Muna family is bereaved
Professor Wallinjon Fombad Tenjericha Muna MD, PHD, FACC is no more. He died this Sunday morning February the 24th 2019. This item is still developing!!
Monthly Archives: February 2019
Nigeria votes: Lagos polling center rocked by violent disruption
Of all places, the commercial capital of Lagos has been hit by electoral violence according to reports by local portals and eye-witnesses. The incident took place at Okota, Oshodi/Isolo Local Government Area, LGA, a video posted on Twitter showed people running away from a polling units as live rounds were being discharged.
Voting materials at a polling unit was also seen being burnt after a scattered center. Security has always been top of the agenda during the campaign and a serious concern during the polls. Authorities assured that enough security had been deployed to quell any incidents of especially ballot snatching and other forms of infraction.
President Buhari had earlier this week stressed that the security forces had been given full orders to shoot at any person or group of persons who attempted to snatch ballot boxes. The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, called him out for the orders saying he had given “shoot to kill” orders only because he aimed to subvert the will of the people using intimidation.
Buhari’s caution was issued at a meeting of the national caucus of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in the capital, Abuja.
“I do not expect anybody to make any disturbance. I have briefed the law enforcement agencies and the military, they have identified hot spots, flash points, they should be prepared to move.
“I really gave the military and police order to be ruthless… Anybody who thinks he has enough influence in his locality to lead a body of thugs to snatch ballot boxes or disturbs the voting system, will do so at the expense of his own life.
“We are not going to be blamed that we want to rig elections. I want Nigerians to be respected, let them vote whoever they want across the parties.”
Buhari’s comments was met with a swift riposte from the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Whiles they accused Buhari of giving shoot to kill orders, pro-government activists insist that he was only speaking in the language that ballot snatchers understand.
Africa News
Maurice Kamto challenges Yaounde Military Tribunal
Cameroonian politician and opposition leader Maurice Kamto has told the military court that he is a civilian and doesn’t deserve to be tried and charged in a military court.
Kamto and his supporters are being charged of insurrection – a crime punishable with the death penalty, other charges include holding illegal gatherings and disturbing the peace the peace of the country.
Kamto, a leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) and his supporters contested last year’s elections claiming that the country’s decade’s ruler Paul Biya had rigged the election.
He then called upon his supporters to hold protests in four major cities across the country which according to authorities distorted the peace and security of the nation.
The court later postponed his trail until next week in order for court to make a decision about the legality of his trial.
PlustvAfrica
West Africa Network for Peace building draws attention to Ambazonia crisis
The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) has called for urgent attention on the deteriorating crisis in Cameroon and its implication for stability in West Africa. A statement issued by WANEP and copied to the Ghana News Agency said the organisation wished to express its concern and to draw global attention to the deteriorating situation in Cameroon.
It said the current violent agitations going on in the country by the English-Speaking North West and South West regions had historical origins and regional and international significance. It said by virtue of its shared history and geographical proximity, Nigeria had the greatest burden, and perhaps more in the quest for a durable solution to the crisis.
It noted that the influx of more than 40,000 registered refugees, with tens of thousands more living in host communities, constitute a huge humanitarian burden to a country that is already grappling with its own internal displacement as a result of the Boko Haram and herders-farmers crisis.
Since 2017, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians living in Cameroon following the 1967-70 war, and who dominate the trade and commerce landscape, were returning to Nigeria in their numbers.
About 500,000 had been internally displaced in Cameroon, the statement said. According to Cameroon’s private sector affiliate, Groupement inter-patronal du Cameroun (GICAM), in its September 2018 Report, the economic and financial cost of the crisis had been enormous: over 566 million dollars lost in business deals; with 4,062 billion-dollar infrastructure losses, 6,434 formal sector jobs and 8000 jobs lost in the informal sector.
“With close to half a million internal displacements, the total losses in the affected villages and remote towns are yet to be ascertained,” it said. “Though there is no official number of casualties, reports of a dirty war that is indiscriminately targeting civilians is alarming.”
The statement said evident by horrific pictures and videos, the Military, as well as the separatist fighters known as the “Amba Boys”, were committing atrocities that amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Summary executions, indoctrinate arrests, kidnap for ransom, burning of schools and hospitals, and the burning of houses in a typical scorched-earth policy were taking place on a regular basis. School enrolment had dropped drastically in a region that used to take pride in its exceptional educational records, the statement said.
It said the allegations that a genocide might be unfolding while the global community watched were worrisome. Several calls for dialogue in resolving the crisis have not yielded any result.
“Conscious that Cameroon is still embroiled in the fight against Boko Haram in its Far North Region, and a threatening incursion in its eastern border by Central African Republic militant/rebel groups and is currently facing a post-election challenge by the main opposition group, WANEP wishes to reiterate that hardcore security and military approach cannot resolve this crisis,” the statement said.
It said in line with the African Union’s resolve to ‘Silence the Guns in Africa by the Year 2000 and in accordance with the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework, WANEP strongly condemned all the atrocities going on in the English-Speaking part of Cameroon and calls on perpetrators to abide by international laws and conventions.
It expressed shock at the level of violence going on and the silence of the international community and international media as well as the rather nonchalant attitude of other non-state actors in Cameroon.
The statement called for immediate cessation of hostilities and commencement of a facilitated dialogue by willing partners in the spirit of solidarity and humanity. It called for an independent investigation into the atrocities and crimes against humanity and for perpetrators to be held to account.
“WANEP wishes to recall that Cameroon was a founding member of the WANEP Board in 1998 and, therefore, expresses her readiness to assist in whatever way feasible, to work towards a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Cameroon.”
Ghana News Agency
Nigerian Nun says ‘storm will not pass’ as Vatican ends summit
A top Catholic cardinal has admitted that pedophiles were allowed to prey on children after Church files on priests who sexually abused minors were destroyed.
The revelation came as a Vatican summit on a pedophilia crisis that has devastated lives in countries across the globe came to a close on Sunday, with Pope Francis warning victims to lower their expectations.
The meeting was marked by horror stories from abuse victims, some of whom told painful stories of abuse and cover-up when the conference began on Thursday.
One of the victims said she was forced to have three abortions after being abused for years by a priest who beat her, while another said he had been molested more than 100 times.
“Engraved in my eyes, ears, nose, body and soul are all the times he immobilized me, the child, with superhuman strength,” said another woman, who described how she was repeatedly raped aged 11 by a priest.
The ongoing scandals have hit countries around the world, with recent cases affecting Chile, Germany and the US.
Pope Francis
German Cardinal Reinhard Marx admitted Saturday that “files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created.”
“Instead of the perpetrators, the victims were regulated and silence imposed on them,” he added.
The admission sparked an angry reaction from the international association ECA (Ending Clerical Abuse), which slammed the destruction of such documents “illegal” and called for an investigation.
The Vatican has in the past refused to hand over internal documents about abuse cases to police investigating pedophilia.
The abuse crisis has made 2018 one of the toughest years for the pope since his election in 2013.
As many as 34 bishops in Chile have resigned over the scandal, Ireland has been rocked by decades of abuse and Pennsylvania has revealed that priests sexually abused about 1,000 people over seven decades in that US state alone.
Investigations have revealed that in many cases priests accused of assaulting minors were transferred to other parishes.
“The damage caused is so deep, the pain inflicted is so profound, the consequences of the abuses that have taken place in the Church are so immense that we will never be able to say that we have done all that can be done,” Cardinal Jose Horacio Gomez said.
Pope Francis was set to address the Catholic Church Sunday, a day after he asked members of clergy to look at their actions during a penitential prayer service for sexual abuse victims.
But a Catholic nun said, “This storm will not pass.”
Sister Veronica Openibo, a Nigerian who has worked in Africa, Europe and the US, told bishops to acknowledge the church’s hypocrisy in its handling of the sexual abuse crisis.
“At the present time, we are in a state of crisis and shame. We have seriously clouded the grace of the Christ-mission,” Openibo said.
Scandals have also surrounded the Vatican’s bank accounts. They came to light in 1982 after top Vatican banker Roberto Calvi’s was discovered hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London. Prosecutors believe it was a mafia killing linked to money laundering via the Vatican bank.
Presstv
Cameroon’s Dictator Heads to Europe Leaving the Country on Fire
Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, and first lady, Chantal Biya, are scheduled to leave Yaounde, Cameroon, for Geneva, Switzerland, on bord a chartered aircraft tomorrow February 24, 2019.
The luxurious airplane, which has been rented for tens of millions of taxpayer’s money, will also take the reclusive leader to France. He is expected to spend several weeks in Geneva where he will be seeking medical attention.
Meanwhile, the Brigade Anti-sardinards (BAS) – a Diaspora-driven initiative designed to raise awareness of the despicable military, economic and political situation in the country – which had issued a warning to the Intercontinental Hotel in Switzerland, which hosts Mr. Biya and his large entourage each time he is in Geneva, have begun taking positions across continental Europe, particularly in Switzerland, to disrupt Mr. Biya’s health tourism program.
More than 100 members of the BAS are already in Geneva while hundreds more are expected to leave Germany, Belgium and France today evening to ensure that the Cameroon leader does not know any peace during his time in Europe.
Mr. Biya and his entourage are very likely to face lots of protests in Geneva as the country’s Diaspora is prepared to give the dictator a very bad name for his brutal killings in Southern Cameroons and the imprisonment of Maurice Kamto, the country’s opposition leader.
It should be recalled that Mr. Biya had declared war against the country’s English-speaking minority in 2017 and since his declaration of war, more than 3,000 civilians have been killed by Mr. Biya’s army, more than a million civilians have been displaced, with more than 400,000 seeking refuge in neighboring Nigeria that is collaborating with the Yaounde government in its determination to slaughter as many Southern Cameroonians as possible.
Meanwhile, more than 170 villages have been burnt down by soldiers who are out on a collective punitive expedition which is only making the secession of the English-speaking minority a likelihood.
It has been reported that the Cameroon strongman and his government are seeking to change his itinerary given that they are aware of the protests waiting for them in Switzerland and France.
The profile picture attached to this report is a photo of the airplane rented for the presidential couple and their itinerary. More will be yours in the days ahead.
By Soter Agbaw-Ebai in the United Kingdom
Mount Cameroon Race of Fear: Ambazonians can no longer accept Biya’s primitive dictatorship
The people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia can no longer accept France-Afrique’s primitive old school dictatorship imposed on the country by the government of the 86 year old President Paul Biya. Biya has only accepted controversial constitutional amendments that guaranteed his continued stay in power in French Cameroun with the support of some Southern Cameroons criminal gangs.
Biya has been in power for 36 years now and both French and Southern Cameroons have been more of a dictatorship than anything else. This generation of Southern Cameroonians is more educated and the primitive old school dictatorship is not working anymore.
The corrupt Francophone Beti Ewondo despot keeps on blaming everything on different elements, but the truth of the matter is that this generation of Ambazonians is not standing for it and they will keep on sustaining the war in Southern Cameroons until and unless they get a result that they want-which is simply an independent state of Southern Cameroons.
Citizens of both La Republique du Cameroun and Southern Cameroons are suffering, while, he (Biya) thinks he can call the shots and dictate what is going on including the policy without any opposition or disagreement.
How can a government be reveling in denial and self-delusion by pretending that things are normal in Southern Cameroons? The French Cameroun’s Minister of Sports and Physical Education Narcisse Mouelle Kombi presided at the official launch of activities to mark the 2019 Mount Cameroon Race of Hope in Buea. But the heavily militarized event looked more like a military parade and a hostage situation.
The Biya regime should stop playing the ostrich because images like these only further reinforce Cameroon’s beleaguered image as a country bedevilled by insecurity where bizarre things are happening and this only scare foreign investors.
By Sama Ernest
US: Trump picks Kelly Craft for U.N. ambassador
President Donald Trump said Friday he is nominating Kelly Craft, his envoy to Canada, to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations.
“Kelly has done an outstanding job representing our Nation and I have no doubt that, under her leadership, our Country will be represented at the highest level,” Trump said in a pair of tweets announcing his pick.
If confirmed by the US Senate, she would fill the post that has been vacant since Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and rising star in the Republican Party who stepped down from the UN job late last year.
Craft was nominated one week after Trump’s previous choice, former Fox News anchor and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, withdrew from consideration amid criticism that she lacked the experience for one of the top diplomatic posts.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered quick praise for the nominee. “Ambassador Craft has been an outstanding advocate for America’s national security and economic interests in Canada and she is extremely well-qualified to do the same at the United Nations,” he said in a statement.
Craft was a major supporter of George W. Bush, who as president appointed her to serve as a US delegate to the United Nations, representing Washington at UN meetings. The businesswoman from Kentucky, believed to be 56-years-old, has been a major Republican donor.
She raised eyebrows in 2017 as the new US ambassador in Ottawa — and the first woman in that post — when she said she believes “both sides” of climate science. “I think that both sides have their own results, from their studies, and I appreciate and I respect both sides of the science,” Craft told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
She is married to Joe Craft, who is president of Alliance Resource Partners, which describes itself as the second largest coal producer in the eastern United States. Joe Craft was worth an estimated $1.4 billion in 2012, according to Forbes magazine.
Open Secrets, a non-profit group that tracks money in politics, says Craft donated $1 million to Trump’s 2017 inauguration fund. He also donated $371,100 to candidates, all Republicans, during the 2018 election cycle, the organisation said.
(AFP)
Sudan: President Bashir dissolves govt., declares one-year emergency
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has urged lawmakers to postpone controversial constitutional amendments, dissolved the central government, and declared a one-year state of emergency amid massive protests against poor living conditions.
In a televised speech on Friday, al-Bashir called on Sudan’s parliament to postpone controversial constitutional amendments that would allow him to run for another term in a presidential election in 2020.
Bashir also appointed a new caretaker administration but left the country’s current defense, foreign and justice ministers in place. He also appointed new state governors who were all from the military, according to a presidency statement.
Facing the biggest popular protests since he came to power 30 years ago, Bashir also declared a state of emergency for one year and said he would dissolve the central government and state governments across the country.
Earlier, Salah Abdullah, the director of Sudanese Security and Intelligence, said the Sudanese president was expected to announce that he will not seek a re-election in the 2020 votes, standing down in the wake of nationwide popular protests.
Acknowledging the popular protests that have rocked his administration in recent months, the 75-year-old said the “demands of our people for better living conditions are lawful”.
“I will not stop calling for all parties to sit at the dialogue table,” he added.
New protest held near Sudan’s capital
Al-Bashir’s announcement on Friday followed months of nearly daily protests, with thousands of people taking to the streets across the country since December 19 to call for him to stand down after nearly three decades in office.
While the protests were initially set off by the rising cost of bread and fuel in the north of Sudan, they quickly grew into a demand for more political freedoms and an end to al-Bashir’s rule.
The demonstrations continued on Friday in the hours before al-Bashir’s speech.
Security forces fired teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters who marched and chanted anti-government slogans following Friday prayers at a major mosque near the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, eyewitnesses said.
Activists say nearly 60 people have been killed since the protests began, while authorities put the death toll at 32, including three security personnel.
Authorities, meanwhile, have arrested opposition party members, activists and journalists.
Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court over charges of masterminding genocide in the Darfur region, which he denies. He has been lobbying for Sudan to be removed from a list of countries Washington deems state sponsors of terrorism.
The listing has blocked the investment and financial aid that Sudan was hoping for when the United States lifted sanctions in 2017, economists say.
Presstv
Chelsea Football Club banned from 2 transfer windows
Chelsea Football Club have been banned from two transfer windows by FIFA, after breaching rules with regards to the signing of some international underage players.
Football’s Governing body declared that it found breaches in 29 out of 92 Chelsea Transfer Cases, including Former Striker Bertrand Traore.
According to the FIFA decision, the West London Team are banned to register any New Player until the end of January 2020, and the Club must pay a 460,000-pound fine.
Along with Chelsea, the English Football Association has also been fined 390,000 pounds. Both Chelsea and the FA are considering to appeal FIFA’s verdict. Back in 2014, Barcelona had also received a 14-month ban for breaking the same rules.