Women empowerment champion, Anne Nsang Nkwain dies!

The death of the former CRTV icon comes barely a month after that of her father, Senator Francis Nkwain

By Mbom Sixtus in Yaounde


Former CRTV icon, Anne Nsang Nkwain who shot to limelight with her advocacy programme on women emancipation: “Women and Development”, is no more!
News of Anne Nsang’s death, just barely a month after that of her father, Senator Francis Nkwain; was made public in the early hours of last Saturday. The former CRTV anchor lady who was in the country to bury her father reportedly died in the plane while on her way back to the US to continue her cancer treatment. Reports say she was discovered dead in Iceland when the plane made a stop-over. Her corpse was then taken to a mortuary in the Iceland.
Medical officials versed with cancer illness however told The Guardian Post that although Anne Nsang was diagnosed with the illness, she might have died abruptly after suffering a cardiac arrest. “Cancer does not cause sudden death,” a medical officer who begged to remain anonymous told this reporter.
Family sources say Anne Nsang, a mother of five, was diagnosed with stage four non-small cell lung cancer in March this year. Her son, Henry Nsang Jr. posted on the social media a few weeks before her death: “Determined to conquer this untimely revelation, Anne begun her battle against cancer, with no amunition but her faith in God and the love and support of her family and friends. A few months into her treatment, Mrs. Nsang has demonstrated tremendous courage; she has been a source of inspiration for everyone around her and countless women in the Cameroonian community who look up to her. Despite several radiation and chemotherapy sessions, there is still a long way to go before the battle is won. I implore you to join Anne in her fight against lung cancer…she is the strongest woman I know, but she is still human and needs our help…”
Anne Nsang who quit CRTV in early 2000 after 20 years became famous and won the hearts of especially the women folk thanks to her advocacy TV programme on women emancipation, Women and Development. Apart from anchoring the news on CRTV, Anne Nsang was the presenter of the famous The World This Week every Sunday. She was later appointed as the deputy director of the CRTV marketing and communication, CMC, before quitting the state corporation for the United Nations where she was appointed as Information Officer in Yaounde.
Described as one of the best female brains with a commanding voice which the CRTV ever had, Anne Nsang, family members say, was born in 1964. She was married to Nsang Henry, a senior translator at the presidency who hails from Ndu in Donga Mantung division. By press time, her funeral programme was not yet made available.

Cult greeting signs indentified within PCC!

From Michael Ndi in Bamenda

The Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, PCC meeting in Mankon – Bamenda during its 47^th Synod that wrapped up last Tuesday November 25, has realized that the greeting signs of the PCC marriage encounter is similar to that of a secret society – Rosicrucian. The synod therefore resolved that the PCC marriage encounter greeting signs must be reviewed in order not to conflict with that of the Rosicrucian order.

Beside the controversial marriage encounter greeting signs, the synod that was chaired by the outgoing moderator, Rt. Rev. Dr. Festus Asana equally resolved that a PCC education fund be created to especially take care of the Cameroon Christian University, CCU. In this light, each PCC Christian is to be taxed 2000FCFA annually for the education fund.

The pro-chancellor of CCU, Dorothy Njeuma who threw more light on the education fund explained that the 2000FCFA education fund is separate from other church contributions Christians make. She regretted that although the PCC is a big institution, most of its educational institutions are ramshackle.

Njeuma said the 3-floor building at the permanent site of CCU in Bali has already kick-started “and we desperately need money to complete the first floor and put in use in January 2015.” She said the university needs enough funds to recruit permanent staff, and put in place infrastructures.

Observing that 2000FCFA per christian is the minimum amount a christian can give annually, the out-going moderator said PCC counts about 33 secondary schools and most of them are struggling because of the lack of funds.

Above all, it was also resolved that PCC radio, christian Broadcasting Service, be set-up in Bamenda and a new Presbytery opened in Upper Bakossi.

Baligansin, Bamukumbit clash leaves one dead

Houses burnt, several arrested as troops deployed

From Michael Ndi, on special assignment in Baligansin & Bamukumbit

At least one person was killed and several houses destroyed when a land dispute broke out in the early hours of last Saturday between Baligansin and Bamukumbit in Balikumbat sub division, Ngoketunjia division; in the North West region.
The man killed whose name we could not immediately get, hailed from Baligansin. He was said to be in his mid 20s. His corpse was taken to the Bamenda regional hospital mortuary.
According to eye witness accounts, the dispute between Baligansin and Bamukumbit erupted over a piece of farm land. Matters came to head when in the early hours of that ill-fated Saturday, irate Bamukumbit villagers stormed Baligansin and took the villagers off guard. They reportedly burnt four houses before killing one. Being a less-thickly populated village, Baligansins rather than fight back reportedly took to their heels.
Another bloody confrontation between Bamukumbit and Baligashu was nipped in the bud; thanks to the timely intervention of gendarmes from Balikumbat. The two villages have a long standing dispute over a piece of land that dates back to 1979.
A ministerial decision had on July 20, 1979 ruled that the disputed piece of land belongs to Bamukumbit but a 2005 prefectoral order awarded the land to Baligashu. In the midst of the administrative buffoonery, a prime ministerial order ruled the area as a no-man’s land.
But recently, the people of Baligashu secretly began constructing a newly-created Government Technical College on the disputed land. Tempers flared when the people of Bamukumbit got wind of the development; tempers which fortunately did not degenerate into a confrontation because of the timely military intervention.
North West governor, Adolphe Lele Afrique rushed to Bamukumbit on Saturday with troops to maintain order. Four people from Bamukumbit were arrested while the village remains heavily-militarized.

TRUTH THAT MUST BE TOLD

Roads without maintenance

By Asong Ndifor

“Where a road passes, development follows”, is a maxim Cameroonian politicians have over laboured into a cliché. It shows the importance of roads, be they farm-to-market paths, paved or just earth roads. All need maintenance to be relevant in the New Deal’s race to have Cameroon “emerge” out of “under development” in the magic year of 2035.

But the state of roads remains appalling. Not to talk of the vast areas hidden in enclaves of valleys, slops and hill tops which adorn the country’s landscape or the shaggy dog sagas that go with the tarring of the Kumba-Mamfe and Bamenda Ring roads.

Even roads that exist without maintenance could quickly degrade into death traps. So how can Cameroon “emerge” out of poverty and very indebted too, if only “less than ten percent of its priority roads are maintained”?   

Jean Claude Atanga Bikoe, the administrator of the Road Fund has expressed that concern. There is not just enough money allocated for maintenance and the little allocated goes through a bottleneck of bureaucracy often getting to the Fund too late and too little.

Solution?  Bikoe believes, and I share his view, that SONARA and SCDP which collect oil production tax for road maintenance on their behalf should hands off the assignment.

Toll gate fees collected by the road receipt security programme and those at road weigh-in gates for heavy-duty vehicles also get to the Fund late and hamper its ability to maintain roads quickly.

Beyond late payment, there is also a lot of embezzlement at the toll gates and weighing stations that reduce revenue for the road Funds. If the Fund is complaining about deplorable maintenance of priority roads, then the situation in the rural area is worst as most of the earth roads are impassable in the rainy season.

Contractors in the road sectors lack equipment and even where machinery like bulldozers are available, operators are hard to find. Contractors in the sector are often those who do not execute their contracts on time, are ill-equipped and notorious for shoddy jobs.

    

There have even been reported cases where contractors in rural areas default in maintaining the length of the road or the current width. But in an environment bristling with impunity, it is not uncommon to have such jobs hurriedly paid so that the “stakeholders” can share the booty.

Money is paid for roads not well maintained or constructed and they peel off after the rains. Fake promises are made year in, year out to tar roads to a point any discourse on road development remains the subject of deep skepticism.

So corrupt is the sector that former public works minister, Ambassa Zang enter parliament to be shielded by immunity and when he discovered it was just a matter of time to be stripped of the protection, he vamoosed out of the country. While in Canada, he changed his name to Ndongo Innocent. But are the Cameroon police not a member of International Police, which can hunt for fugitives abroad?

It is because of the importance of roads to development that politicians say development follows where it passes. If there are no good roads, it means the way to emerge in 2035 is clustered with road blocks and a pipe dream. 

Postscript: When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.-Edmund Burke.

EDITORIAL

Normalisation committee mandate-extension: A joke in bad taste

The normalisation committee of FECAFOOT headed by former education and sports minister, Joseph Owona has failed again and again on several fronts to “normalise” the management of Cameroon football. The committee cunningly extended its mandate to manage the whooping World Cup money that was wrought with scandals. Now again it has awarded itself extra time to end only after it would have spent the cash of the African Nations Cup tournament that kicks off next month in Equatorial Guinea.

So angry have some soccer fans been pricked with the manipulations of the committee and sponsors that they invaded the social media calling for mass peaceful demonstration against the committee.

Its next faux pass was after the World Cup scandal at which the committee was overtly at loggerheads with officials of the ministry of youth and sports. President Biya ordered Prime Minister Philemon Yang to set up an enquiry to find out the cause.

Although the report of the month-long enquiry was never made known to the public after it was presented to the president, some action was taken to develop the management of the game. A presidential decree stipulated the time frame to pay bonuses and summon players for international duties.

The decree also defined the role of the ministry of sports and physical education vis a vis that of FECAFOOT. What Cameroonian soccer lovers were long expecting was the election of FECAFOOT president on 30 November after the normalization committee had woefully failed to conduct the election on March 30.

The catalogue of failures continued when it extended the deadline for candidates who intended to vie for the FECAFOOT presidency with the flimsy excuse that only one candidate had succeeded to compile their documents for the high office.

Again the tenure of the normaslisation committee has been prolonged to February next year under the pretext of giving candidates more time to prepare their application to vie for the elective post. If one candidate was successful in compiling his documents, what stopped the rest from assembling their own in time? Wasn’t the time enough to prepare documents by any candidate who was serious in running for the office? Is this   extension to February not just timed to give Owona and his committee another opportunity to control the cash and benefits that normally come with the African Nations Cup and give their friends, swathed as members of official delegation, an expense-paid holiday in Equatorial Guinea ?

So vexed with this latest postponement of the FECAFOOT election that soccer fanatics have called for protest. Joseph Antoine Bell, former Indomitable ace goalkeeper who had announced his plan to run for the FECAFOOT office is opposed to the protest, perhaps against a background that  he was the hidden hand behind the social media agitations.

At a press conference last Saturday, he said even though it is his intention to become the new FECAFOOT president, he is however opposed to a call for protests which could end up in violence. "The calls make me to feel that there is a hidden agenda. I am for a clean football and nothing but football. We should remain mobilised and exercise fair play," he said.

If Cameroonians had any consideration for fair play, the nornmalisation committee would not have existed in the first place. When the former FECAFOOT president, Iya Mohammed was locked up in prison on charges connected with his management of SODECOTON, John B. Ndeh was elected president. But because the overwhelming Francophone majority did not want an Anglophone to hold the office, they threatened to breach the peace. Troops were called in to keep law and order, but the Federation of International Football Association, FIFA, claiming it was government’s meddling in soccer management, imposed a ban on Cameroon.

It decreed against any soccer competition by Cameroon unless a “normalisation” committee was set up. That the government caved in and Joseph Owona and his team were installed on July 22 last year with the objective to review the FECAFOOT constitution and conduct elections in March 2014. The committee was also charged with the responsibility to run the administration of FECAFOOT and conduct elections both at regional and national levels.

When Cameroonians were expecting Owona to hand over to a new executive, FIFA's  representative, Primo Corvaro and that of  the Confederation of African Football , CAF, Prosper Abega came to Yaounde only  to announce later that the mandate had been extended to November 30, 2014.

Justifying the extension, Corvaro said FIFA had underestimated the work to be done."The depth of the change is really big. We didn't know at the beginning that we needed so much time to do so much. I can say the statutes that will be put forward to the delegates which cover almost everything, are of the highest quality and even the best quality that you can find in member associations".

Despite all the eminent lawyers and law professors in Owona’s 11-man committee, it was unable to amend a constitution of a football association within eight months. Another eight months were added yet they failed to complete the assignment on November 30. Its second yellow card which in football parlance would have been a red, has meant another three months.

Would Owona and members of his committee which he himself described as “professionals” want Cameroonians to believe that they needed 19 months to revise an existing constitution and conduct elections? An elated Owona said after the extension that it was not just “paste work” to be done on the FECAFOOT constitution but legal experts assert the constitution would have been revised in three months. He himself knows that it took less than that to revise the Cameroon constitution of which he was also the chairman. So why does this one take more than a year and a half especially as he acknowledged that members were well versed with the intrigues of Cameroon football?

Football fans know that FECAFOOT has always been riddled with controversial decisions, manipulations and scandals over money. It’s been a gold mine when those who get into its management do everything to “sit tight”. Sepp Blatter, FIFA president knows that, so does our own Issa Hayatou who has been on the CAF presidency for some three decades.

So when Owona and his committee keep asking for more time, nobody is fooled. The social media agitation is just the bubbles of discontent from underneath heading towards the surface. The committee would have finished their work at most within a year if not for the huge allowances they are earning.

The Guardian Post only hopes that Owona and his committee will not inflict the same disgrace on the nation in Equatorial Guinea as they did at Brazil 2014.