Day: April 15, 2023

National Government officers and residents of Narok County have planted more than 100, 000 tree seedlings in the area since the year began.

However, Narok County Commissioner Isaac Masinde said the trees planted were less than their monthly target because of the prolonged dry spell that had hit the area.

‘We have a target of planting about 270, 000 trees per month as a county. We will continue planting more trees especially this rainy season so that we can attain our target,’ he said.

The commissioner spoke at the Olchoro area during a tree planting session that incorporated heads of department from the National Government and Narok Court Users.

During the function, over 2, 000 tree seedlings, mainly bamboo seedlings, were planted at the Olchoro River Catchment land.

Masinde asked residents to plant trees on the roadsides, individual farms and institutions like churches, schools and market places during this rainy season.

Narok Senior Resident Magistrate Adelaide Sisenda, who led the Narok Court Users reiterated the need to plant trees saying they conserve the environment and attract rainfall.

She challenged the residents to prioritize the agenda of planting trees in every forum they gather and teach their young children the importance of planting trees.

‘When we gather for any meeting like women groups and other family meetings, please, let us have a session where we plant trees. We should make it a norm in the society in order to increase our forest cover,’ she reiterated.

The Magistrate underscored the high penalties that come with destroying the environment saying apart from the fine that one will be forced to pay, he or she will be required to plant and tender over three tree seedlings to compensate for the one that was cut down.

‘We will not allow some few individuals to destroy the work that we are doing. We cannot be planting trees and then others follow behind cutting down trees without a valid permit from Kenya Forest Service. Those with such intentions should be warned that the penalties are very stiff,’ she said.

The security team led by County Police Commander John Kizito, Huduma center employees led by their manager Naserian Katampoi and tens of heads of departments were among the people that were present during the tree planting exercise.

The team will be moving to various parts of the county planting trees including the Maasai Mau forest and institutions.

Two weeks ago, the team planted over 2, 000 seedlings at the Etiang area in Olokurto ward.

Source: Kenya News Agency

Migori County Government has affirmed that it will foot the bills of the 11 people that perished during the recent fatal road accident in Migori town.

The accident occurred on April 7, when a lorry on transit from Nairobi to Isebania ferrying rice lost control and rammed into parked motorbikes and vehicles in downtown Migori killing seven people on the spot.

Migori Deputy Governor Dr. Joseph Mahiri affirmed that already the County has set aside Sh1 million to help bereaved families from the last weekend’s accident meet funeral expenses. The cash will help to foot the hospital and mortuary bills, coffins and hearse services.

He also added that they will foot the bills of the seven individuals that are still nursing serious injuries at the Migori County Referral Hospital.

Mahiri also announced that the county will host a joint memorial service on April 19 at Migori Stadium for the interdenominational mass to the bereaved families.

The official however, noted that they will continue engaging the bereaved families on any arrangements to ensure the process goes on smoothly.

He noted that they will be reorganising the Migori Central Business District (CBD) to prevent any future accidents in the CBD.

‘We have already identified and allocated spaces for taxis and trucks and started to engage with the CDB boda boda to identify safe spaces for them to park and drop their customers,’ said Mahiri.

Mahiri also acknowledged that the county will hatch a plan to re-route commercial trucks to use the newly constructed Kakrao-Namba bypass instead of passing through the town.

He explained that the county has already started to engage the Kenya National Highways Authority (KENHA) on how best to control the speed within Migori town.

Migori County Executive Committee Member (CCEM) for Environment and Disaster Management Rahab Robi said that the county will stand with the bereaved families by giving them moral and financial support as they seek to bury their loved ones.

Robi said that already the national and county governments through the Ministry of Lands and Urban Planning, Transport and Public Works and Trade will to allocate safe spaces for taxis, boda boda and trucks.

Source: Kenya News Agency

The latest report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, reveals that during the month of February, more than 82 civilians were kidnapped by unidentified armed groups in the Logone and Chari divisions of the Far North region.

According to the UN, these people were kidnapped for ransom and this demand highlights the economic motivations and financing needs that would largely underline this phenomenon.

“If several people were released often after the ransom payment, several others would still be in captivity. Young boys and girls were also missing. Sound sources suspect forced recruitment,“ they stated.

They highlighted that activities of non-state armed groups marked by violence and abduction of people continue to create panic in the Mayo Sava, Mayo Tsanaga, and Lagone and Chari divisions of the Far North region as a result of clashes between the non-state armed group fighters and defense and security forces. This has continued to negatively affect the daily lives of the population.

The report noted that at least 83 incidents related to the activities of non-state armed groups and confrontations with defense and security forces have been reported in February within the localities near the Mandara Mountains (Mayo-Sava and Mayo-Tsanaga), as well as those in and around Lake Chad been the most affected.

This marked a sharp increase as compared to 53 incidents accumulated between December 2022 and January 2023.

It also stated that at least least 23 civilians were killed and 24 injured during these incidents, with people’s properties looted and destroyed.

Due to this insecurity, over 1,652 persons have been displaced. “This brings to more than 6,000, the number of internally displaced persons registered in the region since January 2023,” says OCHA.

Globally, the UN noted that 1.6 million people are in need of aid, 385,000 are internally displaced, 47,000 people are refugees in rural areas, 76,000 people are in camps, 138,000 have returned to their villages while 962,000 are targeted in the Far North region.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

It is a well-known fact (or so we are told in history), that Cameroon got her name from the Wouri River because Portuguese explorers who arrived Cameroon in the 15th century found a lot of shrimp or prawns in the river and named it Rio dos Camarões which translates to “river of shrimps” in English. The name Cameroon is simply Camarões in Portuguese to this day.

Now, if we infer correctly, it means that Cameroonians are “shrimp”! We are seafood (at least by the implication of the Portuguese) just because our country’s history has been told to have started with Portuguese explorers – unfortunately.

The name does not capture our essence as West Africans because it is a reflection of European imperialism and not our intrinsic African values or customs. It is wrong to teach that Cameroon’s history begins with the Portuguese, because before they landed on our shores, people lived there. Those people may not have set sail on boats to distant lands, but they lived there and they certainly had their own names for local places, which would never have been Portuguese names for sure. However, we will never know for certain what they called the Wouri River themselves as there are no historical records of this.

Another fact worth establishing is the fact that Cameroon as we know it today, also did not exist at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese and the people that today make up Cameroon, would have most likely never had anything to do with each other at the time because they spoke different languages and had different tribal chiefs and kings and didn’t speak English and French as we do today (a holdover from the European colonial enterprise in Cameroon of course).

So what needs to be done?

Name change is nothing new to Cameroon. A solid example of a well-known name change of a city in Cameroon is the case of today’s Limbe. From 1858 to 1982, the town was known as Victoria, after Queen Victoria of England, but a Presidential decree by President Ahmadou Ahidjo changed it to Limbe in 1982. According to some oral narratives, the name Limbe is believed to be a mispronunciation/ misspelling which originated from the name of one of the German engineers, a General Limburgh (or Limbeigh) who is said to have built one of the bridges in the city during German rule in Cameroon. Of course the name change was not without controversy. In 2009, some chiefs in Limbe wanted a return to the former name, Victoria.

Name change is not new for cities or countries in Africa either. As recently as 2018, the tiny kingdom-nation of Swaziland changed its own name to Eswatini to avoid confusion with the similarly-named country of Switzerland in Europe and also to reflect a more African identity. In South Africa, authorities changed the name of a seaside city from Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha to reflect the name of a river named by the local tribal groups and authorities also changed the name of another city, Grahamstown to Makhanda, after a tribal chief from the 1800s who resisted colonialists in his day.

Is a name change feasible in the case of Cameroon?

Changing the name of a country is no easy task. It comes with a lot of legislative implications and huge financial costs because everything from the country’s money, to official documents, airplanes and ships would need to be rebranded. Printing of official documents such as passports would need to have a do-over to reflect the name change as well, but nonetheless, it can be done.

In the case of Cameroon, it is necessary to make the change because we cannot go around calling ourselves shrimps, crayfish (or ‘njanga’ in local parlance), just because the Portuguese named a river so. We need to re-examine the name and question how reflective it is of us as a nation. Is this our identity? That we are sea creatures? Most Cameroonians would agree that this is not a befitting name. Never mind that most of us cannot tell the difference between shrimp, prawns or crayfish either.

However, we need to consider something that is more uniting and reflective of Cameroonian culture across the board. Maybe we can think of the name of a national landmark in the local tribal name of the area where it is found e.g Mount Cameroon, Lake Nyos etc or a favourite Cameroonian dish cherished by all Cameroonians – maybe waterfufu and eru, maybe fufu and njama-njama (or kahti-kahti) or a favourite genre of music that is unique to us like Makossa and see how we can leave it to our sociologists and anthropologists to come up with a coinage for a name that would be generally accepted by ALL Cameroonians.

Conclusion

At a time when the country is grappling with high numbers of unemployed graduates, ailing infrastructure, weak governance institutions and a deadly war in the Anglophone Regions of the country, changing the name of the country is not the most pressing issue on the foremost minds of Cameroonians, but it is certainly still a topic worth discussing. Even if the changes that are required for renaming the country won’t be immediate, it’s worth having the conversation or at least starting it.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

Bawah Ankoh, a scrap dealer, has been sentenced to 20 months imprisonment by an Accra Circuit Court for stealing five laptops worth GHS36,000.

Ankoh broke into the offices of Synlab Ghana Limited and made away with the five computers, according to prosecutors.

Ankoh was sentenced to 15 months on the charge of unlawful entry and 20 months on the charge of stealing. Sentences will however run concurrently. Ankoh pleaded guilty to the charges.

The Court presided over by Mrs Evelyn Asamoah convicted Ankoh on his own plea.

An accomplice, Godwin Nyame, a 47-year-old trader, who dishonestly received the five laptop computers, has been admitted to bail in the sum of GHS70,000 with two sureties.

Nyame denied the charge of dishonestly receiving.

The matter has been adjourned to May 5, 2023.

Prosecution led by Chief Inspector Clement Takyi, said the complainant, name withheld, was an Administrative Manager of Synlab Ghana. Ankoh and Nyame reside at Achimota and Abofu, respectively in Accra.

Prosecution said on or before February 13, 2023, at midnight, Ankoh unlawfully entered the offices of the complainant at Shaishie and stole five Del Laptop computers valued at GHS36,000.

It said during the operation, Ankoh was captured by the CCTV at the offices.

The Prosecution said the complainant reported the matter to the Airport Police.

On March 4, 2023, one Michael Awitor who is alleged to be known for breaking into offices at Airport and its surrounding, was arrested.

The Prosecution said the video of the stealing incident at the complainant’s office was shown to him and he identified Ankoh as the one in the video.

It said the Police through intelligence nabbed Ankoh ‘who is notorious for breaking into people’s residence and sold the booty to second accused person (Nyame) at Vergas Achimota.’

Ankoh led the Police to arrest Nyame. When a search was conducted in Nyame’s room and one MacBook Laptop computer was retrieved, he could not prove ownership.

Source: Ghana News Agency