Yearly Archives: 2020
Nigeria police ‘kill’ protesters in Lagos after curfew imposed
Several protesters were killed by Nigerian security forces in Lagos on Tuesday, Amnesty International said, after witnesses reported armed men opened fire on demonstrators defying a curfew order.
“People were killed at the (Lekki) tollgate by security forces,” Amnesty’s Nigeria spokesman Isa Sanusi told AFP, in reference to a key protest site in the city.
He said the rights group was “working on verifying how many”.
Witnesses told AFP that shots were fired at the crowd of over 1,000 peaceful demonstrators to disperse them several hours after the authorities declared an open-ended lockdown in Lagos in the face of spiralling protests.
“We were all sitting down, peacefully, and they shut down the lights and the billboards, everyone started screaming,” a protester called Toye told AFP, asking that her full name not be used.
“They came to us, but I don’t know who it was. They were shooting, and everyone was running for his life.”
Another protester, Innocent, said he was helping to ferry the wounded to nearby hospitals.
“Currently I have two people that I rush in my car, a woman and a guy, who are in very critical conditions,” he said.
“I rushed two people already to hospital. One was shot at the back, and one was shot at the stomach.” .
Scenes of people removing a bullet from someone’s wound and pleading for help were broadcast in a live video by DJ Switch, a popular disc jockey, to 150,000 Instagram viewers.
Earlier defiant protesters at the scene had sung the national anthem and pledged to remain out on the streets despite the stay-at-home order.
Anger over abuses by the police’s loathed Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) erupted into widespread protests some two weeks ago that drew thousands onto the streets.
Lagos state governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu ordered the round-the-clock shutdown in the sprawling economic hub on Tuesday, claiming the protests had “degenerated into a monster” as violence flared in a string of cities.
“Criminals and miscreants are now hiding under the umbrella of these protests to unleash mayhem,” he wrote on Twitter, insisting that only essential workers should stay out on the streets.
“We will not watch and allow anarchy in our dear state.”
As the tone hardened from the authorities, Nigeria’s police chief ordered anti-riot units deployed around the country.
“The force will henceforth exercise the full powers of the law to prevent any further attempt on lives and property of citizens,” a statement said.
‘Sponsored hoodlums’
Up until Tuesday some 18 people had died in the demonstrations as clashes were reported between protesters and assailants wearing civilian clothes.
Rights groups and demonstrators have accused “thugs and sponsored hoodlums” of attacking the peaceful rallies and seeking to discredit the protest movement.
Witnesses told AFP that a police station was set ablaze in the Orile Iganmu district of Lagos on Tuesday morning. They said police opened fire on protesters, wounding several.
In the capital Abuja, security forces violently dispersed crowds during the day on Tuesday and thick black smoke could be seen over the city.
Violence spread as well to the largest northern city of Kano as hundreds of people went on a rampage, burning vehicles and looting businesses according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
“The mob came near the school and began assaulting parents who had come to pick up their children,” 35-year old auto mechanic Sadiq Mohammed told AFP.
Police said 12 suspects were also arrested in southern Benin city in connection with separate attacks on two police facilities.
Tinderbox
The government announced the scrapping of the SARS unit and a raft of reforms over a week ago, but the bid to placate the protesters has failed.
Officials have called for the demonstrations to be suspended to give the authorities time to make good on their pledges.
Nigeria — where the median age is 18 — is a tinderbox of profound economic and social grievances.
Around half of the population of 200 million is estimated to live in extreme poverty and unemployment is widespread among the youth.
Africa’s biggest oil producer is currently facing a recession as the fall in crude prices sparked by the coronavirus pandemic has battered government finances.
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce said in a statement that estimated economic losses in the past 12 days were at 700 billion naira ($1.8 billion dollars, 1.5 billion euros).
On Tuesday, the Senate called on President Muhammadu Buhari to address the nation on the protests “as a matter of urgency”.
Source: AFP
Guinea: African monitors say election conducted properly, opposition decries fraud
African monitors said Tuesday that Guinea’s weekend election was conducted properly, but the political opposition to incumbent Alpha Conde, which has already claimed victory, dismissed it as fraudulent.
Preliminary results for four of the country’s 38 voting districts released by electoral commission chief Kabinet Cisse late Tuesday showed a strong lead for Conde over his main challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo, who had claimed victory Monday.
In three of the four districts, Conde secured more than the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff vote, although an electoral commission official told AFP it was “impossible to extrapolate” to the final national result, expected later this week.
“Alpha Conde is doing everything possible to change ballot-box results in his favour,” Diallo’s campaign director Fode Oussou Fofana had earlier told reporters in the capital Conakry.
The opposition campaign has been setting the stage for an election dispute, with Fofana accusing the government of “large-scale fraud” in counting ballots from the hotly contested October 18 poll.
Conde, 82, is seeking a controversial third presidential term, a move that has triggered months of deadly unrest in the West African nation.
But earlier on Tuesday, monitors from regional African blocs cast the vote as mostly fair.
Augustin Matata Ponyo, the African Union’s head of mission in Guinea, said the ballot took place “in transparency”, for example. The head of the West African ECOWAS monitoring mission also said the vote was lawful.
Celebrations in Conakry of Diallo’s self-proclaimed victory quickly descended into violent clashes with security forces, in which several youngsters were shot dead, opposition officials said.
AFP was unable to independently confirm the deaths, but an AFP journalist saw three injured people and heard gunfire in a Conakry suburb on Monday night.
Meanwhile in a seeming response to Diallo’s self-proclaimed win, security forces dressed in riot gear surrounded his house in the capital. He tweeted that he was trapped inside.
‘Irresponsible and dangerous’
Security forces killed dozens of people in protests against a Conde third term, which began in October last year.
Although polling day was mostly calm, Diallo’s self-proclaimed election victory has ratched up tensions in the former French colony of some 13 million people.
The government insists the vote was fair and that only the official electoral authority can declare the results.
Conde’s RPG party also called Diallo’s move “irresponsible and dangerous” on Monday.
The international community is concerned too. The United Nations, African Union, and the 15-nation ECOWAS called the premature declaration of results “regrettable”, in a joint statement on Monday.
“This state of affairs is not conducive to preserving calm,” the statement said.
But on Tuesday, the communications director for Diallo’s UFDG party, Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, said the party’s own analysis of polling data collected from individual stations showed the opposition leader had won over 50 percent of the votes.
The official polling-station reports sent to the electoral authority are “completely different” to the actual results, he told AFP.
Twelve candidates are vying for the presidency, but Conde and Diallo are the frontrunners.
‘Chaos’
Guinea’s government said in a statement Monday that the opposition “clearly intended to create chaos and to call into question the real results”.
Much of the deep opposition to Conde stems from his bid for a third term.
He pushed through a new constitution in March which he argued would modernise the country. But it also allowed him to bypass a two-term limit for presidents.
After decades as an opposition activist, Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010 and he won again in 2015.
Rights groups now accuse him of veering towards authoritarianism, however.
Diallo was formerly a prime minister under authoritarian leader Lansana Conte.
He unsuccessfully challenged Conde in both 2010 and 2015, in elections his party activists are convinced were rigged.
Second round
An acrimonious political campaign in the run-up to the vote saw Conde and Diallo trade insults, as well as violent incidents break out in some parts of the country.
The campaign also raised the spectre of ethnic strife, with Conde accused of exploiting divisions for electoral ends — a charge he denies.
Guinea’s politics are mainly drawn along ethnic lines: the president’s base is mostly from the ethnic Malinke community and Diallo’s from the Fulani people.
A second round of voting, if needed, is scheduled for November 24.
Source: AFP
Federal Republic of Ambazonia: Leader calls for unity
“Collaboration we need, not collaboration we want. Ultimately, we will get that which we deserve.”
- The lives of 8 million Ambazonians are in our hands.
- The destiny of future generations of Ambazonians is in our hands.
- The fate of our people in the different detention centers across our land and in La République du Cameroun is in our hands.
- The return of our people from refugee camps in America, across Africa, especially in Nigeria, Cameroun and Ghana, as well as those internally displaced within homeland is in our hands.
- The freedom and restoration of the Independence of our nation is in our hands. We have more in common than the minor issues that challenge and divide us.
The Restoration of our Independence and Sovereignty.
Our people are watching us; the International Community is watching us, and we are failing to conduct ourselves in a manner that reflects maturity and leadership. These qualities are needed to truly represent our people in every sphere. We are delaying attainment of our ultimate goal and deepening the suffering of our people instead of alleviating it. Are we blinded by our self-interests to their pain?
What legacy do we leave behind? Would we leave success in taking our people to our homeland or failure in not attaining Ambazonia and in everything else we are trying to prioritize?
The Journey ahead of us might still be very long. Negotiations, if and when they happen, will be very tough. Should we not focus our energies and resources on that which is important to helping us attain our Independence?
Note
Power concedes nothing. LRC is not ready to concede anything. If we don’t stand together for that which we want; the restoration of the independence of Ambazonia, we will always be begging for a few crumbs under the LRC table. In our restoration struggle, there is no more room for spectators amongst Ambazonians. We all must be active participants. Remember that if there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm. Given what we now know about what we are capable of accomplishing together, evidenced by the 2020 Takumbeng & Independence Days celebrations, why then do we have the infighting? I urge all and sundry to look up to the Ambazonian flag and refrain from attacking or insulting others.
For the attention of:
HRM Fon Gorji Dinka, Pa Nfor Ngalla Nfor, Sessekou Christmas Ebini. Hon Wirba,
Dr. Fontem Neba, Dr. David Makongo, Abdul Karim Ali, Milan Atam, Milton Taka,
Chris Anu, Dr Larry Ayamba, Eric Tataw, Mark Bareta, Tapang Ivo. Tassang
Wilfred, Patrick Ndangoh, Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terence Khan, Tita Tebit, Tsi
Conrad, Pa Augustine Ndangam, Rev Andrew Ambiazeh, Elvis Kometa.
Special attention:
Self-defense groups and our Takumbeng mothers
The Southern Cameroons thieves of Maryland are all virtually baptized Christians
Once upon a time, there was indeed an Ambazonia struggle! To be sure, the people of Southern Cameroons and the Ambazonia Interim Government read from the same script. The rushed succession plan following the Abuja incident changed the whole concept and pattern of the Southern Cameroons war of independence. One cannot but wish for a different narrative, a different kind of story.
Every well-meaning Southern Cameroons citizen that is not worried about where the Ambazonian revolution is now and where we are headed must be living in Maryland, USA or in French Cameroun. Southern Cameroonians including President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe believed, and rightly so, that the corrupt leadership of the disgraced Dr Sako Ikome and Chris Anu was clueless and didn’t have the capacity to take Southern Cameroonians to the next level, and, therefore, instituted change.
But ever since President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe made public the Southern Cameroons dream Interim Government administration headed by Vice President Dabney Yerima, Sako Ikome and Chris Anu have blatantly refused to allow the Southern Cameroons Interim Government to put its acts together.
We of the Cameroon Concord News Group can now reveal that the Southern Cameroons resistance is in a free fall. The Federal Republic of Ambazonia seems to be on a standstill and, in recent times, the Biya French Cameroun regime that has slaughtered thousands of Southern Cameroons citizens including women and children is gaining an upper hand in the Ambazonia homeland.
Those who are complaining about the killing of prominent Amba fighters are no longer only President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and Vice President Dabney Yerima but also the corrupt Southern Cameroons so-called front line leaders that are haunted by their sordid and avaricious past to whom the Sako-Chris Anu period had become the ultimate nemesis.
The real tragedy of the Southern Cameroons situation is that its diaspora and thousands in Ground Zero are not convinced that the struggle is making progress. We of the Concord Group are sad about what has become of the war to liberate the people of Southern Cameroons, and more so of what has become of Ambaland.
It is evidently clear that the silence maintained by men like Hon. Joseph Wirba is deliberate! If those still rallying behind the Maryland mafia group think that Southern Cameroons had made progress, the assassination of General Ayeke and the disappearance of the Field Marshal in the Lebialem County can now help them to see today how much the resistance had gone down the hill! Not only on the negative politics being played by the diaspora including members of the cabinet appointed to assist Vice President Yerima but things like armed robbery and kidnapping, robbery and thieving that were such a taboo in a typical Southern Cameroons society are now the hallmarks of the Ambazonia revolution. While fighters who are pro Sako and Chris Anu in Ground Zero are getting away with murder, the disgraced US based Ambazonia front liners are getting away with massive embezzlement of My Trip To Buea funds!! With these things, you just wonder where we are heading.”
It has been extremely difficult for this writer to understand why the few still passing for a Sako IG, with their overt religiosity, find it difficult to walk their religious talk. The Southern Cameroons thieves of Maryland are all virtually baptized Christians. And since most Southern Cameroonians are Christians, most of the thieves are Christians too!!
Is it that President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Ambazonia Interim Government have not put in their best? If so, is their best so bad or so poor that Southern Cameroonians haven’t made any significant difference? The leader’s recent call for unity from his cell in the Kondengui High Security Prison and the Maryland reaction that followed with the endorsement of Deacon Tassang, gave we of this publication a dissenting sense of defeatism.
We believe and fervently too that the Southern Cameroons diaspora have failed their fellow citizens in Ground Zero and this failure is slowly but surely generating a kind of frustration among the jailed leaders which is gradually translating to regrets.
Of course, like many living in the bushes and in refugee camps in Ghana and Nigeria, Southern Cameroonians can always console themselves with the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. But Let Vice President Yerima continue to do all that he can, while Prof Carlson Anyangwe remains steadfast in diplomacy, hoping that another generation may stand on their shoulder and stand higher and do better for the suffering and oppressed people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. But it goes without saying that President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has done his bit.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
CPDM Crime Syndicate: Yaounde defers new tax on smartphones and tablets
Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has requested the suspension of a new tax regime that would have compelled consumers to pay a levy equivalent to 33 percent of the cost of any imported phone or tablet purchased from mid-October as import duty. Citing the official statement, Investir au Cameroun reports that the President’s decision will force the government to rethink the method of collection of the new tax, which was supposed to rely on a new online platform developed by data management firm Arintech.
Introduced by the 2019 finance bill, the duty would have reportedly been collected by the country’s mobile operators via deductions from consumers’ call credit, using IMEI numbers to identify taxable devices.
The country’s association of mobile operators (AOTMC) had urged a rethink of this process, highlighting a number of technical problems with Arintech’s new online platform. It is proposing an alternative method of collection that would, among its other benefits, better inform and protect consumers.
According to Investir au Cameroun, the 2019 finance bill also stipulates an additional measure to increase tax receipts from imported products, consisting of a fixed duty of XAF 200 (approximately EUR 0.30) for taxable mobile applications once downloaded onto a consumer device.
Source: Telecompaper
Southern Cameroons Crisis: Pro French Cameroun Chiefs Create Militias for Protection from Amba Fighters
Traditional village chiefs in Cameroon’s restive western regions are for the first time creating armed militias for protection against separatists. Cameroon’s government has been asking traditional rulers who fled the separatist conflict to return to their palaces and take part in December’s regional elections. But a majority of the chiefs has been reluctant to return due to threats from the rebels.
The Nso people of Cameroon’s Northwest region shout and applaud in the town of Kumbo. They came out to listen to a plea from their elders and palace notables to give a memorable welcome to their traditional leader, Sehm Mbinglo, whenever he returns.
Mbinglo fled the area three years ago after separatists abducted him three times and killed two of his children for unknown reasons.
Among the nearly 1,000 people who came to listen to the notables was Dorothy Yekong, who said she is longing to see her Fon, or traditional ruler.
“When the peace makers said the Fon will be coming back, we just felt some peace in Kumbo because when we were there without the Fon it was just as if to say the child is there surrounded by lions. So, if he finally comes, we are sure that peace will return in Kumbo. He is the father of everybody in Kumbo,” she said.
Yekong said she was pleading with separatists fighting to create an English-speaking state in Cameroon not to attack palaces and notables who are only there to promote African cultures and traditions.
But shortly after the Nso elders and notable made the plea on people to welcome their village chiefs, separatist groups on social media warned against the chiefs returning.
Donatus Kewa, who said he is a spokesperson for separatist fighters in the North West region, says the chiefs act as informants for the military.
He said the village chiefs and their notables who escaped from the English-speaking regions to the French-speaking zones, especially Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, will be killed if they return. He said the chiefs received help in escaping from the Cameroon military, which he said is an enemy that all English speakers should fight against.
John Ewome Eko, traditional chief of the southwestern village of Boassa, said he is ready to face the separatists. He said he has armed a militia to protect his palace, notables and all traditional artifacts.
“I have put in place a strong vigilante group of more than 100 youths ready to stand and face the Amba guys. They came and burned down parts of my own palace. They left with two girls and they stayed with them in the bushes for two weeks. They were raped, they tortured them, they came back with wounds all over their bodies. They came again, they seized goods from my villagers,” he said.
Deben Tchoffo, governor of the Northwest region, said militias created by chiefs should collaborate with government troops. He said no one should fear the separatists, whom he says are only intimidating chiefs and civilians.
“The traditional rulers are committed. The municipal counselors are committed. Elections Cameroon is ready. The security services are securing the region to allow us come the sixth of December to organize those elections in a peaceful environment,” he said.
Tchoffo said they were giving fighters another opportunity to drop their weapons and be pardoned or to be crushed by the military.
The separatist crisis that is in its fourth year has killed at least 3,000 people and displaced 550,000, according to the United Nations.
Culled from VOA
China’s super rich got $1.5 trillion richer during coronavirus pandemic
China’s super wealthy have earned a record $1.5 trillion in 2020, more than the past five years combined, as e-commerce and gaming boomed during pandemic lockdowns, an annual rich list said Tuesday.
An extra 257 people also joined the billionaires club in the world’s number-two economy by August, following two years of shrinking membership, according to the closely watched Hurun Report.
The country now has a total of 878 billionaires. The US had 626 people in the top bracket at the start of the year, according to Hurun in its February global list.
The report found that there were around 2,000 individuals with a net worth of more than 2 billion yuan ($300 million) in August, giving them a combined net worth of $4 trillion.
Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce titan Alibaba, once again topped the list after his wealth surged a whopping 45 percent to $58.8 billion as online shopping firms saw a surge in business owing to people being shut indoors for months during strict lockdowns to contain the virus.
He was followed by Pony Ma ($57.4 billion), boss of gaming giant and WeChat owner Tencent who made an extra 50 percent despite concerns about his firm’s US outlook after it was threatened with bans there over national security fears.
First-time list member Zhong Shanshan, 66, best-known for his bottled water brand Nongfu, parachuted into third spot with $53.7 billion after a Hong Kong IPO in September, the report found.
– ‘Never seen this much wealth’ –
“The world has never seen this much wealth created in just one year,” Hurun Report chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said in a statement.
This year’s list shows China was “moving away from traditional sectors like manufacturing and real estate, towards the new economy”, he added.
Wang Xing, founder of food delivery app Meituan, quadrupled his wealth and jumped 52 places to 13th in the list with $25 billion, while Richard Liu, the founder of online shopping platform JD.com doubled his money pile to $23.5 billion.
Healthcare entrepreneurs also moved up the list on the back of the pandemic, with Jiang Rensheng, founder of vaccine-maker Zhifei, tripling his value to $19.9 billion.
China shut down major cities around the country in late January and February to contain the virus that first emerged in Wuhan, causing an unprecedented economic contraction in the first quarter.
With infections appearing to be under control, the country is on track to become the only major economy to expand this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
On Monday data showed the economy expanded 4.9 percent in the third quarter but away from the glittering figures many ordinary workers and fresh graduates are struggling to find jobs.
The urban jobless rate inched down to 5.4 percent in September, although analysts have warned of higher unemployment than officially reported this year.
Source: AFP
US: Final Trump-Biden debate will feature ‘mute’ button to avoid interruptions
The final debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden will feature a mute button to allow each candidate to speak uninterrupted, organisers said on Monday, looking to avoid the disruptions that marred the first matchup.
The Trump campaign voiced objections to the change – made after the president repeatedly talked over both Biden and the moderator at last month’s debate in violation of its agreed-upon rules – but said the Republican would still take part in the Thursday night event, one of his last chances to reach a large prime-time audience before voting ends on Nov. 3.
The Presidential Commission on Debates said each candidate’s microphone at the debate in Nashville, Tennessee, would be silenced to allow the other to make two minutes of opening remarks at the beginning of each 15-minute segment of the debate. Both microphones will be turned on to allow a back-and-forth after that time.
“President Trump is committed to debating Joe Biden regardless of last-minute rule changes from the biased commission in their latest attempt to provide advantage to their favored candidate,” campaign manager Bill Stepien said.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
More than 30 million Americans have already cast their ballots, limiting Trump’s chances of reframing a contest that national and state opinion polls show him trailing.
Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden during a chaotic and ill-tempered debate on Sept. 29, at one point provoking Biden to snap: “Will you shut up, man?”
‘They cut you off’
Trump backed out of a second scheduled debate set for last Thursday over a disagreement about the virtual format following his Covid-19 infection. At that time, he raised concerns about having his microphone muted.
“You sit behind a computer and do a debate – it’s ridiculous, and then they cut you off whenever they want,” Trump said in an Oct. 8 interview on Fox Business.
Earlier on Monday, Trump’s campaign said it was unhappy with the announced set of topics for Thursday’s debate, arguing that it should focus more on foreign policy and asserting that the nonpartisan group was tilted toward Biden.
Biden’s campaign said both sides previously agreed to let moderators choose the subjects. It said Trump wanted to avoid discussing his stewardship of the coronavirus pandemic, which surveys show is the top issue for voters.
“As usual, the president is more concerned with the rules of a debate than he is getting a nation in crisis the help it needs,” Biden spokesman TJ Ducklo said.
The number of Americans who voted early reached 30.2 million on Monday, according to the University of Florida’s United States Elections Project. That number represents more than one-fifth of all the votes cast in the 2016 election.
Early voting is likely to ramp up this week as more states open up voting centers for those who want to avoid possible coronavirus exposure at crowded Election Day polling sites.
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)
Biya regime says fire at Bamenda Gendarmerie Command Post linked to electrical accident, not Ambazonia crisis
A statement attributable to Cameroon’s Minister Delegate at the Presidency of the Republic in charge of Defense says Friday’s fire outbreak at the Command Post of the Bamenda Territorial Gendarmerie Unit was the result of an electrical accident.
In a press release Monday, October 19, 2020, Commander Atonfack Guemo Cyrille Serge, Head of Communication Division at the Ministry of Defense dismissed allegations that the fire incident may be related to the ongoing socio-political unrest in Southern Cameroons.
Atonfack Guemo says preliminary results of the investigations carried out by the competent services suggest that the fire outbreak developed from the electricity meter supplying the building.
“The Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Defense informs as follows: In the afternoon of Friday, October 16, 2020, at about 4:30 pm, a fire broke out in the building hosting the Command Post of the Bamenda Territorial Gendarmerie Unit, located at Up-Station,” Atonfack Guemo said in a press release. “The quick intervention of firefighters together with the combined effort of elements of the National Gendarmerie and residents of the locality made it possible to contain the flames and bring the fire under control at about 7:00 pm.”
From the first indications of the investigations that have been launched, Atonfack Guemo went on, it appears that the fire was an accident caused by the sudden return of electric power in Bamenda after a power outage that led to a shock on the electricity meter supplying the building.
Source: Cameroon Info.Net