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Tag: Issa Tchiroma Bakary

  • Cameroon opposition candidate Tchiroma claims victory in presidential election

    Cameroon opposition candidate Tchiroma claims victory in presidential election

    Cameroon’s opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary claimed victory early yesterday in the Oct. 12 presidential election, urging President Paul Biya, who has been in power for over four decades, to concede.

    “Our victory is clear, it must be respected,” Tchiroma said in a video statement on Facebook, calling on Biya to “accept the truth of the ballot box” or “plunge the country into turmoil.”

    Elections Cameroon, the independent body in charge of overseeing the poll, and the constitutional court have not yet announced any results. Official results are expected at the latest by Oct. 26.

    Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party rejected Tchiroma’s claim yesterday.

    Gregoire Owona, the deputy secretary-general of the CPDM, said the opposition candidate did not win and does not have the results from the polling stations.

    Tchiroma said he will share a detailed report of the votes by region in the coming days.

    Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji warned last week that any unauthorised release of results would be deemed “high treason,” saying only the Constitutional Council can declare a winner.

    The 76-year-old opposition candidate was a government spokesperson and minister of employment under Biya but quit the government last year to launch his presidential run. His campaign drew large crowds and backing from a coalition of opposition parties and civic groups.

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    Analysts have predicted a victory for Biya, 92, as the opposition remained divided and his strongest rival was barred from running in August. Eleven opposition candidates were on the ballot for the Oct. 12 election.

    Biya is the world’s oldest president. He has been in power since 1982, nearly half his lifetime, making him Cameroon’s second president since independence from France in 1960.

    During Biya’s decades in power, the Central African nation of nearly 30 million people has struggled with challenges from a deadly secessionist movement in the west and chronic corruption that has stifled development despite rich natural resources like oil and minerals.

    Around 8 million voters were eligible to vote in Cameroon’s election, which uses a single-round electoral system that awards the presidency to the candidate with the most votes.

    During the last presidential election in 2018, the opposition leader Maurice Kamto claimed victory a day after the vote. He was later arrested, leading to protests and dozens of his supporters being detained.

    Biya cruised to victory with over 70% in an election marred by irregularities and a low turnout.

  • Regional forces free 5,000 Boko Haram captives

    Regional West African forces freed 5,000 captives from a Boko Haram base in a more than week-long operation that also completely destroyed the militants’ hideout in mountains along the Nigeria-Cameroon border, Cameroon said Wednesday.

    The “hostages freed consisted mostly of women, children and elderly people,” Communications Minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, told a news conference.

    He added that 21 Boko Haram suspects had been arrested in the raid in the Mandara Mountains between February 26 and March 7, which destroyed a fuel depot and recovered weapons, motorcycles, around 50 bicycles and “various propaganda objects.”

    Reuters reported that Boko Haram has been fighting since 2009 to try to establish a medieval Islamic caliphate in the Lake Chad region, where Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad join.

    A coordinated push by the militaries of these four nations dismantled much of the territory Boko Haram once held, but it remains capable of launching lethal attacks, often targeting the civilian population.

  • Boko Haram fighters flee Cameroon after attack

    Cameroonian officials said on Friday that Boko Haram fighters who attacked a town in the far north had retreated to Nigeria.

    At least 100 people were killed in the attack.

    Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary said Cameroonian soldiers assisted by Chadian forces successfully chased several insurgents 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 assault inside Cameroon marked an escalation in Boko Haram attack in the sub-region.

    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 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.

  • 143 Boko Haram fighters killed in Cameroon

    At least 143 Boko Haram fighters were killed in an attack on a military camp in Cameroon on Monday, a minister said, adding that it was the heaviest loss sustained by the sect in the country.

    “The terrorists lost 143 lives and important warfare equipment made up of assault rifles of various brands, heavy weapons and bullets of all calibres,” Minister of Communications, Issa Tchiroma Bakary said in a statement.

    “On the Cameroon side, we lost one life, the Corporal-Chef Bela Onana, as well as four wounded.”

    It was not immediately possible to independently verify the toll from the fighting near the northern town of Kolofata.

    Cameroon’s army determines death tolls either visually, or by counting the number of vehicles it destroys and estimating how many militants each vehicle carried, a senior official in Cameroon’s Far North region told Reuters last month.

  • Ebola: Cameroon closes borders with Nigeria

    Cameroon has closed all its borders with Nigeria in a bid to halt the spread of the Ebola virus, state radio said on Tuesday.

    The virus has killed more than 1,200 people in four West African countries, five of whom have died in Nigeria.

    “The government has taken the decision to protect its population because it is much better to prevent than cure the Ebola virus,” Minister of Communications and government spokesman, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, told Reuters.