Central African Republic. Cameroon already has a lot on its plate. Boko Haram has literally become a bogey man to the government in the north. Refugee problems in the East of the country are weighing down on the government. It will be preposterous for a fragile country like Cameroon to face another major threat in its Anglophone regions. The government may have the weapons. It may have the military men, but let it not forget that David did actually humiliate Goliath even though Goliath had huge muscles hanging loosely as if meant for destructive purposes. Wisdom should guide all actions and dialogue should be embraced by all the parties to spare Cameroon and Cameroonians the agony of an armed conflict.

By Dr Joachim Arrey

Contributing Editor

Cameroon Concord News Group

About the Author: The author of this piece is a keen observer of Cameroon’s political and economic landscape. He has published extensively on the country’s political and economic development, especially in the early 90s when the wind of change was blowing across the African continent. He has served as a translator, technical writer, journalist and editor for several international organizations and corporations across the globe. He studied communication at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and technical writing in George Brown College in Toronto, Canada. He is also a trained translator and holds a Ph.D.

The SDF Member of Parliament for Jakiri, Hon. Joseph Wirba has broken the silence he maintained ever since he fled the country. The much respected Southern Cameroons MP says he will continue to fight the Francophone regime till the rights of Anglophones are respected. In an address to Southern Cameroonians via his face book page, Hon. Wirba reminded all Anglophone communities around the world that resistance should be a duty. Wirba also gave a public explanation on why he left his country of birth.

Below is the message the SDF MP recently sent to the Southern Cameroons people:

My Dear Sisters and Brothers,

The struggle of the people of West Cameroon is on course. I wish to welcome all of you to my new official Facebook page. You can also join the #WirbaForce on Twitter (@HonWirbaJoseph) and Instagram (@WirbaJosephM). This will enable me reach out to you and participate in your determined push for our freedom.

Let me take this opportunity to thank all of you, on behalf of our people, and from the bottom of my heart, for all your prayers, support, and unquestionable commitment towards our struggle.

I will also want to inform you that after I led the persistent hard push on the colonial government, their brutal military forces came searching for me. The order for my arrest was given by the Secretary General at the presidency of Cameroon in agreement with the Minister of Interior and designated the Chief of Police, Mbarga Nguele to execute. There were two names in that arrest order: WIRBA JOSEPH, SDF MP and AYAH PAUL ABINE! The execution date was January 20th, 2017! The Cameroon government’s goal was to stop me from reaching Kumba, in the South West Region where I was to lead a follow up rally after the one in Kumbo, North West Region! The manhunt for me was thus launched and I am sure their main target was to assassinate me.

My experience from the 1990s when we fought in the streets to ensure the SDF party survived the brutal onslaught of our oppressors, helped me stay ahead of my hunters. My immediate goal was to stay safe in order to continue the fight for our freedom. All you need to know for now is that l am safe and despite the overwhelming challenges of life on the run, my spirits are very high because of my firm belief that the time to seize our freedom is now! We will remain vigilant and smart in our strategies.

My brothers and sisters, l will not sleep, rest or have any peace as long as some our children lie dead and others hospitalized from the brutal guns of our oppressors; as long as some of our brothers and sisters are in jail, on the run, in hiding, or violently forced into exile! How can l have any respite when millions of West Cameroonians at home live the daily misery of man-made poverty under violent government oppression?

For now, social media presents a convenient forum, especially to those of you in the diaspora with unlimited access. It presents an opportunity for you and I to connect, communicate, and forge a stronger and united team to resist oppression and take back our freedom.

I will continue to remain honored by your commitment, participation and prayers. Please feel free to share any communiqués that are published on my page to as many sympathizers and supporters as you can to help advance our cause for freedom.

I wish you all good health and God’s abundant blessings.

Stay blessed

Hon.  Joseph Wirba

By Rita Akana