AFRICAphonie AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be.
Bakwerirama Spotlight on Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation.
Bate Besong Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright.
Bernard Fonlon Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life.
Fonlon-Nichols Award Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere.
France Watcher Purpose of this advocacy site: To aggregate all available information about French terror, exploitation and manipulation of Africa
Jacob Nguni Virtuoso guitarist, writer and humorist. Former lead guitarist of Rocafil, led by Prince Nico Mbarga.
Martin Jumbam The refreshingly, unique, incisive and generally hilarous writings about the foibles of African society and politics by former Cameroon Life Magazine columnist Martin Jumbam.
Nowa Omoigui Professor of Medicine and interventional cardiologist, Nowa Omoigui is also one of the foremost experts and scholars on the history of the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Civil War. This site contains many of his writings and comments on military subjects and history.
Postwatch Magazine A UMI (United Media Incorporated) publication. Specializing in well researched investigative reports, it focuses on the Cameroonian scene, particular issues of interest to the former British Southern Cameroons.
Simon Mol Cameroonian poet, writer, journalist and Human Rights activist living in Warsaw, Poland
Victor Mbarika ICT Weblog Victor Wacham Agwe Mbarika is one of Africa's foremost experts on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Dr. Mbarika's research interests are in the areas of information infrastructure diffusion in developing countries and multimedia learning.
Tunduzi A West African in Arusha at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the angst, contradictions and rewards of that process.
Dr Godfrey Tangwa (Gobata) Renaissance man, philosophy professor, actor and newspaper columnist, Godfrey Tangwa aka Rotcod Gobata touches a wide array of subjects. Always entertaining and eminently readable. Visit for frequent updates.
Francis Nyamnjoh Prolific writer, social and political commentator, he was a professor at University of Buea and University of Botswana. Currently he is Head of Publications and Dissemination at CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal. His writings are socially relevant and engaging even to the non specialist.
Ilongo Sphere: Writer and Poet Novelist and poet Ilongo Fritz Ngalle, long concealed his artist's wings behind the firm exterior of a University administrator and guidance counsellor. No longer. Enjoy his unique poems and glimpses of upcoming novels and short stories.
Scribbles from the Den The award-winning blog of Dibussi Tande, Cameroon's leading blogger.
Enanga's POV Rosemary Ekosso, a Cameroonian novelist and blogger who lives and works in Cambodia.
GEF's Outlook Blog of George Esunge Fominyen, former CRTV journalist and currently Coordinator of the Multi-Media Editorial Unit of the PANOS Institute West Africa (PIWA) in Dakar, Senegal.
The Chia Report The incisive commentary of Chicago-based former CRTV journalist Chia Innocent
Voice Of The Oppressed Stephen Neba-Fuh is a political and social critic, human rights activist and poet who lives in Norway.
Bate Besong Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright.
Bakwerirama Spotlight on the Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation.
Fonlon-Nichols Award Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere.
Bernard Fonlon Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life.
AFRICAphonie AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be.
Canute - Chronicles from the Heartland Professional translator, freelance writer and a regular contributor to THE POST newspaper. Lives in Douala, Cameroon
By Innocent Chia - Courtesy Dunia Magazine – issue 3(Feb – May 2011)
I cannot remember thinking much about why my parents named me Innocent until I was an old twenty nine year old man in grad school in Madison, Wisconsin. One of my professors was certain – as if he knew something that I did not – that it was not by happenstance that I had been given the name. I decided that I wanted to know whether there was a story behind it, and if there was a story, what was it? Why did my parents name me Innocent? In fact, why are you called Grace or Nicoline, Valentine or Paul, Alice or Prudence, George or Kolkman, Eva or Albert, Angel or Kenneth, Laura or Simon …?
By Innocent Chia As night broke into dawn this morning, most of the world was waking up to President Barack Obama’s defense of US intervention in Libya to save it from itself. But even more significantly, dictators who may have been praying for American inaction to inform their future brutish repression of civilian uprisings are waking up to a forewarning that natural and supernatural forces may have been in collusion when Obama promised to “un-clinch” those fists that perceive freedom and change as the enemy. Without taking the eye off of Paul Biya and his ilk of dictators and armed robbers who reduce the citizenry to pulp while pilfering from the national coffers, this write up, on the heels of last week’s piece (If not Biya, Who?), shines a flashlight at how Cameroonians, in organizations at home and abroad, behave almost in identical fashion to Biya. As generation Y continues kicking out rulers across the Middle-East and other areas get the jitters, it is no longer safe to cling onto elitist power paradigms that have held authority at arms-length from the young and poor.
I was at a wake over the weekend. A friend lost the mother and the community was visiting with his family to express condolences and support. As it generally happens at these events, solemn conversation and prayer eventually turned into animated discussions about the political theater that has been unfolding in the Middle East, culminating as it were in the “No fly Zone” resolution at the UN Security Council and its enforcement largely by the British, French and American tripartite. While there was no disputing the brutality and savage cruelty of Gaddafi’s regime vis a vis Libyans, I was surprised by the readiness of some to defend a self-conceited bully who has referred to fellow citizens as “rats and dogs” for denying the magnanimity of a “beloved despot”. I have been asking myself why many oppressors across the world, including miscreants like Gaddafi and Paul Biya of Cameroon, invariably get sympathies from the very ones they oppress. This concern is more often than not encapsulated in the following question: who will fill the vacuum (after Biya/Gaddafi…)? My all time favorite is “what next”?
In an amateur video shoot circulating on Cameroon cyber groups, Cameroon’s Ambassador to the United States, Joseph Bienvenue Charles Foe-Atangana has been inviting Cameroonians in and around the D.C metropolis to a cultural evening at a popular Cameroon joint on Friday night, March 18th, 2011. The video of talking-heads predominantly features traditional chiefs - supposedly custodians of the culture and traditions – of villages mostly from the grass field regions of Cameroon.
As a son whose early childhood was squarely steeped in my Kom culture, traditions and history, the mockery of seeing people who are, otherwise, no more than palace guards introduce themselves as chiefs in America speaks volumes about the extent to which the government has compromised the authority of real traditional rulers in Cameroon to effect its divide and rule policy.
A soldier without political education is a potential criminal - Thomas Sankara 1985
In a presidential decree reorganizing Cameroon’s Armed Forces, Commander-in-Chief, Paul Biya retired four generals and promoted ten others to varying posts of responsibility. This is the culmination of military reforms announced by President Biya a decade ago in 2001. The four slated for retirement are Generals Pierre Semengue 76yrs, Oumaroudjam Yaya 73yrs, Nganso Sunji 75yrs and Tataw James 78yrs. Keen observers of Cameroon’s military may not be surprised that Biya retires James Tataw (legally blind) and Pierre Semengue (suffering from a partial stroke). Actually, these presidential decrees attempt to mask a huge malaise within Cameroon’s Armed Forces.
By Arrey Obenson *** and edited by Innocent Chia I have been pondering the words of the National Anthem of Cameroon for quite some time now. It is true every word pays homage to the past, cherishes the present and inspires the future. These choice words were intended, rightfully so, to inspire citizens of Cameroon to become actors in the destiny of their beloved country, not mere spectators of it as the case arguably may be for the unhealthy majority. The words of the National anthem paint a picture in our minds of many who gave of their blood and sweat, of many who toiled for the independence and freedom our country – Cameroon. It is a painful regret that their dreams, now long forgotten, have been watered down by years of growing disregard to the sense of nationhood.
As Cameroon's veteran journalist, Henriette Ekwe Ebongo earned her time in the spotlight (March 8th) at the 2011 Women of Courage Awards ceremony at the US State Department - presided over by First lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - I could not help but think of it as a bitter sweet moment for her.
The award crowns her personal dedication, often at the risk of her life, to a profession that has given her license to stand up for the oppressed and stand up to the oppressor. Even while on US soil for the Awards, stories of threats to her life have been pervasive within the Cameroon online community...springing back memories of Pius Njawe, another Cameroonian voice for the disenfranchised, whose untimely death on a US highway nine months ago was anything but accidental.
A couple of weeks ago I received a mail from my kid brother that sent me thinking. He had just returned to Cameroon from Doha, Qatar, where he spent a week attending a conference. This is what he said: “What is bothering me now is that I cannot reconcile that side [Doha] with this so much dirt I do see around. Really wish to spend a longer part of my life that way. Even on no beer”.
In the second part of this write-up, I will revisit why replicating a Jasmine Revolution in Cameroon has fell on deaf ears. It is definitely not the absence of ingredients for an all out massive protest.
Nobody, with the probable exception of the Minister of Finance, could predict or warn against the looming bankruptcy of the fastest growing micro-finance institution in Cameroon; Cofinest (Compagnie Financiere de l’Estuaire). The social extent of this development can be gauged from the 850,000 savings accounts run by Cofinest. On the street level, this translates to 85,000 people per region in Cameroon. Beyond the numbers, Cofinest touches the soul of Cameroon - football. Originally, Cofinest was a common initiative group created by supporters of Union Douala. From 1996 it became a micro-finance institution with 508 shareholders and up to 850,000 accounts by December 2010. In the following piece, Philip Acha layers-up on a crumbling house of cards.
Like an amputation without anesthesia, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has thrown African French puppet Presidents under the proverbial bus as popular risings pick up momentum from the typhoon winds blowing down on the rest of Africa from the North.
A shortlist of measures contained in a new French Foreign Policy towards former French colonies in Africa specifically warns Paul Biya against running for another term in October 2011. Not only is Sarkozy acknowledging the disenfranchised, he is winking at them by making known his plans to withdraw French military support so that drug-heads of Biya’s ilk do not resort to deploying French resources against the masses a la drowning Ghadafi of Libya. Will French Cameroonians take the cue from this huge shift in policy?
Innocent Chia
Citizen Journalist
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