The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Cameroon

  • Cameroon tightens security as Buhari visits today

    AUTHORITIES in Cameroon have tightened security in Yaounde ahead of President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit today.

    The President is billed to begin a friendly and working visit to the country for talks with Cameroonian President Paul Biya as part of efforts to defeat the Boko Haram terrorists.

    He had visited Niger and Chad shortly after his inauguration on May 29. The Cameroonian trip was shifted following the Muslims’ Ramadan fast and the President’s invitation to the G-7 Summit in Germany.

    The Nation reporter, who is in Cameroon, observed increased security patrols  in the capital yesterday.

    Armed security personnel, who have been drafted to major spots in Yaoundé and other areas towards checking the onslaught of Boko Haram, have increased their surveillance.

    Besides, private and public vehicles, including those with diplomatic number plates, were undergoing thorough checking.

    Visitors were also being thoroughly screened at the airports.

    Five suicide bombings,  which took several lives,  had been carried out by Boko Haram insurgents in the last two weeks.

    Speaking to reporters in Yaoundé on Buhari’s visit, Nigeria’s High Commissioner in Cameroon, Ambassador Hadiza Mustapha said: “It is our tradition in Nigeria that when Presidents come into office, his first port of call should be African countries. His visit shows the highest level of cordiality.

    “There is need to synergise with the frontline states bordering both countries to confront insurgency, in order to build on the gains so far achieved.

    “Nigeria’s relations with Cameroon have a long history of economic and political ties anchored on affinities and shared destiny.

    “It is a significant visit and we are looking forward to it. The President is going to spend a night, which shows you how much importance he attaches to it. I’m honoured to be receiving the second Nigerian President as an ambassador here.”

    On the discussion of  bilateral relations between the two countries, she said: “There are many issues at stake but the main discussion is up to the Presidents to define the scope and the content.

    “I know that President Buhari is thankful for the help Cameroon has offered to our refugees, so I will not be surprised if such subjects come up.”

    The President, who is due back in Abuja on Thursday, will undertake a one-day trip to Benin Republic on Saturday for talks with President Boni Yayi to round-off the diplomatic shuttle to neighbouring countries, initiated after assumption of office.

    These are aimed at strengthening regional cooperation against terrorism and making it harder for Boko Haram to operate across national boundaries.

  • ITTF African Championships: Nigeria, Egypt in semifinal tie

    For finishing second in group two of the ITTF African Clubs Championships, Nigeria’s Union Bank has set up a semifinal tie against Egypt’s Alhy today in Yaounde.

    The Nigerian team coached by Samson Ajayi defeated Ethiopia, Cameroon and lost to Congo Brazzaville to settle for second place in the group.

    In the final group match, Union Bank thrashed Cameroon team 3-0, while they repeated same margin win over Ethiopia. They were however unfortunate against Congo Brazzaville as the scintillating performance by Ahmed Bello could not save the team from losing 3-1 to the Congolese.

    A confident Ajayi told NationSport that they are capable of causing upset against the Egyptian as the players are in form to play against any team regardless of their pedigree.

    “We are ready for any team because we are here to make our country proud and we hope we can surprise them tomorrow,” Ajayi said.

    In the second semifinal, defending champion, Congo Brazzaville’s Club Avenir will battle Algeria’s US Baraki for a place in the final.

    Congo Brazzaville’s Saheed Idowu, believes the Algerian team is beatable having defeated them in previous tournament.

    “I am confident that we can make it to the final because the Algerian team is very familiar to us and with the form we are now, we can also repeat same feat against them in the semifinal and we look forward to retaining our title in this competition,” Idowu said.

  • Cameroon extends ban on full veil in bid to stop attacks

    Cameroon extends ban on full veil in bid to stop attacks

    Yaoundé – Cameroon has extended its  ban on full Islamic veils in parts of the country as it seeks to curb Boko Haram violence after a string of suicide bombings by female attackers.

    The decision comes less than a month after two female suicide bombers wearing full veils blew themselves up on the border with Nigeria in the north, killing 11.

    Then on Wednesday twin suicide bombings by two young girls killed 13 people in a market in Maroua in northern Cameroon.

    The full veil is already banned in the northern and western regions of Cameroon. It is now also forbidden in the east.

    The governor of the East Region chaired a security meeting Thursday that included Muslim clerics where he “announced the ban of a full veil or burqa,” Cameroon Radio Television reported.

    Mireille Bisseck, official spokeswoman for the western Littoral region, where the economic capital of Douala is located, told AFP that “the manufacturing, sale and wearing of the burqa” has been banned.

    Bisseck said that sermons during Muslim prayers would also be subject to increased surveillance.

    Northern Cameroon has been hit hard by Boko Haram attacks, and authorities fear they might spread southwards and into big cities.

  • Nigerians fleeing to Cameroon, says UN

    Nigerians fleeing to Cameroon, says UN

    A refugee camp deep inside Cameroon is receiving many people fleeing Boko Haram violence in Nigeria, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported Tuesday.

    Families are leaving unstable and dangerous zones on the Nigeria-Cameroon border “and seeking shelter some 100 kilometres (62 miles) inland at the Minawao camp,” run by UNHCR and its partners, spokesman Leo Dobbs said.

    Most of the new arrivals had initially stayed close to the border after fleeing clashes between Boko Haram jihadists and Nigerian troops in the hope they could return home quickly, Dobbs added.

    Refugees said they ran from militant attacks in Borno State. The Boko Haram insurgency has killed more than 15,000 people in Nigeria since 2009.

    The population of the Minawao camp has risen to 44,000 from 30,000 at the same time last year.

    The UNHCR and Cameroon’s government are trying to contact refugees remaining in border territory to see whether they would prefer to come to Minawao or be taken to secure zones inside Nigeria, Dobbs said.

    The UN agency estimates that nearly 12,000 unregistered refugees are in northern Cameroon, while Camerooonian authorities put the figure at 17,000.

    Boko Haram, which has extended its campaign across Nigeria’s borders and prompted a regional military response, carried out its first suicide bombing in Cameroon last Sunday.

    Two women wearing the full Islamic veil blew themselves up in the far northern border town of Fotokol, killing 11 people.

  • Boko Haram: ‘Cameroon detaining 84 kids after raid on Quranic schools’

    Boko Haram: ‘Cameroon detaining 84 kids after raid on Quranic schools’

    Cameroonian authorities have been holding 84 children – some as young as five  years old – for months without charge after officials accused their teachers at Quranic schools of running terrorist training camps, Amnesty International said yesterday.

    The international human rights organization asked  Cameroon to release the children to their parents immediately, saying nearly all of them are too young to face criminal charges. The raids in the country’s far north are part of the fight against  Nigeria’s  Boko Haram.

    “Detaining young children will do nothing to protect Cameroonians living under the threat of Boko Haram,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International deputy regional director for West and Central Africa.

    A government spokesman did not immediately respond to the report and said a news conference would be held  on Monday.

    Cameroonian forces arrested the 84 children in December along with 43 men in the northern town of Guirvidig, accusing the teachers of using the schools “as fronts for Boko Haram training camps,” Amnesty said.

    “They said they would dig our grave and throw us into it. We were scared,” one child told Amnesty. “Then, they roughed up our teachers. Some among them had blood all over their faces.”

    Food is now running low at the centre where the children have been detained in the northern town of Maroua, Amnesty said.

    Cameroon is struggling to keep people in the far north from joining Boko Haram.

    Earlier this week, Cameroon assembled all its Muslim leaders in the capital, Yaounde, to teach them how to identify and denounce promoters of the Islamic State ideology.

  • Cameroon to issue $92m in bonds

    Cameroon will issue up to 55 billion CFA francs ($92 million) in treasury bonds in the second quarter of this year, the state radio  quoted the finance ministry as saying.

    The central African state said earlier this year it planned to issue nearly three times as much debt this year as in last year amid a shortfall in oil revenues due to slumping global crude prices.

    The ministry said treasury bonds would be issued on April 30 and May 28 with maturity periods of two and three years. Cameroon issued bonds in the first quarter with a maximum maturity period of one year.

     

  • Honouring heroes

    Honouring heroes

    •Cameroon shows Nigeria how to honour fallen combatants

    One of the most disheartening aspects of the anti-insurgency campaign currently being waged by Nigeria in concert with Cameroon, Niger and Chad is the way in which Nigeria has failed to properly honour the soldiers who have paid the supreme price for their fatherland.

    Cameroon demonstrated the proper way to treat fallen heroes with a series of elaborate military funerals in which the country’s citizens came together as one to celebrate the courage and fortitude of those who had fully lived up to their oath to protect their nation with their own lives. Families of the fallen heroes were invited, as was the general public. Coffins were draped in the Cameroonian national flag, and the departed soldiers were given posthumous medals for bravery.

    The Cameroonian example is replicated in many other countries, most notably in the United Kingdom and the United States, where personnel killed in action are treated with a dignity that emphasises both the extent of the sacrifice made and the esteem in which those who made it are held. In the US, the coffins are received at airports with a sombre dignity; for several years, the small town of Wootton Basset was the UK’s major site for the honouring of British military personnel killed in action in Afghanistan.

    These countries fully understand the importance of what they are doing. All the rhetoric about patriotism, bravery and fortitude will count for nothing if those who fight for their nation know that nothing will be done to honour their memories if they die. Unlike other professions, a military career is more than just a vocation: it is a calling in which one can be asked to pay the supreme price. That is why the honour they receive when they die in action is far more significant than what is extended to those in other jobs.

    Tragically, it is a lesson that Nigeria is yet to learn. Ever since the country’s involvement in the Liberian and Sierra Leone conflicts in the 1990s, the armed forces have developed the unwelcome habit of performing mass burials in conditions of great secrecy. Casualty numbers are a closely-guarded secret, even while the deaths of enemy combatants are trumpeted. In spite of all the promises from President Goodluck Jonathan and the military hierarchy, it is clear that the Nigerian soldier is far more likely to be put on trial for insubordination, mutiny or cowardice, than to be publicly honoured for bravery.

    Instead of being openly acknowledged by a grateful nation, the deeds of gallant soldiers are often limited to scattered mentions on social media, such as tweets, and posts on blogs and Facebook. The story of Wing-Commander Chimda Hedima who was beheaded by Boko Haram is a case in point. Instead of just bailing out after his plane was hit, Hedima deliberately crashed his aircraft into a column of insurgents, thereby causing the death of 63 of them. Rather than confirm reports of Hedima’s death, the military high command preferred to stonewall the media, as if the late pilot had disgraced the armed forces in some inexplicable way.

    If Nigeria wants to become the nation of heroes that it can be, it must learn to bestow honour upon those who are deserving of it. The courageous members of the armed forces should be at the forefront of this distinguished group. They must be properly motivated and equipped, adequately led and fully briefed. When they are injured, immediate evacuation and comprehensive medical care should be the top priority. And when they are killed, they must be mourned and celebrated like the heroes and heroines that they are.

  • Boko Haram: Cameroon promises humane treatment for detainees

    Cameroon says it is treating hundreds of suspected Boko Haram militants in its prisons humanely regardless of the death of 25 in a prison cell last December, a government minister said at the weekend.

    Rejecting a rights group report that accused the army of abuses, Information Ministers Issa Tchiroma, said several of the Boko Haram suspects were arrested with arms in their possession, while others were caught with mobile phone videos in which they were filmed slitting the throats of their victims.

    He denied that the Boko Haram suspects were summarily executed.

    “They will be tried according to the laws of the land,” Tchiroma told reporters.

    He rejected a January report by the regional human rights organisation (REDHAC) that accused the army of rights abuses in the northern region where it was battling Boko Haram.

    Cameroon soldiers, alongside armies from neighbouring Chad, Niger and Nigeria have launched an offensive against the terror group, whose six-year insurgency in Nigeria’s Northeast is threatening the stability of the region.

    REDHAC said in its report that some soldiers had carried out acts of intimidation and torture to obtain information about Boko Haram, and in some cases, some soldiers had looted properties from the population in the north.

    REDHAC also said that some 50 prisoners suffocated in a prison cell. Tchiroma said, however, that 25 out of 56 suspected militants were discovered lifeless in a prison cell on Dec. 28, and an investigation was ongoing to determine the cause.

    Tchiroma did not say exactly how many Boko Haram suspects were being held in total. A senior Cameroon military officer told Reuters in February that nearly 1,000 suspects were in various prisons in the north.

  • Boko Haram fighters flee Cameroon after attack

    Boko Haram fighters flee Cameroon after attack

    Cameroonian officials said yesterday that  Boko Haram fighters who attacked a town in the far north killing nearly 100 people had  retreated to Nigeria.

    Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary said   Cameroonian soldiers assisted by Chadian forces successfully chased hundreds of the  extremists out of the town of Fotokol.

    However, the terrorists attacked a border town in Niger Republic, the second foreign country attacked by the group  in one week.

    The Boko Haram’s assault inside Cameroon marked an escalation by Boko Haram.

    After being bombed out of several Nigerian towns, hundreds of Boko Haram fighters responded by attacking Fotokol in Cameroon, razing mosques and churches and warning Nigeria’s neighbours not to join the battle against their insurgency.

    Last week, African leaders authorized a 7,500-strong force to fight the extremists, including pledges of troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin.

    The  Bosso, Niger  Republic attack  came as regional leaders met for a second day in the Cameroonian capital to finalize plans for a coordinated military response to the terror group.

    On Wednesday and Thursday, Boko Haram fighters attacked a town inside Cameroon, leaving nearly 100 people dead and some 500 others wounded, according to Cameroonian officials.

    Abba Hassan, a pharmacist reached in  Bosso,  said other Boko Haram militants attacked the community early yesterday  and that soldiers fought an hour-long battle with them that caused the Boko Haram members to withdraw, leaving the streets deserted.

    “Niger and Chadian planes are conducting surveillance at the moment in town and troops on the ground are combing through the streets,” Hassan told The Associated Press by the phone.

    The region of Niger where the violence took place is an area where refugees already have arrived by the thousands, seeking safety from Boko Haram attacks elsewhere.

  • Sects kills 100 in Cameroon

    Sects kills 100 in Cameroon

    Boko Haram fighters yesterday shot or burnt to death nearly 100 civilians and injured 500 in a battle at a Cameroonian border town near Nigeria, officials said.

    No fewer than 800 Islamic extremists attacking the town of Fotokol have “burnt churches, mosques and villages and slaughtered youths who resisted joining them to fight Cameroonian forces,” Cameroun Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakari said.

    The insurgents also looted livestock and food in the fighting that began Wednesday and is continuing Thursday, Bakari told The Associated Press.

    The militants attacked in Fotocol after fleeing clashes with Chadian forces across the border in the Nigerian town of Gambaru, according to Bakari, who said: “After fierce fighting, the enemy was once more booted out, incurring over more than 50 deaths among its troops.” Bakari told VOA:  “The response of our army led to the seizing of huge war materiel.” Fighters escaped from Fotocol into surrounding villages, where they were pursued by Cameroonian soldiers.

    The Cameroonian forces, backed by Chad, had repelled Boko Haram militants from Fotocol on Wednesday, after the fighters killed at least 70 people in a raid.

    Fighting in northeast Nigeria has escalated as the country’s February 14 presidential election draws closer.

    France has sent military advisers to Niger’s southern border with Nigeria to help coordinate military action by regional powers fighting Boko Haram, a French army official said yesterday.

    The deployment was announced as warplanes pounded Boko Haram positions just over the border in Nigeria, a resident in the Niger town of Bosso said, and hundreds of Chadian troops massed at the frontier to prepare an attack.

    Chad has sent about 2,500 troops as part of efforts to take on the militant group, which has intensified its fight to set up a breakaway Islamist state in Nigeria and has staged cross-border raids. Chadian troops crossed into Nigeria this week from Cameroon, on the southern side of Lake Chad.

    A French army official told Reuters a detachment of about 10 military personnel had been stationed in Diffa at the request of Niger, its former colony.

    “It is there to coordinate the armies on the ground in the fight against Boko Haram,” the official said.

    The African Union (AU) has authorised a force of 7,500 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin to fight the militants. It is expected to seek a United NationsSecurity Council mandate, which could also include logistical support from other countries.

    A source close to the Niger government told Reuters yesterday that the parliament in Niamey would vote on Monday to send its troops to Nigeria.

    Nearly two years after a French-led operation liberated the north of Mali from al Qaeda-linked rebels, France has headquartered a 3,200-strong Sahel counter-insurgency force, Barkhane, in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, some 50 km (30 miles) from the Nigerian border.

    It has also been operating reconnaissance missions near the Nigerian border and sharing intelligence with countries in the region, although it has ruled out direct military involvement for now.

    Speaking at a news conference yesterday, President Francois Hollande said Paris was also providing logistical and operation support, including fuel and amunition to countries fighting Boko Haram.

    However, he said France could not be expected to get involved in every crisis around the world and accused other major powers of inaction in Africa.

    “This is a message to the international community and the biggest countries. Do your work! Stop giving lessons and take action!” Hollande said.

    “In Africa, we have to help the Africans a lot more to fight terrorism, because if we do not then other countries will be destabilised,” he warned.