Orock Eta
11 April 2008
In a parliamentary sitting on Thursday, April 10, 2008, the Cameroon's National Assembly adopted a bill to amend the 1996 constitution of Cameroon.Following the new constitution, Paul Biya is legible to serve Cameroonians for another seven years unlimited term of office after his present seven year term runs out in 2011.
The bill also states that in the absence of the president, the president of the Senate becomes the interim President and should organize elections within 20 days.
Furthermore, it also gives the president immunity making him not to be accountable for any offences committed during his term in office. The SDF parliamentarians lead by Joseph Mbah Ndam boycotted the elections giving the other MPs an absolute majority.
Some Cameroonians are reacting angrily against the constitutional amendment and are geared towards an impending strike action to begin on Monday, April 15, 2008. For that reason, around Buea and other towns in
where the effects of the strike action of February were intense, armed law enforcement officers have been placed on major road junctions to check any possible riot
In another development, Cameroonian artist Lapiro de Mbanga was arrested that same morning in Mbanga, when MPs were adopting the bill on constitution amendment. It is alleged he was picked up on grounds that he encised the population of Mbanga during the last February national uprising.
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i greet you the management of allAfrica.com:thanks for this given oppotunity so one can be able to express his views on the ongoing situation in the country:You will bear with me that its good for the actor to leave the audience rather than the audience leaving the actor on stage.Mr BIYA and his collegues are really wicked that they no longer have an atom of pity on the citizens;He has been able to spoil this promised land for 25yrs today with us being very silence;let him kindly stepdown and donot make la republic as he changed it be a kingdom;we are tied being fed with unfulfilled promises.IF HE knows he has served Cameroonians well.then why change the constituion to allow him go un judge.i feel pity for the militants of the ruling CPDM party becos they are all hungry dogs.may GOD have mercy on them.Is our country Cameroon really practising a mono or a multy partism.SHAME TO MR BIYA AND HIS EXECUTIVE BOARD FOR COMPLETELY SILENCING THE OTHER ARMS OF GOV?T.Thanks. BACC HOLDER
It is shameful that when the country is at its brink of disaster those who are suppose to be representing the will of the people will be paying lip service to democracy. The state of emergency, the punitive and arbitrary arrest of opinion leaders like Lapiro just goes a long way to show the government's ruthlessness