Douala Tit-Bits:SDF Takes Election Riggers To Court

By Joe Dinga Pefok

The SDF has filed a complaint with the State Counsel at the Court of First Instance at Ndokotti, Douala III, against the presidents of two polling stations at the October 26 municipal election re-runs in Douala V.

The two presidents reportedly falsified statistics on the return sheets of their polling stations.The complaint is signed by Hon Edward Nkembeng, who was the chief representative of the SDF at the Council Supervisory Commission, at the elections. The SDF says it has decided to drag these men to court to stand trial for their misdeeds.

It is worth recalling that during the official campaign period, the Littoral Provincial Chairman of the SDF, Hon Jean Michel Nintcheu, had warned that the party will drag presidents of polling stations who indulged in electoral fraud to court. Last year the party did same, but dropped the case when the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court annulled the July 22 municipal elections in Douala V.

City Council To Squeeze Kiosk Owners

The grand councillors of the Douala City Council at a council session on October 31 finally adopted a resolution authorising the Government Delegate to start collecting rents from owners of kiosks and other makeshift structures across Douala. The controversial rent is said to be for the occupation of public space. 

The draft proposal which was first presented by the Government Delegate, Dr Fritz Ntone Ntone, at a council session in August, sparked a heated debate among the grand councillors and it was not adopted then.

Some councillors saw the demand for the payment of such rents as controversial and a possible source of social tension, considering the high level of poverty choking the masses. For one thing, though some of the kiosks owners seemingly have some reasonable running capital, most of those running the kiosks are barely managing to survive. 

Some have a running capital of less than 10.000 FCFA, and asking them to pay rents for the public space they are occupying, is definitely like trying to get water out of a stone. If the council has to enforce such a decision, it is feared that many of those operating small businesses in make shift structures by road sides will have be forced out of business with all the consequences.

Lapiro Is High Profile Detainee

Cameroon's music star, Pierre Roger Lambo Sandjo, alias Lapiro de Mbanga, who has always identified himself with the down trodden of the society, might not have known that the Government considers him as a man of high status in the society.

Lapiro was recently slammed a three-year imprisonment term as well as a fine of FCFA 280 million by the Moungo High Court in Nkongsamba for his alleged involvement in the February upheavals in Mbanga.

Following his appeal against the verdict, Lapiro was on October 29 transferred from the Nkongsamba Prison to the New Bell Prison since his appeal case has to come up at the Littoral Court of Appeal in Bonanjo, Douala.

Lapiro de Mbanga apparently had a pleasant surprise that he was given a room at 'Speciale 18`, which is the section reserved form high profile detainees at New Bell Prison. More so, the room next to that of Lapiro is that of the former Government Delegate to the Douala Urban Council, Rt Colonel Edouard Etonde Ekoto, who is presently serving a 15-year jail term for alleged embezzlement of public funds.

When Lapiro leant that his immediate room-neighbour was Etonde, he reportedly sparked laughter when he in an amusing tone noted that it was a big honour to him (Lapiro).