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Fela Kuti’s drummer and musical director Tony Allen dies in Paris

01/05/2020

Legendary Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, who created afrobeat along with his old bandmate Fela Kuti, died suddenly at the age of 79 in Paris on Thursday, his manager told AFP.

“We don’t know the exact cause of death,” manager Eric Trosset said, adding it was not linked to the coronavirus.

“He was in great shape, it was quite sudden. I spoke to him at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT), then two hours later he was sick and taken to Pompidou hospital where he died.”

Allen was the drummer and musical director of Fela Kuti’s band Africa ’70 in the 1960s and 1970s.

During that time the pair created afrobeat, combining West African musical styles such as highlife and fuji music with American imports jazz and funk. Afrobeat went on to become one of the totemic genres of 20th century African music.

Over Allen’s thrilling beat, Fela laid out his revolutionary and pan-African message, which led him to become one of the abiding icons of the struggle for freedom across the continent.

Allen and Fela recorded around 40 albums together in Africa ’70, before parting ways after a mythic 26-year collaboration.

Such was the hole that Allen left in his band, Fela needed four drummers to replace him.

Allen taught himself to play drums from the age of 18, drawing inspiration from American jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker as well as contemporary African music.

He remained hugely influential and beloved by generations of musicians.

British musician and producer Brian Eno has called Allen “perhaps the greatest drummer who ever lived”.

Allen was the drummer in the supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen, also featuring Blur singer Damon Albarn and The Clash bassist Paul Simonon, which released its second album in 2018.

He lived in the Paris suburb Courbevoie.

(AFP)

Francophone Politics: Biya regime refuses Kamto’s COVID-19 donation

01/05/2020

French Cameroun Minister of Public Health, Manaouda Malachie refused to receive on Thursday, April 30, 2020 a donation to combat the deadly coronavirus from opposition leader Prof Maurice Kamto.

“This is typical of Francophone politics. The opposite would have come as a surprise because the French Cameroun government, through its Minister of Territorial Administration, had denounced Kamto and his shallow cabinet for carrying out a fund-raising operation for the fight against coronavirus, our health correspondent in Yaoundé said

The MRC leader reportedly announced the donation on Thursday morning via a press statement and stated that the donations included medical and non-medical equipment.

Cameroon Concord News understands the Kamto coronavirus donation consisted of 10,000 masks, 6,800 surgical masks and 950 Covid-19 screening tests kits. The French Cameroun opposition leader rallied ordinary French Cameroun citizens who made the contribution to help the drowning Biya regime in its fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

US: Trump says coronavirus may have originated in China lab, threatens tariffs

01/05/2020

US President Donald Trump has threatened China with new tariffs amid the coronavirus outbreak he blames Beijing for.

Trump said Thursday his ongoing trade deal negotiations with the Asian country were now of secondary importance to the virus pandemic as his administration crafted retaliatory measures over the outbreak.

“We signed a trade deal where they’re supposed to buy, and they’ve been buying a lot, actually. But that now becomes secondary to what took place with the virus,” Trump told reporters. “The virus situation is just not acceptable.”

Currently, a range of options were being discussed against China, Reuters cited two US officials as saying, noting that they cautioned that efforts were in the early stages.

According to one official, Trump’s top national security team or the president have not yet been informed of the recommendations.

“There is a discussion as to how hard to hit China and how to calibrate it properly,” one of the sources said. Trump also told reporters that he was confident the coronavirus might have originated in a Chinese virology lab, but refused to describe the evidence.

When asked if he had seen evidence that gave him a “high degree of confidence” the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he said, “Yes, yes I have.”

He, however, declined to give specifics, saying, “I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that.”

“There’s a lot of theories,” he said, “but we have people looking at it very, very strongly. Scientific people, intelligence people and others.”

The Chinese institute has dismissed the allegations and other US officials have played down their likelihood.

His remarks come as the US intelligence community concluded Thursday that the novel coronavirus originated in China but was not man-made or engineered.

“The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to US policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement.

According to The New York Times, senior figures in the Trump administration have put pressure on US intelligence agencies to provide evidence to substantiate claims that the virus outbreak originated in state-run laboratories in China.

Meanwhile, most experts believe the virus originated in a market selling wildlife in Wuhan and was transmitted from animals to people.

Source: Presstv

Biya regime confirms BIR commander killed during military operation in Mamfe

30/04/2020

Frédéric Nguiema Nzie a Sub-Lieutenant of the French Cameroun army recently assigned to head an operation with the Rapid Intervention Battalion (RIB) has been killed by Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Mamfe, the chief town in the Manyu County.

Sub-Lieutenant Frédéric Jeunesse Nguiema Nzie, enlisted in the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), and deployed as part of the 6^th Division died on April 28, 2020 during an operation around the residence of the Senior Divisional Officer for Manyu.

French Cameroun media reported that he served the Biya regime only for four months and made what Yaoundé described as the supreme sacrifice.

The young soldier from La Republique du Cameroun was a laureate of the 37th badge of EMIA named after Major General Jacob KODJI who including 181 others graduated on January 24^th in a ceremony that was chaired by the French Cameroun monarch Paul Biya. He hailed from Kribi in the Ocean constituency in French Cameroun.

Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in Glasgow with files from CIN

High hopes for Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford scientists

30/04/2020

A vaccine against Covid-19 developed in Britain has shown very encouraging results on rhesus macaque monkeys, among the animals closest to humans. The scientists working on the vaccine estimate that if they can prove its effectiveness, it could be ready as soon as September.

Its name is a mouthful, but it’s the vaccine on everyone’s lips: The ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, currently being developed by Oxford University scientists, has in recent days shot ahead to become the most promising potential vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

On Thursday, the British drug maker AstraZeneca said it would help Oxford develop, produce and distribute the vaccine.

“Our hope is that, by joining forces, we can accelerate the globalisation of a vaccine to combat the virus and protect people from the deadliest pandemic in a generation,” AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said.

The partnership hopes to produce 100 million doses by the end of the year and prioritise supply in the UK, Soriot told the Financial Times.

The first good news came last week from a laboratory in the US state of Montana, where six rhesus macaques, who received a dose of the British vaccine a month ago, did not contract Covid-19 after being exposed to it. Other monkeys who had not been vaccinated caught the virus and fell ill.

“The rhesus macaque is pretty much the closest thing we have to humans,” Vincent Munster, the scientist who conducted the experiment, told The New York Times.

Morgane Bomsel, a molecular biologist working on Covid-19 at the Cochin Institute in Paris, agrees. “It’s true that it’s better than if the tests had been carried out on mice,” she told FRANCE 24.

Bomsel considers the results encouraging, but warns against celebrating too soon, if only because details of the experiment conducted in Montana have not yet been published. “We don’t know yet, for example, what dose of the virus the macaques were exposed to, or how they were contaminated,” she said.

First tests on humans in Europe

Work on the ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vaccine is moving ahead quickly in Britain as well. On April 24, the Oxford vaccine was the first in Europe to enter the human trial stage, with 1,110 healthy volunteers recruited for the tests.

“The goal is to ensure that the vaccine is not toxic for the human body,” Bomsel said. In other words, before checking whether the ChAdOx1 nCov-19 protects from Covid-19, the researchers first need to guarantee that it is not dangerous.

The next step usually is to “take blood samples from the subjects to check for the presence of antibodies and the effectiveness of the vaccine against the coronavirus”, Bomsel explained.

If the trial produces positive results, millions of doses of ChAdOx1 nCov-19 could be available as early as September, Oxford researchers told the New York Times, months ahead of other known efforts.

“Usually, in fact, it takes about 18 months,” a member of the crisis cell of the French Society for Virology (SVF), a network of over 1,000 virologists from different laboratories, told FRANCE 24.

Modular vaccine

The Oxford scientists might be able to work at record speed “because in a sense, this vaccine isn’t new”, said the SVF virologist, who asked to remain anonymous because she did not want to involve her employer in the debate.

The researchers used a “technological platform with which they already have quite a lot of experience”, she said.

The core of the vaccine – ChAdOx1 – is an adenovirus: that is, it belongs to a family of viruses that have a mild effect on humans, and it is present in chimpanzees.

“It exists in humans as well, but researchers preferred to take it from monkeys to be certain that the human body has not already developed antibodies to protect against it,” she explained.

It is then combined with parts of another virus to make a vaccine. Researchers at Oxford have already used ChAdOx1 in the past to test vaccines against Ebola, Chikungunya, Rift Valley fever and, above all, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus, a coronavirus related to Covid-19 that was first reported in 2012. British scientists had very encouraging results in the latter case, especially with tests on rhesus macaques.

For the current coronavirus, they simply “added the surface protein of Covid-19 to ChAdOx1”, said Bomsel. That is the part of the virus that allows it to attach to the host cells and infect them. The purpose of the vaccine would therefore be to allow the human body to develop defenses against this mechanism of attaching to a human cell.

Since the technology is already in place and they have already tested humans for other vaccines using ChAdOx1, the Oxford scientists were quickly able to adapt it to the current pandemic and develop the clinical trial protocols.

Ring vaccination strategy

But even if the results of the clinical trial currently under way end up being promising, it will still be too early to celebrate.

The following step, Phase III of the vaccine’s development, will be to administer it to volunteers who will then be released back into their regular environments where they could be exposed naturally to the virus. The complete process of ensuring that these subjects are effectively immune to the disease can take up to three years.

So how can British scientists commit to providing doses of ChAdOx1 by September if the trials succeed? By following a specific procedure for cases where there is not enough time to complete testing: ring vaccination.

“The idea is to administer the vaccine to members of the first circle of contacts of people who fall ill with the virus, and then to observe whether the virus contaminates the second circle. That way, it’s possible both to vaccinate and to evaluate,” explained the French virologist.

This was done during the 2018 Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and could be replicated to fight against Covid-19.

While the experts interviewed by FRANCE 24 recognised that the work of the Oxford team was very promising, they said other possible vaccines – like those being developed by the American pharmaceutical companies Inovio and Moderna – might also be in advanced stages of research by the autumn.

Despite the encouraging news, there is no guarantee that the vaccines will work. But even if the efforts at Oxford University are unsuccessful, Bomsel said, “we will at least have learned a lot about how the body’s immune system fights this virus”.

The FSV virologist was even more optimistic: “Even if the vaccine won’t successfully immunise the body against Covid-19, we can still hope that it will reduce the severity of the virus,” she said.

That alone would be preferable to watching, more or less helplessly, as the number of coronavirus victims grows every day.

Source: France 24

COVID-19 Victims: Bodies found in unrefrigerated trucks in New York City

30/04/2020

The city of New York has delivered a freezer truck to a funeral home after it was found to be storing dead bodies in unrefrigerated U-Haul vehicles, a Reuters eyewitness says.

The eyewitness saw bodies in a U-Haul van and said two vans and a truck were parked outside the funeral home.

ABC News reported about 100 bodies were stored in the vehicles after the owner of the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home said the freezer that normally stores bodies stopped working.

ABC did not identify the owner and no one at the funeral home was immediately available to comment. It was not clear how long the bodies had been stored in the U-Hauls or whether any were COVID-19 victims.

The bodies were found after neighbors reported an odor coming from the trucks, New York media reported.

The New York Police Department declined to comment. The Department of Health could not immediately be reached for comment, too.

New York City has been at the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic and the city’s funeral homes have been overwhelmed. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 18,000 people have died of COVID-19 in America’s biggest city, according to a Reuters tally.

Funeral homes say they are facing weeks-long backlogs to bury or cremate the dead.

(Source: Reuters)

More than 679,000 people have been displaced in Southern Cameroons

30/04/2020

Armed groups are fighting for a separate state in English-speaking parts of Cameroon and government forces are hitting back with brute force.

Caught in the crossfire, civilians are trying to stay alive in a deadly conflict the world knows little about.

In 2016, as lawyers, students and teachers in the English-speaking parts of Cameroon began protesting what they saw as their cultural marginalisation and under-representation in the central government, security forces hit back.

Several armed separatist groups emerged and self-declared their independence from Cameroon on October 1, 2017, calling their new country “Ambazonia”. Members of armed groups are known to locals as “the boys”.

Since then, atrocities have been committed by both sides and the escalating conflict has forced more than 730,000 people to flee. Many have been killed, tortured, raped, assaulted and kidnapped. Those who manage to survive watched helplessly as their villages burned to the ground and their children were left with no access to school.

Because of fears of repercussions if caught speaking out, the voices of those affected are rarely heard. In addition, there is limited access available for independent journalists to report on the crisis.

The lack of international attention, support and diplomacy have left Cameroon a neglected crisis with no end in sight for more than one million people in need.

'I want to ask them: 'You guys, you are fighting for separation, but instead you demand money from your brothers? How will we all live together in a new country when you do this?'.' said Kelly. [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — ‘I want to ask them: ‘You guys, you are fighting for separation, but instead you demand money from your brothers? How will we all live together in a new country when you do this?’.’ said Kelly. INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

Heavily pregnant Alliance went into labour and gave birth to twins during the violence. 'I asked God: How could you give me twins in these times of conflict?' I did not know I could live like this, even for a week,' the 36-year-old said. She was not able to breastfeed at night with the lights on as that would be dangerous as warring parties were fighting outside. [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — Heavily pregnant Alliance went into labour and gave birth to twins during the violence. ‘I asked God: How could you give me twins in these times of conflict?’ I did not know I could live like this, even for a week,’ the 36-year-old said. She was not able to breastfeed at night with the lights on as that would be dangerous as warring parties were fighting outside. INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

'When we fled I managed to bring with me some mesh and hair extensions. I thought it would be useful so I could work in Bamenda as well. But when we arrived here we had nothing to protect us from the cold concrete floors, so I had to use them for my twins to sleep on. They were damaged by baby pee,' Alliance said. [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — ‘When we fled I managed to bring with me some mesh and hair extensions. I thought it would be useful so I could work in Bamenda as well. But when we arrived here we had nothing to protect us from the cold concrete floors, so I had to use them for my twins to sleep on. They were damaged by baby pee,’ Alliance said. INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

The scars of war are deep in Alliance's young children. 'When my children hear gunshots, they start to cry and run inside the house and they wet themselves. I lift them up and I carry them, I tell them it will be over soon,' she said. [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — The scars of war are deep in Alliance’s young children. ‘When my children hear gunshots, they start to cry and run inside the house and they wet themselves. I lift them up and I carry them, I tell them it will be over soon,’ she said. INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

It was May 2018 when 71-year-old Celine escaped her village with her bedridden son, her frail mother, daughter and her three grandchildren. 'On the day we fled, there were heavy clashes and people ran into the bush to hide from the shooting. I could not run with them. My son is bedridden. My mother is nearly 100 years old. I had to stay behind. The army entered our house and asked me: 'Why are you still here?'. I showed them my son and my mother.' [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — It was May 2018 when 71-year-old Celine escaped her village with her bedridden son, her frail mother, daughter and her three grandchildren. ‘On the day we fled, there were heavy clashes and people ran into the bush to hide from the shooting. I could not run with them. My son is bedridden. My mother is nearly 100 years old. I had to stay behind. The army entered our house and asked me: ‘Why are you still here?’. I showed them my son and my mother.’ INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

Two years ago, life changed forever for 28-year-old Alpha when the conflict reached her village of Belo and took the life of her husband. 'One day the shooting got really close and our neighbours told us to quickly lock the house and hide. We did, but men in khakis broke in and dragged my husband out of the house and took him away. My kids and I ran for our lives. The next day someone found my husband dead along the roadside and asked us to come and collect him. When we dared to go back to the house, we found it burnt down to the ground. We lost everything. All our ID cards. Everything.' [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — Two years ago, life changed forever for 28-year-old Alpha when the conflict reached her village of Belo and took the life of her husband. ‘One day the shooting got really close and our neighbours told us to quickly lock the house and hide. We did, but men in khakis broke in and dragged my husband out of the house and took him away. My kids and I ran for our lives. The next day someone found my husband dead along the roadside and asked us to come and collect him. When we dared to go back to the house, we found it burnt down to the ground. We lost everything. All our ID cards. Everything.’ INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

Family members Carine, Happiness and Larissa are making the local speciality 'puff-puffs'. The women will sell these at the local market to get some income for the full family of 15 persons. After being displaced by violence, they all share one room that they rent in Bamenda. 'They killed nine people in the market square that morning we fled. I managed to bring with me a bucket of tomatoes and crayfish that I sold the next morning to get some money. I also brought some clothes, our IDs and my family photos. The military burned down our house and my shop,' Happiness said. [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — Family members Carine, Happiness and Larissa are making the local speciality ‘puff-puffs’. The women will sell these at the local market to get some income for the full family of 15 persons. After being displaced by violence, they all share one room that they rent in Bamenda. ‘They killed nine people in the market square that morning we fled. I managed to bring with me a bucket of tomatoes and crayfish that I sold the next morning to get some money. I also brought some clothes, our IDs and my family photos. The military burned down our house and my shop,’ Happiness said. INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

'Life is not going anywhere,' says Glory, 28. She fled intense fighting in Ndu in January last year with her four children, her younger brother and her husband. With the daily shootings and burning of houses, life was no longer bearable in her village. As far as she knows, their house is still among those standing, but it is too unsafe to go back. So they rent a room in Bamenda with seven family members sharing one mattress. Back in the village, Glory used to roast fish and sell it along the road. Her husband worked as a driver. With barely any income, she finds it difficult to start up a business again. Most of the money they earn goes to rent and food, and most days, they go to bed hungry. School fees are too high to be able to afford them. 'It is really very difficult here,' she said. [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — ‘Life is not going anywhere,’ says Glory, 28. She fled intense fighting in Ndu in January last year with her four children, her younger brother and her husband. With the daily shootings and burning of houses, life was no longer bearable in her village. As far as she knows, their house is still among those standing, but it is too unsafe to go back. So they rent a room in Bamenda with seven family members sharing one mattress. Back in the village, Glory used to roast fish and sell it along the road. Her husband worked as a driver. With barely any income, she finds it difficult to start up a business again. Most of the money they earn goes to rent and food, and most days, they go to bed hungry. School fees are too high to be able to afford them. ‘It is really very difficult here,’ she said. INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

The road leading from the small airport outside Bamenda into the city has been the site of intense fighting and the area is mostly abandoned. Burned-out cars and destroyed houses are peppered everywhere. In the two English-speaking regions, more than 250 villages have been burned down and are now fully or partially deserted. [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — The road leading from the small airport outside Bamenda into the city has been the site of intense fighting and the area is mostly abandoned. Burned-out cars and destroyed houses are peppered everywhere. In the two English-speaking regions, more than 250 villages have been burned down and are now fully or partially deserted. INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

''The boys, sometimes they want money, sometimes they just want to kill those they suspect do not support their cause,' says Reverend Mokake in the Cameroon Baptist Convention in Bamenda. 'It has been a hard year. We lost five pastors the last years as a result of the escalation of the conflict.' [Ingebjorg Karstad/NRC] — ”The boys, sometimes they want money, sometimes they just want to kill those they suspect do not support their cause,’ says Reverend Mokake in the Cameroon Baptist Convention in Bamenda. ‘It has been a hard year. We lost five pastors the last years as a result of the escalation of the conflict.’ INGEBJORG KARSTAD/NRC

Source: Aljazeera

Coronavirus lockdown: France enters recession as GDP falls by record 5.8 percent

30/04/2020

France’s gross domestic product contracted 5.8 percent in the first quarter and is officially in a recession, mainly because of the coronavirus lockdown imposed since mid-March, the national statistics agency said Thursday.

The drop is the biggest since quarterly GDP evaluations began in 1949, exceeding the third quarter 1.6 percent drop in 2009 and the 5.3 percent contraction in the second quarter of 1968, the agency said.

Following the 0.1 percent French GDP fall in the last quarter of 2019, the result confirms that France is in a recession.

The drop in activity “is mainly linked to the stop in non-essential activities as part of the lockdown imposed from mid-March”, the agency said.

The evaluation falls in line with that of France’s central bank, which in early April estimated a contraction of around six percent in the first quarter.

(AFP)

Decade of US growth ends as Fed warns of more coronavirus hardship ahead

30/04/2020

The coronavirus pandemic ended a decade of US economic expansion, but the Federal Reserve pledged Wednesday to use every tool it has to help fuel a recovery.

The central bank warned that the virus continues to pose “considerable risks” to the economy, which after a 4.8 percent contraction in the first three months of the year likely will see an “unprecedented” decline in the second quarter.

And after record job losses in just a few weeks, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warned that unemployment will take time to come down to the low level of recent years.

The GDP decline in the January-March period — the biggest fall in 12 years — came after the pandemic forced businesses to close and halted purchases and investments, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

The grim numbers underscore the damage done to the world’s largest economy by the pandemic, which already has caused an estimated 26 million job losses and sent Congress and President Donald Trump scrambling to cut the losses.

The coronavirus outbreak in United States has grown into the world’s largest and deadliest, with the country’s caseload rising to 1,034,884 and deaths hitting 60,316 after surpassing the death toll from the Vietnam War on Tuesday.

The economic contraction was all the more worrying since the most strict business shutdowns and stay-at-home orders did not occur until the final weeks of March. The Commerce Department acknowledged that it could not quantify the full economic effects of the virus.

Powell warned that “economic activity will likely drop at an unprecedented rate in the second quarter” at a rate “worse than we’ve seen.”

Private sector economists are predicting a decline in growth by as much as 40 percent in the second quarter amid the collapse in consumer spending and business investment.

Job losses have hit 26 million since mid-March, and companies are beginning to make more permanent cuts due to the uncertain outlook, including aerospace giant Boeing, which plans to slash 10 percent of its workforce.

It will take “some time to get back to anything nearly resembling full employment,” Powell said.

All the tools

The central bank moved quickly to get ahead of the bad news, slashing the benchmark lending rate to zero by the middle of last month following two emergency meetings.

The Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) at the conclusion of its two-day meeting Wednesday pledged to hold rates at zero “until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve its maximum employment and price stability goals.”

Powell said while the US economy should rebound in the third quarter “it’s unlikely that it would bring us quickly all the way back to pre-crisis levels.”

The central bank is “committed to using our full range of tools to support the economy… to assure that the recovery when it comes will be as robust as possible,” Powell said in a press briefing.

And while Congress too has moved quickly to provide support for businesses and households, “it may well be the case that the economy will need more support from all of us, if the recovery is to be a robust one.”

And now is “not the time” to let a concern about fiscal deficits “get in the way of us winning this battle,” Powell said.

“This is the time to use the great fiscal power of the United States to do what we can to support the economy and try to get through this with as little damage to the longer run productive capacity of the economy as possible,” Powell told reporters.

While the Fed cannot spend and its powers are limited to lending to viable borrowers, he said the central bank will do everything it can “to the absolute limit of those powers.”

The committee pledged to continue its efforts to inject funds into the financial system to ensure it doesn’t freeze up, including buying US Treasury debt, mortgage-backed securities and other corporate debt “in the amounts needed to support smooth market functioning.”

(Source: AFP)

Why attempts to end the Southern Cameroons Crisis have failed- and how Francophones and Ambazonians can live together “separately”

30/04/2020

Cameroon government army soldiers are moving throughout Southern Cameroons committing what has been described by human rights organizations as crimes against humanity and war crimes as thousands of Ambazonian civilians continue to escape in to Nigeria. Hundreds of Southern Cameroonians are moving further into areas held by Ambazonia Restoration Forces with fighting reportedly slowing down due to the outbreak of the coronvirus. The war in Southern Cameroons is a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis that is threatening the Federal Republic of Nigeria and increasing crime rate in states such as Benue and Cross River.

Hundreds of poorly armed Southern Cameroonian criminal fleeing the conflict have also migrated into French Cameroun towns and cities such as Dschang, Bafoussam, Douala and Mbounda, creating the possibility of another Francophone and Anglophone confrontation deep inside French Cameroun territory. Cameroon government army soldiers dedicated to President Paul Biya of French Cameroun and abetted by French government military aid say they are in the final stages of attempting to take control of the entire British Southern Cameroons occupied by a number of Ambazonian Resistance groups. From every indication, the Buhari administration in Nigeria does not want to become involved in the Southern Cameroons war. Yet as hostilities move inside Nigerian territory and as an estimated 50,000 Southern Cameroons refugees inundate border settlements in Nigeria, Abuja could be drawn in.

The Southern Cameroons war has become a war in which the French, the British and the Chinese are exploiting to get whatever oil, gas and mining deals they had long for from the failed French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé. In a country already fractured in two, it was evidently clear that from the abduction of the Southern Cameroons leaders in Abuja and their forced extradition to Yaoundé, Southern Cameroons independence was no longer in doubt but was now linked to Biya’s continued stay in power.

The Southern Cameroons crisis has indeed spawned many arguments about humanitarian interventions with the UN coming across as a toothless bulldog that can bark but cannot bite. Under the UN’s watchful eyes, thousands of innocent Southern Cameroons civilians including women and children have been killed by the Francophone dominated Cameroon government army soldiers as they flee attacks in both the Northern and Southern Zones of Southern Cameroons. The renowned Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group have both described the situation in Southern Cameroons a total meltdown of humanity. The recent attack in Bafut carried out by the Cameroon government army is yet another humanitarian disaster in Southern Cameroons – and the Ambazonia Interim Government and its current Vice President Dabney Yerima are calling on the international community to intervene.

The Marginalization of Southern Cameroons: When facts don’t lie

Lying is a sin that was committed by five Francophone Ministers who told the world at a press conference that there is no Anglophone problem in Cameroon. The integrity deficit associated with lying about the Anglophone problem is a travesty that insults and diminishes every Cameroonian and must stop.

The point must therefore be made, and with emphasis, that there is an Anglophone problem but the problem is deeply embedded in the asymmetrical political structure of the country, which has led to institutional paralysis engendered by leadership failure. Anglophones are divided over the Anglophone problem, just as Francophones are united in their bellicosity and belligerence towards Anglophones whom they cast as treasonable felons and secessionists who cannot be trusted. Francophones have used this self-fulfilling fallacy as an excuse to exclude Anglophones from the commanding heights of decision-making and treat them as second class citizens. But facts don’t lie.

Consider this: over 58 years after independence and re-unification, there has never been an Anglophone President or an Anglophone Secretary General or Director of Civil Cabinet at the Presidency. Nor has an Anglophone ever held the strategic ministerial portfolio of Defense, Finance, Communication, External Relations or even in charge of the Police, Gendarmerie, the Army and Intelligence services; not even ambassadors to English-speaking countries like the USA and Nigeria.

For a region that represents about 20% of the population, accounting for over 60% of GDP, the fact that the lone oil refinery named in French (SONARA) is in Anglophone Cameroon, yet has been run by Francophone general managers with a predominantly Francophone workforce since its creation is unacceptable. It just cannot be that there are no competent Anglophones to occupy these positions.

As if that was not enough, higher institutions like the National Polytechnic, ENAM, IRIC, ESSTIC, INJS, IFORD, CUSS, Public Works, ENSPT, IRAD, are heavily laden with French courses; another way of saying, Anglophones need not apply. Although Cameroon is officially a bilingual country where both English and French are equal, when has the president ever made an official address to the nation in English? All official correspondences are in French, even when directed to Anglophones. French is the language used in the administration, police, gendarmerie, army and the courts. Anglophones have to seek translators at their own expense. All road signs are in French and there is not a single word in English on the FCFA currency in circulation; is this constitutional?

The facts and figures of Anglophone marginalization under President Biya are staggering. Of the 292 ministers appointed since Biya took office in 1982, only 76 (10.8%) have been Anglophones. In the last 63-member cabinet before Southern Cameroonians started the uprising, there were only six Anglophones (9%) and only, Philip Ngole Ngwese (2%) out of the 38 Ministers had a cabinet portfolio. There are four Anglophone Secretary Generals (10%) and three Anglophone DAGs (7%) in the central administration. In state corporations, there are less than 15 Anglophones (11%) out of over 130 general managers. Of the over 130 Board chairmen of state corporations, there are only 10 Anglophones (7%). only three of the nation’s 33 generals in the Armed Forces are Anglophones.

The picture in the judiciary is even more pathetic and scandalous with Francophones occupying all key positions in the Supreme Court – President of the Supreme Court; Attorney General; Head of Judicial Division; Head of Administrative Division; Head of audit Division; Head of Special Criminal Court; Special Attorney Special Criminal Court; Director of Military Justice; Registrar-In-Chief Supreme Court and Secretary General Supreme Court. 58 (39%) of the 148 magistrates in the Southwest are Francophones while 54 (61%) of the 89 magistrates in the legal department in the Southwest are Francophones. Of the 50 magistrates working in Buea (Bench & Legal Department), 20 (40%) are Francophones while 20 (71%) of the 28 magistrates in the legal department in Buea are Francophones. Of the 30 new bailiffs that were appointed in January 2014 in the Southwest, 28 of them (93%) are Francophones.

The situation in the Northwest region is even worse. Of the 128 magistrates in the Northwest, there are 67 Francophones (52 %). Of the 97 magistrates of the legal departments, 64 of them are Francophones, (65.9%); 22 (48.9%) of the 45 magistrates in Bamenda are Francophones. There are 27 magistrates in the legal department in Bamenda of which 21, (77.8%) are Francophones. All the 21 new bailiffs (100%) appointed in January 2014 to the Northwest are Francophones. Comparatively, of the 119 magistrates in Douala, only two (1.7%) are Anglophones. Likewise, only two (1.9%) of the 107 magistrates in Yaoundé are Anglophones. These are very disturbing statistics in a bilingual country with two legal systems!

There is no reference hospital and no functional airport or seaport in Anglophone Cameroon. It is worth recalling that preliminary studies by the consortium charged with the construction of the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline had established that the project will be cost-effective if the pipeline was built from Doba in Southern Chad to Limbe, which has a natural deep seaport. According to documents from the World Bank and the Washington-based Environmental Defence Fund, the then Secretary General at the Presidency, Joseph Owona re-routed the project to his native Kribi; taking the pipeline through ecologically sensitive areas and increasing the distance by 90 miles and the cost by $2 billion. Owona warned the investors that Limbe was risky because Anglophones might one day agitate for secession and the pipeline will be exposed to sabotage and vandalism.

To add insult to injury, the government has made it a point to assign Francophones who neither speak nor understand English to Anglophone regions. A Francophone DO in Oku, Kamdem Andre once called a meeting with traditional rulers and started speaking in French. Not understanding what he was saying, the Fons started dozing. Feeling snubbed, the angry DO ordered his bodyguards to wake-up the Fons with a slap each and the meeting ended in chaos.

DO Kamdem is not an isolated case. Francophones disrespect Anglophones in positions of authority, even the prime minister, head of government. Francophone ministers either ignore cabinet meetings called by the PM or come late, in breach of standard protocol. When then prime minister, Achidi Achu appointed Raymond Gwanyalla as Director of Customs, the then Finance Minister; a Francophone openly challenged the PM in a flagrant display of insubordination. The Minister not only refused to preside at Gwanyalla’s installation, but ordered a boycott of the event which was heeded by all Francophone Directors in the Ministry of Finance. Surely, nothing like this happens in any country worthy of respect.

As Prime Minister, Peter Mafany Musonge was humiliated by the paymaster general in Yaoundé. Musonge was dealing with a crisis after a timber truck derailed killing dozens, mostly roadside hawkers in the hotbed of Mutengene. Anger was boiling on the streets when President Biya ordered that FCFA 200 million be given to the PM to go help the victims and deceased families. A voucher was established to this effect; with the “visa” of the Finance Minister and the PM’s office and sent to the Yaoundé central treasury, but then paymaster general, Etogo Mbezele refused to pay, ostensibly because the director of the treasury had not “visa” the voucher.

The treasury director was vacationing in France and traveled abroad with his “visa.” Informed of Mbezele’s decision, an exasperated Musonge could not help but exclaim in anger and frustration: “Oh these Frogs!” It must be stated in no ambiguous terms that Musonge spoke from the heart. His spontaneous outburst speaks to a deep-seated Anglophone frustration with an erratic system of government, with its consequent value misplacement, the like of which should never be countenanced in any civilized nation.

There are countless instances where Francophones are appointed to boss better educated and qualified Anglophones. It is a tragedy that after fifty-five years of independence and re-unification, we are still talking of Anglophones and Francophones, but that is the sad reality of Cameroon. Anglophones have been treated shabbily; they are asking whether they made the right choice in 1961, since only they were asked if they wanted reunification with Francophones.

Despite that fact that East Cameroun was deeply embroiled in a bloody insurgency and terrorism, Anglophones closed their eyes and voted with their hearts. Fifty-five years after that vote, all Anglophones are asking is to be given the opportunity to manage their own affairs but they are being called secessionists and enemies from within, Biafrans, and even asked to go back to Nigeria.

This in itself is demeaning and outlandish. Our strength as a nation lies in our diversity. The bridge towards our future will be built on lessons from the past; hence the government must refrain from assuming that anyone calling for restructuring of the present structure wants to breakup the country. It is not Anglophones who threaten national unity; rather, it is the politics of exclusion and marginalization of Anglophones that poses a threat to peace and stability. Those who see Anglophones as a conquered people should look at these unsettling statistics and learn the right lessons because the mood is very scary.

What Could Be Done?

To stop the genocidal campaign going on in Southern Cameroons, there must be regime change in Yaoundé. The West should design a plan for the 87 year old French Cameroun monarch to abdicate immediately. Correspondingly, France and the United States should stop supplying Yaoundé with weapons on lame and ridiculous reasons that the Biya regime is fighting the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

Southern Cameroonians should channel their financial resources to the Ambazonia exiled government represented by its Vice President Dabney Yerima instead of chosen from the many obscure resistance groups such as the ADF and the Sako-IG. All other regional participants – the Buhari administration in Nigeria, President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Chad should be required to depart.

Persuading the jailed Southern Cameroons leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe to accept and enforce a cease-fire will be a complex process, but could save hundreds of lives both in Ambazonia and deep within the French Cameroun army.

The provision of humanitarian aid by the UN and other aid agencies to displaced Southern Cameroonians must become a priority at the negotiating table while an independent international fact-finding mission with a UN Security Council mandate should be deployed to Southern Cameroons.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with additional reporting from Valerian Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

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