[size=15pt]Burundi President registers to run for third term despite clashes [/size]

(CNN)Burundi's President has registered to run for a third term, defying protesters who've taken to the streets over his bid to stay in office.

Deadly protests have hit the nation since last month as President Pierre Nkurunziza seeks to extend his 10-year rule.

The President has a two-term limit as part of an agreement that helped end Burundi's ethnic civil war. Critics say his planned run violates the constitution.

The election commission confirmed Friday that Nkurunziza has officially registered to run in next month's election.

Burundi's constitutional court ruled this week that he is eligible because he was picked by parliament, not elected by people, during his first term.

At least seven candidates have registered for the presidential race. Among them is prominent opposition leader Agathon Rwasa, who had helped lead rebel fighters in the country's 1993-2003 civil war.

Street battles

As clashes between police and protesters have raged, the international community has urged both sides to refrain from violence.

They have not complied, with the clashes sending an alarming flow of refugees to neighboring nations.

Already, 50,000 refugees have streamed into the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Rwanda, half of them in the latter nation, according to the United Nations.

[size=15pt]Biya rated Africa’s leading "sit-tight" president[/size]
President Paul Biya has been rated Africa’s longest serving leader, after Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea that rose to power in 1979.

The rating is contained in an article in the US authoritative newspaper, The Washington Post, published on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the President’s accession to power last Tuesday, November 04.

The article titled: “The World Leaders who just won’t Step Down” is by-lined by the foreign affairs correspondent of the newspaper, Adams Taylor. To the American newspaper, Biya is among the African Presidents who are scheming to eternalise their stay in power.

On Thursday, November 6, Biya Clocked exactly 11,712 days in power (32 years). It was on November 04, 1982 that Cameroon’s first post-independence President, Ahmadou Ahidjo, resigned and handed over power to his Prime Minister, Paul Biya.

Political observers hold that Biya who promised to give Cameroon a veneer of democracy, rigour and moralisation, suddenly metamorphosed into a full-fledged dictator, after the failed coup d’etat of April 6, 1984. Since then, critics have described the New Deal apostle as a dictator in democratic garments.

Foreign policy, a magazine published by The Washington Post, described Biya as a sit-tight President who has amassed excessive wealth to the tune of 200,000 US dollars (CFAF100 billion) and the mansions that go with it.

In a rating of 40 dictatorial leaders in the world, the Magazine qualifies Biya as the 23rd worst dictator on earth. It equally stigmatises Cameroon’s president for virtually disarming the opposition by way of election rigging. “Biya has co-opted the opposition into complete submission. Not that he is worried about elections; he has rigged the lawful term limit twice to make sure that the party does not end anytime soon,” partly reads the article by a Ghanaian journalist cum economist, George B. N. Ayittey.

The article pours scorn on Cameroon’s octogenarian president for changing the constitution of his country in 2008 to eternalise his stay in power. Since the beginning of the Biya regime, the article points out, Cameroonians have never known free, fair and transparent elections, adding that the elections management body, Elections Cameroon, ELECAM is made up of cohorts of the ruling CPDM party.

While commenting on the articles published in The Washington Post, the Secretary General of the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front, SDF, Dr Elizabeth Tamajong, said the facts were a faithful rendition of what president Biya has been doing in over three decades. She said the reign of the New Deal has been bleak.

She recalled that it was during the New Deal regime that Cameroon was disgraced twice as the world champion of corruption. She went on to say, Cameroon, a Country endowed with enormous natural and human resources, was qualified a heavily indebted poor country during the New Deal Regime. She buttressed claims by the French Media which said while Cameroon was sinking deep in the abyss of poverty,

Jklue007:
Begore I comment let me hail

BUHARI my HERO!
AMEACHI my ROLE MODEL!!
FASHOLA my GUY!!!

God bless Nairaland.

Finally, I respect the outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan, despite the short comings in his administration. For allowing smooth transition,He deserves the award.

Mogidi:
Oga barcanista,
Haven't heard from you for several days?

barcanista:
Babangida annuled credible election

Obasanjo conducted 2 fraudulent elections and even wanted to go for an unconstitutional 3rd term.

Buhari's supporters sent over 1000 people to their early deaths in 2011 because Buhari lost.

Buhari's team made it clear that "should election be rigged, they won't go to court but will form parallel government".

Buhari accepted the 2015 results despite the fact that there was cleaaaaaaaaaaaar case of Almajiri kids voting for him. All because he was declared winner.

Despite the electoral skimish in the North, incumbent Jonathan had to accept the result because "his ambition is not worth the blood of anybody".

Truly, Jonathan is the only Democratic President Nigeria has ever produced. He's a complete gentleman and a Man of Peace.

He deserves the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.

Omotolu:
Trash talk. He should have behaved like Gbagbo,and face the consequences. Nobel Price is not just being dished out anyhow. Recipients must deserve it.

barcanista:
My boss I de fine o. How you de na?

disumusa:
Gej can not cause anything proble, unless he wanted jail his from minority

barcanista:
Babangida annuled credible election

Obasanjo conducted 2 fraudulent elections and even wanted to go for an unconstitutional 3rd term.

Buhari's supporters sent over 1000 people to their early deaths in 2011 because Buhari lost.

Buhari's team made it clear that "should election be rigged, they won't go to court but will form parallel government".

Buhari accepted the 2015 results despite the fact that there was cleaaaaaaaaaaaar case of Almajiri kids voting for him. All because he was declared winner.

Despite the electoral skimish in the North, incumbent Jonathan had to accept the result because "his ambition is not worth the blood of anybody".

Truly, Jonathan is the only Democratic President Nigeria has ever produced. He's a complete gentleman and a Man of Peace.

He deserves the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.