Kanute - Kronicles from the Heartland

In Pictures: Ekom Nkam Falls in Melong, Cameroon

Located in Melong, Mungo Division, Cameroon, this is where the film Tarzan was shot in 1984.

Bishop Rogan College (Birocol) Class of ’79: The Ecletics

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Sandwiched between two tumultuous and rollercoaster generations, 70s and 80s, our class, the ‘79 eclectics could not but pick up and valorise the positive traits of these generations; bonding, networking, curiosity, innovation, taste, and solidarity.

When on September 1979, Bishop Rogan College welcomed a not too significant number of young freshmen from diverse backgrounds but with one goal, aspiring to the catholic priesthood, Buea, the one-way-in and one-way-out town ‘splashing with rust’ then, and particularly the village of Small Soppo, Bolikawo host to the college campus for the past 60 years had not broken with the past in terms of weather; cold, chilly, drizzling, foggy, and rainy.

On day one, we did appreciate the well-manicured velvety greenish carpet-like tea plantation that formed an arc around the campus. At the entrance, by the main road, leading to the college grounds proper, the century old cathedral and its imposing columns and towers of stone, on the left, and the grand Father’s House of pure German masonry, on the right, were apparently a foretaste of the challenges we would face in this citadel of knowledge and excellence.

Why are we all hypocrites ?

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(c)anute Tangwa

We immersed him in the Wouri/

 

We made him Fon of Fons/

 

We made him Chief of Chiefs/

 

We made him Lamido of Lamidos/

 

We made him enter all our Sacred Traditional Shrines (Ngumbah Houses) laying hands on him/

 

Asking our ancestors to give him long life, courage and above all POWER/

Forty-two years later, we turn around and are surprised at his long stay at the helm of State/

Why are we all hypocrites ?

Cameroon : COALITION or ALLIANCE? Have We Got It Right?

 

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(c)anute Tangwa

 

Hate him or like him, Joshua Osih dropped something of political import two weeks ago/

 

What he said apparently went unnoticed/

 

Because we were shouting ourselves hoarse with a new buzz word/

 

* COALITION

 

Indeed, from the amount of trumpeting (Hugh Masekela would wince)COALITION just found its way into our political lexicon/

 

Yet, the fundamental question should be/

 

* When appropriate to coalese or to ally?

 

Here, Joshua Osih set the ball rolling with insights that even the most novice of political actors should have known/

 

His statement laid bare/

 

The fundamental difference/

 

Between COALITION and ALLIANCE/

 

When he said talking about COALITION in a one-round presidential election is akin to playing ball with the CPDM/

 

...is heresy to say the least/

 

He was right/

 

Why?

 

COALITION makes political sense in a two-round election/

 

COALITION is a short-term political arrangement ideal in a two-round electoral process where no party wins a majority in round one/

 

Hence, parties irrespective or respective of political bent then coalese to win an outright majority in round two/

 

A political alliance is long-term and often brings together parties of similar political bent/

 

Indeed, some pundits hold that there is a thin line between coalition and alliance/

 

* I agree

However, practically, on the political turf, there is a fundamental difference.

Last line : A complete review of the electoral code would ensure a level playing ground/

As political things stand, COALITION or ALLIANCE will not do the trick.

Our History: Our Palaver, Our Wahala

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(c)anute

There is no King Kong as far as the written History of Cameroon is concerned/

 

There are a plethora of historians and researchers who have written and are writing/researching about the history of Cameroon

Which history? Some may ask

 

Indeed, there is one history with one common denominator: Rio dos Cameroes/

There is one history with one common denominator: Kamerun/

 

There is one history with one common denominator : The UPC and OK/

 

There are three histories with three denominators: British Southern Cameroons, British Northern Cameroons and the French Cameroons/

 

There is one history till date with three denominators: Federal Republic of Cameroon, United Republic of Cameroon and Republic of Cameroon/

However, in any field there are precursors, pacesetters, luminaries and beacons/

 

Precursors we have/

 

Pacesetters we have/

 

Luminaries we have/

 

Beacons we do have/

 

Perspective, focus, purpose, drive and interpretations may be different but historians and researchers on Cameroon agree that only facts are sacrosanct, and nothing else/

 

Any historical narrative has strong political undercurrents that shape the idea of a common weal and common republican values/

 

Hence, the need for a Cameroonian historical narrative/statement that defines who we are in our diversity, our stance as a people and our vision/

 

Such historical construct should be developed by Cameroonians for Cameroonians and for the world

 

 

 

Cameroon: Living Together and Otherness (WE and THEM)

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(c)anute Tangwa

You are first and foremost from an ethnocultural or ethnolinguistic sphere before being a Cameroonian/

 

A colonial construct, which you can't wish away, Anglophone or Francophone before being a Cameroonian/

You are invariably TWO in one/

 

• A culturo-political duality: ONE country, TWO persons in ONE.

 

You are a Cameroonian because you are a true son or daughter of an ethnoculturo-linguistic sphere/

 

While appreciating and tolerating the Otherness of other Cameroonians/

 

You exhibit where you come from by espousing the culture, mores, tradition of your sphere/

 

Not the repugnant aspects of your culture/

 

Such as/

• Exclusion

• Discriminatory stigmatas like WE and THEM,OTHERS

 

While appreciating and tolerating the culture, tradition and mores of the Other/

 

Now that you are fully conscious of your micro identities (ethnoculturo-linguistic spheres and Anglo-Francophoness /

 

You can live and think Cameroonian through official bilingualism/

 

Through mastery of our histories and OUR HISTORY/

 

• Drawing from our histories and OUR HISTORY common collective republican values of living together.

 

Through intermarriage/

 

Through the institution of a national lingua franca/

 

For language can build, innovate, break barriers, build bridges and elevate/

 

For language can destroy, blow up bridges, build barriers/

For language is the vehicle of thought processes, social cohesion and motor of development.

 

WHERE HAVE THE GREAT MEN-WOMEN OF AFRICA GONE TO?

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute

Africa used to have real great men. Men, who changed the course of history, shaped our reasoning and made life worth living. Almost every facet of human endeavour threw up men of timber and stature. In politics, sports, sciences, humanities, media, business, religion and entertainment there were personalities who made our hearts beat, made us feel like borrowing wings, kept us on our toes, made us wonder and dream (the dream of kings), and made us marvel at the way they  unravelled knotty issues.

Indeed, there was once an Africa of great ideological debates, of big men who personalized ideologies, of unfettered scientific ideas, of imagination, of diplomacy in its subtlest form and as showmanship, of benevolent bullies, of bloody dictators, and of souls that made us see the grace of God through their words and deeds. 

Africa once had its share of real women; Big women. Women who made us proud of our triple heritage (dixit Ali A. Mazrui). Amazons with a power of their own. A power that the inimitable Onwuchekwa Chinwezu highlighted in a treatise entitled: Anatomy of Female Power.  Is it not proper and fitting that only a big man like the late Leopold Sedar Senghor described the African woman, the authentic one, in the most glorious and magnificent of terms? A magnificat of sorts to the African Woman:

Naked woman, black woman/Clothed with your colour which is life, with your form which is beauty!
In your shadow I have grown up; the gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes. And now, high up on the sun-baked pass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon/ I come upon you, my Promised Land/ And your beauty strikes me to the heart like the flash of an eagle. Naked woman, dark woman/
Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures of black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouth/Savannah stretching to clear horizons, savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind's eager caresses/
Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering under the Conqueror's fingers/
Your solemn contralto voice is the spiritual song of the Beloved.
Naked woman, dark woman/
Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on the athlete's flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of Mali/Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the night of your skin/Delights of the mind, the glinting of red gold against your watered skin/Under the shadow of your hair, my care is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes. Naked woman, black woman, I sing your beauty that passes, the form that I fix in the Eternal/ Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to feed the roots of life.

Things political are not the same again as in the days of Kwame Nkrumah, Haile Selassie, Julius Nyerere, Sedar Senghor, Houphouet Boigny, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Houari Boumedienne, Samora Marcel, Agostino Neto, Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Idi Amin, King Hassan II, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, Sekou Toure, Modibo Keita, Kenneth Kaunda, Jomo Kenyatta, Thomas Sankara, Marien Ngouabi, Jean Bedel Bokassa, Mobutu Sese Seko, Ian Smith, Pieter Botha, Nelson Mandela, Chris Hani, Oliver Tambo, Joshua Nkomo, Um Nyobe, Felix Moumie, Ernest Ouandie, Ndeh Ntumazah and so on.

Things artistic and literary are apparently not the same again as in the times of Amos Tutoula, Chinua Achebe, Sedar Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Mongo Beti, Alioune Diop, Leopold Ferdinand Oyono, Bernard Fonlon, Camara Laye, Sembene Ousmane, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Elechi Amadi, Mbella Sonne Dipoko, Christopher Okigbo, Ken Saro Wiwa, Bate Besong, Fela Ransome Kuti, Bob Marley, Manu Dibango, Ali Farka Toure, Myriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Nadine Gordimer, Naguib Mahfouz and so on. However, the matchless storyteller, Chinua Achebe says this of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun: “We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but there is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers…Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (’s)….experimentation with the dual mandate of English and Igbo in perennial discourse is a case in point.” Seemingly, all is not lost for when a Richard Bona strings a bass guitar and hums; the keen listener is taken back into the recesses of time!

Sport is art in the sense of winning in style and not at all cost. Thus, sport is seemingly not like it was in the days of Miruts Yifter, Henry Rono, John Akii Bua, Kipchoge Keino, Ben Jipcho, John Ngugi, Billy Konchellah, Paul Tergat, Juma Ikanga, Abebe Bikila, Gebre Selassie, Said Aouita, Nawal El Moutawakel, Amadou Dia Ba, Francis Obikwelu, Mary Onyali-Omagbemi, Innocent Egbunike, Roger Milla, Abedi Pele, Yusuf Fofana, Kalusha Bwalya, JayJay Okocha, Thomas Nkono, Aziz Bourdeballa, Abega Theophile, George Weah, Stephen Keshi, Mahmoud El Khatib and so on. Of course there is apparently no break with the past. But it must be admitted that talented African ball jugglers like Eto’o, Drogba, and Essien send crowds into frenzy in stadia in Europe rather than in Africa.

Africa needs self-examination. What snapped? Fortunately, Libyan leader Muammar Khaddafi is presently touring Africa and drumming support for an African union government, NOW! His idea is the brightest and the best. Through him political things might become interesting again. Let’s wait and see.  

Christian Cardinal Tumi: Loved by Many Loathed by Some

                           By Canute Tangwa

No Catholic prelate, in Cameroon, since the late Bishop Albert Ndongmo, has been both loved and loathed like Christian Cardinal Tumi.

He was loved and venerated by those who looked up to him as a moral authority, a peace crusader, a human rights defender and a champion of free thought and speech; loathed and dreaded by those who saw him as an impediment to their Machiavellian and sinister designs to despoil and emasculate the masses and the downtrodden, to stifle free thought and to bayonet free speech.

The cleric was held in awe by fence-sitters, buccaneers, profiteers and tribal man Fridays since he was well above their mercantile and clannish schemes.

Within the academy, the university, he cautioned freshmen and graduates at the University of Buea on 21 December 1998 to defend the truth irrespective of the circumstances. It was a landmark discourse that expounded on ontological truth, ‘defined as the conformity of objective reality with its divine ideal, with its corresponding idea in the mind of the creator,’ which, put simply, is the correlation between what you think and say. Otherwise, it is a lie!

Within the purview of his pastoral calling, his political theology, at variance with liberation theology, based on the virtues of fortitude, temperance and justice as well as Catholic dogmas (Vatican II, Social Teachings of the Church), universal declaration of human rights, the Augustinian just war theory coupled with his Bishopric motto (Lord I have Come To Do Your Will) was bound to clash with State authorities and the corrupt-bankrupt banditti.  

As a moral authority, he shot the first salvo that brought in its stead ‘suspicion, surveillance and slander’ from the State when he was appointed Rector of the Major Seminary in Bambui in 1973 by Monsignor Paul Verdzekov, Bishop of Bamenda who ‘invited him to start an ecumenical group to study the bible and seek guidance on political changes that plagued the country. In response, Tumi and a group of Christian intellectuals and lay leaders formed The Christian Study Group (CSG) to analyse socio-political events in our country in the light of the Gospel of Christ.’

The immediate upshot of their reflection was the publication of a pastoral letter on the Fight Against Corruption by the Bishops of Buea and Bamenda, which as Elias Kifon Bongmba avers, ‘(constituted) a detailed and unusually frank discussion of the crisis of corruption in Cameroon that appealed to all Christians to examine their conscience and fight corruption. This document, which remains one of the boldest pastoral letters in Cameroon’s ecclesiastical history, called on Christians to be the light of the world, in a context where corruption had already infected all sectors of the country.’ 

In reaction, the then Minister for Territorial Administration instructed Governor David Abouem A Tchoyi to arrest members of the CSG following the presentation of the contents of the pastoral letter at a public forum in Bamenda. History records that Abouem A Tchoyi refused to arrest members of the group on the grounds that they did not perturb public order!

As Bishop of Yagoua (1979) and later Archbishop of Garoua, he was often on a collision course with State and public authorities. At Yagoua, his first pastoral letter ‘urging Christians to remain strong in their faith in Christ’ did not go down well with Governor Ousmane Mey who ‘summoned Tumi to a meeting…and accused Tumi of engaging in subversive activities and stated that Tumi could be sent to jail like Monsignor Albert Ndongmo.’

There was no respite with the appointment of Fon Fosi Yakum Ntaw as Governor of the North. When the Governor accused ‘the Catholic Church of subversive activities because the church was building chapels without the permission of the state − a reference to a 1928 colonial law that required all groups, including religious groups, to get state permissions before they constructed any properties,’ Tumi hit back stating that ‘Northern Cameroon is not predominantly Muslim. There are Christian churches in the region and at the time there were two other Catholic bishops in Northern Cameroon, who themselves were indigenes.’

Reacting to the Governor’s ‘charge that Catholics were constructing church buildings without permission, Tumi argued that the government ought to congratulate the Catholic Church for its social services to the people. He also told the governor that Muslims were building mosques without permission. But the governor argued that Islam was a traditional religion and did not need permission to build. Tumi countered that the state of Cameroon was a secular state and the government could not favor one religion over the others.’

As two-term president of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (1985 and 1990), public authorities were always nervous, vilified the prelate and saw his hand in every communique or pastoral letter critizing poor government economic policies and actions published by the Episcopal Conference under his tenure.

Suffice to note that the government lobbied hard for him not to be elected a second time as president of the episcopal conference but the bishops stood their ground. The State then unleashed a fiery media campaign against the prelate through CRTV that posted journalists to the North according to Robert Abunaw ‘to frustrate the cardinal media wise.’ The former Director of Radio, Antoine Marie Ngono holds that CRTV contributed greatly in the demonization of the prelate…fortunately it belatedly changed course.

Pope John Paul II ‘appointed him to the College of Cardinals and he was consecrated Cardinal on 28 June 1988 in Rome.’ He was received with a lot of pomp by the Christian community, Cameroonians in general and the government. The Head of State dispatched a presidential jet to pick up the cardinal from Rome to Yaounde and then ferried him to Garoua. The President offered him a Mercedes Benz.

However, when the supreme pontiff transferred him from Garoua to Douala in 1991 just when the floodgates of multiparty democracy were opened in Cameroon, the government became jittery for he was seen within power circles in Yaounde as a spiritual guide of the opposition. Indeed, he came on hard on the government for violently attacking the launching of the Social Democratic Party in 1992 and made it clear that it was the constitutional and legitimate right of any Cameroonian to form a political party.

Government fears were apparently ‘confirmed’ when the opposition swept almost all seats in local elections in Douala. This is the more so because as Kifon Bongmba posits, ‘the Catholic Bishop’s Conference had written a letter to all the Christians in Cameroon in preparation for that election and he, Tumi, read it openly in the Cathedral in Douala.’

His stance on issues like the use of condoms was quite controversial but revolutionary within the Catholic Church. In order to curb the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, he advocated the limited use of condoms by couples! However, he did toe the line regarding Catholic teaching on abortion and homosexuality.  In short, he was pro-life and pro-family in the catholic sense of the word.

As a defender of human rights, he railed at the extra judicial and targeted killings of ordinary Cameroonians by the operational command put in place by the State to fight organized crime, armed robbery and banditry in Douala from 1999 to 2000 following the killing of a French butcher by armed robbers.

It came to a head when nine persons were picked up arbitrarily in the neighbourhood of Bepanda and the operational unit could not account for their whereabouts. The cardinal called for the dismantling of the unit. He also wrote a letter to armed robbers and men of the underworld urging them to change their ways. For his efforts in the defense of human rights in Cameroon, he was awarded the Sergio de Mello Human Rights Prize on 27 May 2005.

As a champion of free speech and thought, he set up Radio Veritas and the Catholic printing press, MACACOS. However, these came at a prize because certain authorities in Yaounde including some members of his entourage did everything to frustrate the creation of these structures.   

Interviews granted by the cleric to local and international media were often critical of government policies and actions relating to the economy, conduct of elections, governance, security, freedom of expression, tribalism, marginalization (particularly the Anglophone minority) and this often drew the ire of State authorities who accused the prelate of having presidential ambitions and of being anti-patriotic amongst other accusations. The cardinal often responded via open letters to the State authorities that were published in local papers. The ping pong between the cardinal and public authorities via local media became a recurring decimal.

As a peace crusader, the cardinal together with other religious leaders called for an Anglophone Conference in order to address the Anglophone problem in Cameroon but was frustrated by the government and local lackeys due to suspicion. The team produced a four-hundred-page document on the crisis that was forwarded to the presidency but the latter responded by setting the Grand National Dialogue, which did not deter the cardinal from attending and proffering solutions to the crisis. For his pains he was abducted by separatists and later released.

Cardinal Christian Tumi was an emblematic personality with many facets. He was often misunderstood. He was quite pragmatic and tolerant but could also be dogmatic to a fault. He was a pastor of souls who he did not lose sight of the fact that ‘though man cannot live by bread alone he cannot equally do without it.’ His works, spiritual and physical, bear witness to a ‘man who saw tomorrow.’

Trip to Awing: Encounter with Separatist Fighters

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Hi Folks: Up kontri (North-West Region of Cameroon   ); countryside-landscape blues and tourism.

Far, far from the madding, hustling and bustling crowd.

Quite refreshing but....the menacing cum threatening environment (Three so called amba boys where taken out barely 15 minutes to our arrival and their mangled dead bodies displayed for all to see) would make the sincere wince...

Then our encounters with criminal-tribal gangs who have virtually hijacked a struggle was quite chilling...(story for another day)

 

 

 

A Day In My Life At The University of Yaounde-Ngoa-Ekele Campus: Lisette Elomo Ntonga

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

The business of memory is quite rich in anecdotes, truths, half-truths, experiences and perceptions.

The business of memory informs the business of history which in turn analyses and appraises the actions, perceptions, behavior and interactions of actors within defined theoretical and methodological frameworks.

Hence, memory and history thus become encapsulated into a scientific construct.

Over thirty-two years ago, fresh and bubbling with perceptions of my own, I walked into the campus of the lone university at the time and enrolled at the Faculty of Law.

First of all, I was taken aback by the teeming student population; secondly by the off-handed and laissez faire attitude in treating freshmen complaints/requests; thirdly by the overbearing and domineering French language on and off campus; fourthly by certain buzzwords such as Anglo, Frog, Partiels, Epsi, Cops etc; fifthly by the crammed amphitheatres; and sixthly by the dress code within campus.

I was impressed by the calibre of teachers (Law): Stanislas Melone, Augustin Kontchou Kouomegne, Carlson Anyangwe, Bipoun Woum Joseph Marie, Simon Munzu, Maurice Kamto, Aletum Tabuwe, Ephraim Ngwafor, Fomudey Ngu Kisob, Dion Ngute, Fonkam Azu, Pougoue Gerard, François Mbome, Gabriel Nlep, Peter Yana Ntamark and so on.

However, as a freshman I was disappointed and I would say let down by persons I thought would understand me better because we spoke one language and invariably shared the same values and culture.
Yes, the famous ‘Partiels’ exams had come and gone and the results were staring us in the face. But I had a peculiar problem; I effectively wrote all the courses but on the noticeboard I realized I scored zero in almost all the courses offered during ‘partiels’.

First reaction: I dashed to the Dean’s office; he politely told me in French that I should go-see the head of Anglophone Private Law, which I did. I explained to him my wahala. He looked at me beneath thick glasses and asked how old I was and he said something like repeating a class would not be a bad idea. I lost my cool. Then he ushered me into a hall where tons and tons of marked scripts were kept and asked me if it was possible to search and find my script. Stunned, I walked out.

Next stop; the famous, ‘poulailler.’ (housed teachers’ offices). There, I stumbled on one of ours but was rebuffed in these terms, “So you come and see me only when you have problems?” Haba! Ngaya! I did not know. Gbam!! I thought I was dreaming but it dawned on me that my fate no longer lay in the hands of ‘my own’ so to speak. Should I adopt the “shiddon look” attitude? No.

The image of my mother blocking the door and telling me not to run away but to face the bully came to my mind. Yes, it was one of those rare visits to the village with my parents. I did turn back and my teeth did the rest leaving the bully falling and crying in pain; then I pounced on him.

Thus, I “gathered courage” and went up to the strikingly beautiful and reserved Lisette Elomo Ntonga. She was coming down the stairs of the main block when I accosted her. She listened attentively and asked me to write a complaint which I hurriedly did and handed to her. She dismissed me.

Two weeks or so later, I was idling around the famous Batiment H when a friend ran towards me shouting…Boy an additional list has just been put up and I have seen your name.

Christ, we ran together to the office block like the two apostles (hearing that Jesus has risen). Indeed, I saw my name. We concerted and was advised to go thank Madam Lisette Elomo Ntonga.

HISTORIC BIMBIA SLAVE TRADE SITE

REVOLUTIONARY LAWYERING

                                 

Signposting Common Law Lawyers' Resolutions and Determination (I & II)

(For Felix Agbor Nkongho, Roland Abeng et al)

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Signposting is essential because we need to know how far we have fared and what we intend to do in the days or years ahead. It is invariably a performance and result indicator; a watchdog of sorts for this that we quickly know whether we are on track or not. Where necessary, we shift or adjust signposts when socio-economic and political considerations so demand. That is why we take stock and make projections or forecasts. Individuals, corporations, organisations and governments plant signpost. Where there is signposting there is hope.

Lawyers of the Common Law tradition in Cameroon gave reason to hope in the month of May last year. It is true that a good lawyer is one who knows where to find the law. History is replete with lawyers who knew where to find the law and liberated their peoples or made the impossible possible: Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama respectively come to mind.

As George Ngwane (in Cameroon: Testament to the All Anglophone Lawyers’ Conference) rightly states, “...lawyers have always been regarded as the voice of the voiceless or preferably those who amplify the voices of the silent...shielded by the virtues of independence and immunity and rooted in the world view of facts and logic, lawyers have been known to walk where ordinary professionals fear to tread and to push the courage and candour of human qualities beyond the frontiers of professional limitations...it is they who ‘stand the risk of their bones being exhumed from graves and roasted for failing to address problems’ confronting the people and their society”.

Our Common Law lawyers have never been this vocal and solidaire. Meeting in Bamenda on May 9, 2015, under the Cameroon Common Law Lawyers’ Conference, they crafted a-6 point strongly worded memo to the authorities in Yaounde and to the international community. Taking the cue certain legal minds like Barristers Bobga Harmony Mbuton and Felix Agbor Balla Nkongho embarked on a charm-PR mission to French speaking television channels. From indications, they received a sympathetic ear since most French speaking lawyers were too aware of these injustices.

The custodians of our traditions who virtually oversaw the unification-reunification process of the two Cameroons, pointedly the South-West Chiefs under the umbrella of the South West Chiefs Conference, gave punch to the lawyers' demands by endorsing most of the resolutions. It could not have been otherwise because they were marshalled by reunification flash fires and torch bearers. But though the Mbangalum, Manjong, Samba, Mfu nor the Kwifor up country did not swing or chant in like manner, the meeting holden in Abakwa was a pointer to our custodians of mores and traditions up kontri to shift or adjust their signposts. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, it may come to pass that some had eyes to wonder but lack tongues to praise while others had eyes to wonder and had tongues to praise.

When the din was loudest, the government reacted quickly with the first toothpaste measures: redeployment of French speaking magistrates who drew the ire of lawyers in the first place. However, it is instructive that some lawyers fell for this bait: going on all fours on Facebook pages sending motions of gratitude.  Making the redeployment of French speaking magistrates a symbol of good faith from the other party 'is like putting lipstick on a frog'.

But our lawyers gave the government a reasonable time to address the issues. Pure legalese; for a reasonable time or period in law is quite elastic and consequent on certain parameters. What is a reasonable time under the present dispensation? Is it 6 months, one year or two years? How reasonable is a 6 month deadline given that it has all but elapsed. Since the wheels of justice do not necessary move in tandem with the aspirations of a people, our lawyers should shift and adjust their signposts in the manner of a Mandela.

Since the business of memory is a bounden duty, particularly for ‘the foot soldiers of our Constitution’-our lawyers, a recap of the lawyers’ resolution is not an exercise in futility.

PART II

Our lawyers declared urbi et orbi: “Meeting this ninth day of May, 2015 at Bamenda in the North West Region of Cameroon, after carefully and assiduously deliberating on a wide range of issues affecting the nature and quality of the administration of justice and the rule of law in Cameroon, especially as they negatively impact the minority English-speaking members of this Bi-Cultural, Bi-Jural, Bi-Lingual Nation, take the following resolutions;

1. 
   We strongly condemn and oppose the bias nature of law making in Cameroon and particularly condemn the past discriminatory amendments of the Constitution; we demand Government to immediately take measures to call for a constitutional conference or a referendum for the amendment of the constitution.
2. We note the deliberate and well planned program of whittling away and replacement of the Common Law-inspired rules of Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, and of Evidence, with a system and culture of French-inspired or copied Civil Law and strongly and unequivocally reject this process and practice and demand the restoration of the referred Common Law-inspired Rules of practice and Procedure.
3. The spirit of interpretation of harmonized laws within the South West and North West Regions should be common law inspired; in particular, the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), OHADA UNIFORM ACTS, Cima Code, etc
4. We oppose and reject the progressive replacement of Common law inspired rules and principles of substantive law in such areas as contract, tort, land law, family law, etc. and call for their restoration within the Common Law jurisdiction in strict respect of the bi-jural nature of our country and in keeping with the Country’s Constitution;
5. We strongly condemn the absence of independence of the Country’s Judiciary and the domination and control of the judiciary by the executive with the resulting loss of a truly transparent, credible and independent system of administration of justice and its attendant unpredictability and call for an immediate review of the justice sector of the country with a view to rendering it more Just, Functional, more credible, less corrupt, independent, dependable and reliable in the service of justice and a truly democratic society;
   6. We deplore the lack of independence of the Cameroon Bar Association.
   PROPOSALS FOR A NEW DIRECTION IN THE JUSTICE SECTOR IN CAMEROON:
   A- We demand an Independent Bar Association free of any Government Supervision and Control.

B- We hereby propose a new direction for the future of the Justice Sector in Cameroon and recommend the creation, of a national, Independent Law Reform/Review Commission comprising principally, Practicing Lawyers, Jurists and Judges. We therefore recommend that the government should halt any project on the harmonization of laws until the national law commission is put into place and functional.

C- All Judicial Processes and proceedings in the Common Law Jurisdictions should be conducted in the English language - in criminal matters; this should be from interrogations through investigations to hearing and Judgment.

D- The Two Divisions of Common Law and Civil Law be clearly defined and operated side by side in ENAM and the quota of intake in both divisions known in advance. Only common law trained Magistrates to be posted in the South West and North West Regions and Civil Law Trained Magistrates to the Civil Law Jurisdictions.

E- That the Educational System in the South west and North West Regions should not be adulterated, English speaking citizens should have their studies in the English language from cradle to professional life. That all Public Examinations be organized in two Poles; English and French with none being translated from the other and the quota in both poles known in advance.

F- We demand the establishment of TWO chambers of the Supreme Court of Cameroon that represent the Common Law and Civil Law System, with Judges appointed to the Chambers from Common Law and Civil Law backgrounds to address legal issues from both legal cultures respectively. In this regard, we propose the appointment of Judges from the Private Bar into the Various Courts of Justice of the Common Law System.

G- We recommend the amendment of law no. 90/059 of 19th December 1990 to organize practice at the bar and make provision for the creation of Law Schools. We propose the creation of a National Council of Legal Education to ensure the direction of legal education in the Common Law and Civil Law jurisdictions, develop curricula for academic and professional training of lawyers and to set up and supervise a system of continuing legal education for Lawyers, Prosecutors, Judges/Magistrates and other judicial actors.

We also reiterate our previous resolution unanimously endorsed at the Cameroon Bar Association’s General Assembly in Buea on the 28th day of June 2014; that no Notaries be appointed in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon.

H- We have observed with utter dismay that there has been and continues to be a lack of protection with regard to the rights of the minority(Anglophone Cameroonians) as provided for in the constitution of this bi-jural, bilingual and bi-cultural nation. It is obvious that the rights of the Anglophones in Cameroon in the spheres of education, socio-cultural values, administrative set ups etc, are continuously and systematically being eroded with a view of imposing the socio-cultural and administrative views of the French and or Civil heritage of the majority Francophone Cameroon.

We demand that the State should exercise its Constitutional duty to protect the Anglophone minority and by so doing, protect our history, heritage, education and cultural values. Consequently for the better protection of the minority Anglophone Cameroonians and the Common Law heritage, we strongly demand a Federation.

We hereby give Government a reasonable period from the date of deposit of these resolutions through the Bar Council to react positively to our demands, failing which this conference shall take the necessary disposition within the national legal frame work and if dissatisfied, seek further redress from international dispute resolution fora as shall be deemed appropriate.”

The symbiotic relation between time and action cannot be overemphasized. The Bible teaches that there is a time for everything. There is a time for truth and there is a time for action.

The crux of Bernard Fonlon's secret memo to Ahmadou Ahidjo in 1964 titled The Time is Now was marginalisation and erosion of the values of the English speaking component of the Federation. It was a time of truth, three years into the union between British Southern Cameroons and the French Cameroons. The caption itself was like a call to arms; akin to Nkrumah's independence now. When he more or less single-handedly took up this challenge, there was a West Cameroon Bar Association with over ten members, trained in the best Inns of Court in England! Back then, did our lawyers fail 'to walk where ordinary professionals fear to tread?'

In 1985, taking advantage of the change of leadership in Cameroon, one-time President of the Cameroon Bar, Fongum Gorji Dinka together with Fonlon and others wrote the New Social Order that was supposed to be presented at the CNU Congress in Bamenda by Fonlon. The New Social Order was quite revolutionary in content because it challenged the legal basis of the change of name from United Republic of Cameroon to Republic of Cameroon thus rubbishing the foundation of our Res Una Republica. It was a time of truth tinged with some action that never came to pass. The lawyer in Gorji Dinka did not fear to tread!

Let's fast track to the OWONA-led Constitutional Conference that gave birth to the famous EMIA- Elad, Munzu, Itoe and Anyangwe; legal giants. But before EMIA confiscated the klieg lights, a legal lode star, professor and barrister-at-law, Ndiva Kofele Kale had proposed a constitutional conference when the cry in every nook was for a Sovereign National Conference. With hindsight, Kale's proposal was the middle ground that actors at that time failed to bank on.

When EMIA tabled its draft to the Constitutional Conference, it was hastily dismissed as a pale copy of the Nigerian constitution! EMIA swung into action; organisation of the All Anglophone Conference (AAC1) and AAC2 which snowballed into the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) with its motto (the force of argument not the argument of force) and the rest is history. The lawyer in EMIA and Kale 'amplified the voices of the silent'.

Except for sporadic snippets and wrangling, Common Law Lawyers went into a deep slumber. They got up in Bamenda after moonlighting in Kumba and elsewhere and served government a revolutionary 6-point resolution.  

According to Yaniv Roznai, “lawyers have a responsibility to create social change and improvement”. By the nature of their profession and their recorded strong involvement in the major revolutions that have shaped the world, lawyers should be the flagships of what he terms revolutionary lawyering since according to Neta Ziv, “the pursuit of law is not a privilege...it holds in it the responsibility to repair our professional public surroundings and to improve it”.

MONIQUE KOUMATEKE: POSTER LADY OF OUR FAILED HEALTH AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

 

Since the storm and passion are virtually over, we can start seeing clearly, picking up the pieces, and doing damage repair.  

But faced with the power of the social media powered by what the President Paul Biya terms the Android Generation, government communication machinery and strategy crumbled like a pack of cards; coming barely a month after the Head of State extolled the merits of a digital economy.

Before Yaounde knew it, the gory-graphic images of a one-of-its-kind surgery administered by a lay woman on the dead Monique Koumateke in a bid to rescue the babies (twins) in her womb within the confines of a public hospital, Lanquintini, in Douala caught world attention.

There was no CRTV (Radio and Television) and Cameroon Tribune to tell the public in real time whether mother and twins where alive or not, abandoned to their fate; whether the hospital authorities are to blame and whether such despicable spectacle within a referral public health service structure is a shining indicator of the breakdown of our health system.

The Littoral Governor's swipe at the social media for marketing the disgusting images demonstrated helplessness vis-a-vis a situation he could not control or clamp down via an administrative fiat: censure or the so called fifteen days renewable.

Where does the buck stop? The fact that the minister for health held a press conference over the vexing issue shows that the buck stops on his table.

 He awkwardly tried to clear the air almost 72 hours after the event! Too little, too late. Ironically, Andre Mama Fouda, minister for health is one of the few ministers who communicate often!! Within that time the social media was awash with varied versions. Nature abhors a vacuum. The 72 hour vacuum must be filled by something or anything for a public hungry for information. The social media did just that.

Mark Twain famously stated that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. If ever there was a lie or disinformation from any quarter it was between the Clinique at Nylon (pre-natal and post-natal care) and Lanquintini Hospital.  Where the doctors and medical personnel negligent? Where the medical personnel not duty conscious despite a recently signed ministerial circular instructing them to treat patients on emergency cases before demanding payment? Was the family negligent?

With the social media a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes (the reverse is also true) for this that public authorities particularly in countries South of the Sahara are still to grapple with the workings of this new medium of communication characterized by speed, sensation, hacking, fraud, spam, data or identity theft, fun, hype, grandstanding, information, and disinformation.

Why persons in countries south of the Sahara notably Cameroon tend to rely on social media for information is because the government either communicates poorly or deliberately distorts information. Cameroonians still have in the back of their minds, government’s version of violent events leading up to and during the launching of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party in Bamenda in 1991; highly popularized but unpublished results of various commissions of inquiry; the obnoxious role of the ministers for communication and government spokespersons in the heady 90s till date and so on.

The problem? Government does not communicate and when it does, Cameroonians take it with a pinch of salt. So, in certain instances the government might be disseminating the truth but Cameroonians decide to look for the truth elsewhere (social media) because the government has a poor track record as far as communication is concerned.

The crux of the matter? How did such a macabre surgical operation take place within Lanquintini Hospital without intervention from any public quarter? On this score, the hospital and health authorities have a case to answer.

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SEVENTEEN-YEAR OLD HAWKER IN DOUALA

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Today, it rained heavily all-through the night and late in the day at Makepe-Missoke and elsewhere in Douala. When it rains, there is some respite from the oppressive heat. Our abode, like most houses, is built on marshy reptile cum mosquito infested land; quite close to the sooty smelly green-black rubbish-filled N’gongue stream that snakes and meanders laboriously across the city and empties its contents into the Wouri River.

We use plank boards as makeshift bridges to move from one dwelling to another or out of the neighbourhood. There is water everywhere but we do not have clean sparkling potable water. Electricity supply is intermittent so we make do with bush lamps or candles; though clandestine electricity supply is prevalent.

When any of my sibling falls ill, we buy drugs from a local drug vendor or hawker. The most common drugs for all ailments are Efferalgan and Paracetamol. Going to high school is a game of chance. Daddy virtually throws lots, irrespective of gender, on who goes to high school or not for an academic year while the others, holder of the General Certificate of Education Examination Ordinary Level like myself, get up early enough to start hawking groundnuts popularly known as arachide du village or kola nuts comprising bitter kola, kola de lion and kola bamileke, in the streets of Moussadi and as far as Bonapriso where the rich and powerful live.

Our two-room dwelling houses ten of us; yes, ten of us excluding mum and dad! Some of us sleep on the floor and others on bunk beds. It is difficult for me to make a difference between my brothers and sisters and our cousins from the village. We share the same bed, eat from the same bowls, play and hawk together. However, my cousins were not with us from the beginning; they are casualties of a war that is raging for over six years in the Anglophone Region of Cameroon resulting in thousands internally displaced and more than a thousand dead. They left Djottin-Noni for Douala!

As you would second guess, my parents hail from Djottin-Noni. I still have a fleeting fond memory of my stay in the village during the funeral of my maternal grandfather. Indeed, I can still recall how we arrived Njavnyuy motor park in Kumbo as the first glowing-yellowish sun rays pierced the dry pitch-cold morning air. Luckily, my parents had made provision for warm clothing.

On that day, Njavnyuy motor park and the modern market were scanty. There was no vehicle for Djottin-Noni but there were two for Elak-Oku. We whiled away the time moving around the well-built and fenced market. All the stalls were padlocked. It was quite dusty but clean! The red clay earth was not too friendly to a Sawa boy like me. On a metal plate at the entrance to the market was inscribed: God Bless Kumbo!

As an epicentre of the violent bloody conflict that is destroying life and property, I wonder whether God is still alive to bless Kumbo or asleep giving room for the devil to blindside Kumbo leaving in its wake internal refugees, like my cousins, chaos, guns, death and fear!

A motor boy approached us and said there were three bikes locally called achabas bound for Djottin-Noni. For his pains, my dad gave him one hundred francs.

Then we began a picturesque journey, in a convoy, from Kumbo right down to the brownish grazing fields of Tadu then to Buh; leaving behind the road that branches off to Oku where the fear of the merecine man is the beginning of insight, home to the enchanting bewitching lake and labelised spicy white honey unto the luxuriant farmlands of Mbiim tucked between high-rise hills with the Kilum hill towering above all, passing through majestic granite hills that stand out defiantly against the surrounding environment leaving the beholder breathless. As we rode on towards Djottin-Noni, I had the impression that we were inspecting a guard of honour mounted by the hills on both sides of the un-tarred, limestone, stony and chalky road.

Djottin-Noni located in an alternating hilly cavernous landform, chiselled over the years by rivulets, streams and rivers, interspersed with lush valleys and fertile soils that produce foodstuff and fruits like bananas, beans, corn, cabbage, huckleberry, oranges, mangoes, groundnuts and cowpea that I relished greatly. I used to especially enjoy huckleberry, locally called kontri jamajama, eaten with corn fufu, as my granny prepared it in a small clay pot locally called kilang that she keeps jealously on a barn just above a three-stone fireplace.

During the day, my cousins would teach me how to play shang in the Noni dialect or songo in Ekang parlance which is a game based on mathematics and strategy. It comprises the following: two players, fourteen holes with each player having seven holes and two empty holes at the sides, each hole has five stones, the players sit facing each other. The two players move the stones deftly from one hole to another while making immeasurable permutations in their minds on how to outmanoeuvre the other and the player who at the end has the greatest number of stones emerges the winner.  

I did not only enjoy the game of shang but spent time playing with my age mates. However, there was one fellow, a village bully, that everyone steered clear of. He was older than most of us and physically stronger. My village mates called him P. Kikai. I can still recall vividly how my mother blocked the door and told me not to run but face the bully who was after me. I turned back and my teeth did the rest leaving the bully reeling and crying in pain.

Inevitably, the rugged village terrain and the long distances I covered to visit my uncles and aunties contributed enormously in building my stamina as a hawker. The game of shang honed my tactical and strategic skills as I rack my brain on where to hawk, how to hawk and how to approach, attract and outsmart my customers. My encounter with P. Kikai instilled in me courage, determination and a certain fearlessness.

As a seventeen-year-old hawker when I narrate my experiences you might think I have come of age. However, I now know that life is a constant battle and each day I arm myself to face whatever circumstances; from the drug traffickers at Quartier Makea, violent-razor blade wielding street urchins, petty and hardened thieves to the child traffickers lurking everywhere. Now I am streetwise.

But hawking can be exciting; when I am tired I pose my wares on a table at a joint and watch television and get the feel of an air-conditioner. I like watching football but I cannot remember when Dad bought us the last ball. But as I move around I hear people say Samuel Eto'o Fils or Lionel Messi were once lads like me. I wonder!

My customers are varied, from the rich to the dirt poor. However, I must admit that I have a problem with a certain category of customers who always ask for ‘la boite de Bepanda.’ I move around with two small groundnut measuring tins of equal but unequal sizes, depends on the eyes of the beholder; the large size for poor neighbourhoods like Bepanda and the seemingly large but smaller size for rich neighbourhoods. You have to be smart, quite smart you know.

Though I have never read The Road To Hiala by Fotso, I hear that most of our rich businessmen or captains of industry began by selling groundnuts. I wonder!

Indeed, the rain drummed all night on our roof. When I heard utensils knocking against each other, I knew the water level has attained a dreadful level and we were in for another flood. Floods per se are not the preserve of my neighbourhood because I was surprised to be caught up in one at Bonapriso-Bonanjo of all places! The flip side is that on that day the flood waters enabled the population to lay hands on a notorious thief who on fleeing on a bike got stuck in the muddy flood waters! Assuredly, Water No Get Enemy as black legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, once belted out.

Our two-room house is completely flooded so we have to remove furniture, utensils, and mattresses and place them on our rooftop until the water level drops. This is routine because year-in-year-out we have to save the little property we have this way. However, there is another routine that always make me cry; the sound of women wailing for the loss of a dear one who has been swept away by a flash flood. Yes, I always cry and shudder because I recently lost my bosom friend in this manner.

Really, my friend was one of the lucky few in our neighbourhood who attended a public high school at Moussadi where most functionaries and nouveau riche live. His dad was well-to-do by our standards. In the morning, I would also get up quite early like school going kids not for school going purposes though but to say hello to and exchange a few words with my friend who usually passes in front of our house on his way to school.

I would then watch him in his sky blue shirt and khaki brown trousers and sneakers walk carefully right up to the main road until he disappeared from sight. As he walked, he looked behind from time to time and when he was about getting out of sight he would wave and I would do same but rather with a heavy heart. However, I always look forward to Sundays when I don’t hawk to read voraciously the high school novels he gladly put at my disposal.

As soon as he was out of sight, I would dash back into the house. By then, my mother would have finished preparing the groundnuts that I would hawk from one quarter to another. I often begin with my immediate environs then I move to the main road unto other neighbourhoods.

Walking on the potholed roads littered with piles and piles of dirt on the pavement throughout the day under the scorching sun with a tray full of groundnuts on my head is quite exacting and fascinating.

As I walked towards Moussadi, I decided to pass, first of all, through the street that harbours the public primary school, not far from my friend’s school. A good decision because it was midday and there are striving businesses along that street. As I approached the school, I was hit by a very offensive odour; the mount of dirt in front of the public school was quite revolting. I could see rats that could pass for rat moles serving themselves on the filth and playing hide and seek with cats. I recalled that an uncle was once told me that in Yaounde the rats are so huge that even cats are afraid of them. I had laughed and laughed!

I crossed to the other side of the road when two persons called for groundnuts. As I was measuring the amount of groundnuts, they asked for, I heard them complaining bitterly about the poor services of the refuse disposal company and the indifference of the school and council authorities. I thought about the pupils in class and the foul stench that must have enveloped them.

Though the stench from pit latrines in our neighbourhood can make you throw up, at least we make an effort to keep our immediate surroundings clean. But can this be compared to the attitude of persons in plush neighbourhoods that open their septic tanks at night during rains in order to release sewage into culverts next to their apartments or villas thus filling the atmosphere with a permanent fecal perfume? I wonder!  

I have heard about people taking pictures in order to share on Facebook but this time I saw it first hand as one of my customers took out his cellphone, or is it an iPhone? I don’t know because such gadgets are luxury to me and my parents, and began filming the heaps of dirt in front of the school. He cursed and said something like ‘we are going to expose these fellows by raising awareness through the social media.’ His colleague went further to say ‘these guys don’t know that the social media is a formidable weapon.’  I think it works at times because I heard one of them say that they raised such awareness when the government organized the African Cup of Nations some time ago; the dirt on the sidewalks of Moussadi disappeared when it went viral on the social media. I don’t wonder because I now know that it works going by what my customers said!

However, does raising awareness always produce results? I wonder! When I started hawking groundnuts or kolanuts some time ago, Moussadi could still boast of its green spaces, manicured lawns, trees that provided shade, tarred roads and decent low cost apartments. Hawkers like myself also get tired, you know, so the green spaces and shade-providing trees provide perfect areas for us to take a nap and get up refreshed to continue hawking. Under trees passing for canopies that serve as shield from the burning sun rays, I discuss with other hawkers of my age; we inevitably exchange views on how to go about the hawking business and areas to avoid.

Today, as I left the public primary school for the next neighbourhood, I realised that the green spaces have been taken up by stores! Who authorized the construction of stores on these green spaces? The local authorities? Unscrupulous businessmen? I wonder! Since the sun was overhead, I looked for somewhere to catnap. The canopy-like trees were all gone! Who authorized the cutting down of these trees? The local authorities? Yaounde? I wonder! I took a look at the once decent apartments meant for the middle class but now occupied or owned by parvenus and wondered when these apartments last received a coat of paint!

As I walk from one street to another at Moussadi and beyond, I often do a delicate balancing act with a tray on my head; making sure the tray does not tilt thus spilling groundnuts or kolanuts as I sidestep small and yawning potholes on the road as well as making sure that I do not bump into bike drivers or vehicles manoeuvring to avoid potholes. In Moussadi and everywhere in Douala, potholes on road surfaces begin as small holes then grow into bigger holes and into deep clefts. Why do authorities leave small potholes to grow into huge potholes thus making pedestrian, vehicle and bike circulation extremely difficult? I wonder!

I am now always alert because I once lost everything and got in return a good thrashing at home!   

However, is there a glimmer of hope in this morass? I wonder!  But as I walk from Bonatone towards Deido, I make a stopover at the famous bar, Mbanga-Jo, to get some rest and I overhear Sango Mboa talking about the entry into the prestigious school that trains administrators and magistrates of a bike taxi driver, locally called bendskinneur. He rattles off some names of young innovators like Arthur Zang of the Cardiopath fame or Alain Nteff of GiftedMom renown.

I step out and move to the barber's hard by and as I serve him groundnuts I look at the reflection of myself on his huge mirror and wonder!

ATANGANA MEBARA: PICKING THE MINDSET OF MISTER PRESIDENT

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Jean Marie Atangana Mebara’s latest opus titled, LE SECRETAIRE GENERAL DE LA PRESIDENCE DE LA REPUBLIQUE AU CAMEROUN ENTRE MYTHES, TEXTES ET REALITES (L’Harmattan, 2016), prefaced by Eric Chinje, is a loud comment on the web of intricacy, intrigue, deceit, underhand tactics, and make-believe drenched in an ethnico-tropicalised form of mazarino-machiavellian precepts of statecraft at the helm of the State.

It is written in a dialogical format (Part II), which makes for easy reading and ties in with “the ancient catechetical literary genre of questions and answers” that the author as a former seminarian is no stranger to.

Part I is quite informative because it provides a historical rundown of the evolution of the position of secretary-general at the presidency from the early 60s till date; past and current secretaries-general-directors of cabinet (Christian Tobie Kuoh, Zaachée Mongo So’o, Paul Biya, Samuel Eboua, Sadou Daoudou, Joseph Zambo, David Abouem A Tchoyi, Ferdinand Leopold Oyono, Jean Nkuete, Mbella Mbappe, Edouard Akame Mfoumou, Sadou Hayatou, Joseph Owona, Titus Edzoa, Amadou Ali, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, Atangana Mebara, Esso Laurent and Ngoh Ngoh Ferdinand with the shouting absence of any Anglophone) feature prominently including the various decrees and orders organizing and re-organizing the secretariat general at the presidency (which to the local imagination is the holy of holies that the author debunks).

 

The book is not an indictment against a personality, Paul Biya; rather it paints a glowing picture of mister president as focused, hard working, secretive, generous, fatherly, inscrutable, detached, well-informed and patriotic but with a jealous eye on power in the Mazarin sense tinged with a good dose of tribalism that the author handles deftly but dealt with rather dramatically by the late Ateba Eyene in Les Paradoxes du “Pays Organisateur”: élites productrices ou prédatrices: le cas de la province du sud-Cameroun à l’ère Biya (Edition Saint-Paul 2008) And then the one million dollar question: by this is the author surreptitiously asking the prince to look down with pity and release him from his shackles?

“La gestion de vérités variables!” is the president’s conception of politics. Managing various truths? In managing various truths that make of a bi-jural and bilingual Cameroon, the president adheres religiously to the following pragmatic precepts of Jules Mazarin in BREVIAIRE DES POLITICIENS: simulation; dissimulation; not trusting or relying on anyone; talk good of everyone and plan before taking action. As a pupil of Mazarin, he also applies to the letter, the former’s lessons (1) You must learn to monitor your actions and never let up on this (2) You must keep tabs on everyone, do not confide your own secrets to anyone, but do everything to know the secrets of others. Thus, keep an eye on everyone, and in any way possible.

For the length of time the author spent as secretary-general, from August 2002 to September 2006, he called the president only thrice! He gets in touch with his boss, most of the time, particularly when he is abroad, through his aide-de-camp! According to the author, the president has an elephant memory and a workaholic who likes treating files even when on long sojourns abroad; files are sent to him through fax.

On the social side, the head of state, contrary to popular opinion, does not even know how to play the game of songo! He can show emotion but fleetingly and on occasions savours good wine. Does he show concern? Verily, when the author informed him of Rose Fru Ndi’s health situation, he immediately gave instructions for the State to foot the bills. Another example is the case of Borroros in the North West Region that were convicted through the machinations of a native political baron and despite a pending appeal were forcefully transferred to Yoko maximum prison! The Head of State ordered the reversal of the deportation of the Borroros to Yoko!

Does he have a sense of humour? Indeed, he has seen the president split his sides and was quite amused at the minister who claimed that he has discovered the witch who makes John Fru Ndi win elections in certain regions of the country! When the said minister did not deliver, he was sacked!

The name Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first president, was not taboo. On several occasions, mister president made reference to his predecessor, assisted his children but never talked about Germaine Ahidjo!

The president then was neither a mobile phone nor social media fan! He does not ascribe to a particular political ideology but to all intents and purposes he is a pragmatist. The author wonders aloud why the president who is quite bilingual does not often speak in English and why he shuns the media particularly the local media.

As a political crocodile, the president keeps a diary containing the names of personalities that he consults often. Are there persons within his entourage that are quite dangerous? An emphatic Yes! He divulged the names of such sinister persons to the author. When the latter asked him why he keeps them around him, he retorted, c’est de la politique (It is politics).

Apparently, the author unknowingly stepped on the toes of such cloak and dagger personalities thus precipitating his down fall and subsequent travails; for what explains the incarceration of a man that has been acquitted by the courts and cleared by his hierarchy?

In the closing chapters, the author makes recommendations on how the secretariat general at the presidency can be re-organized to meet the challenges of today. This is fundamental because the public and certain circles in the power structure erroneously believe that the secretary-general at the presidency is a demigod.

[Book Review]: Buea, Capital of the Cameroons, Symbol of the Nation and of Reunification by Churchill Ewumbue Monono

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Writing about your town or city is exacting and tricky; the writer is like Chinua Achebe’s lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree to the ground and said he would praise himself if no one else did or a boastful Ozymandias, the King of Kings, who had only ruins and decay to show for his grandeur.

It takes a scholar with feet solidly on the ground like Churchill Ewumbue Monono to realize such a feat since Buea these days is not “running splash of rust” as it then was between 1972 and 1982 but tucked smugly at the foot of the 4070 metre high active volcano, Mount Fako, aka the Chariot of the Gods, alias Mount Cameroon, the highest peak in West and Central Africa, host to rare flora and fauna that the author lists with panache.

According to the author, Buea under German colonial rule, English Mandate and Trusteeship and subsequent Southern Cameroons and West Cameroon administrations- Endeley, Foncha, Jua and Muna was a political hub and a development showcase. He reels off quite a good number of achievements of each administration at the political, social, health, economic, educational, diplomatic and military levels capped ostensibly by the imposing and majestic Schloss (Lodge).

2015 Through a Glass Darkly

By Canute Tangwa

The year 2015 is everything rolled into one. Like a rollercoaster fired by socio-economic political and religious pressures or forces, it moves up and down: weaving, turning, winding and throwing up varied themes that define 2015. Of defining themes, terrorism in its most barbaric form and injustice (social, cultural, linguistic, economic and political) that the former feeds on voraciously are the ultimate.

Nfon Mukete's Second Odyssey & the Role of Student-Civil Associations in the Run-up to the 1961 Plebiscite

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Mukete, Victor E. (2013). My odyssey: the story of Cameroon's reunification.

This time, statesman, chief, multimillionaire farmer and senator, Nfon Victor E.Mukete is in the news and political arena for the right reasons. He is virtually alone on the political ring, telling it as it was and as it should be, since almost all of his political contemporaries (JN FONCHA, EML ENDELEY, ST MUNA, AN JUA, RJK DIBONGE, NN MBILE, VT LAINJO, PM KEMCHA, MOTOMBY WOLETA, S.A. GEORGE, JOSEPH NGU and a clutch of others) are dead.

The chief began flexing his muscles and throwing punches once more in the year 2013 when he published My odyssey: the story of Cameroon's reunification (with authentic letters of key players). In July 2011, his compeer, the late Honourable NN Mbile, wrote Cameroon political story: Memories of an authentic eye witness. However, in May 2011, Linus Asong and Simon Ndeh Chi published Ndeh Ntumazah: A conversational autobiography

Sam Nuvala Fonkem: From Mile 17 to GRA Buea

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

There is a lie and a crocodile tear in every and any eulogy. Since dead men don't bite (though the dead are not dead according to African cosmology), the living in a rare show of verbal and emotional grandstanding pour buckets of encomiums on so called departed loved ones.

The late lamented multi-talented flamboyant journalist, Sam Nuvala Fonkem is no stranger to this unwritten hypocritical rule. In fact, 'monkies' have come to parley: chattering, busybodying and jumping about. 'Ole' or Uncle Sam as he was fondly called never suffered monkies lightly.

The Defining Theme Of Our Age: The RollerCoaster Age

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

The 21st Century is everything rolled into one. Like a rollercoaster fired by socio-economic political and religious pressures or forces, it moves up and down-crest and trough-like, weaving, turning, winding and throwing up varied defining themes: internet age; plastic age; climate age; poverty age; moral rearmament age; cloning age; age of hedonism, individualism and minimalism; black hole age; democracy age; human rights age; inter and intra-State conflict age; clash of civilisations age; free market age; human and drug trafficking age; artificial intelligence age; space age; Armageddon age; epi-pandemic age; genome age; soccer age; renewable energy age; gay rights age; rebirth of religious fundamentalism age; secular age; age of televangelism; age of cinema, fashion and haute couture; women's rights age; age of the girl child; age of injustice; age of refugees and displaced persons; age of African Renaissance; age of scandals; age of stupidity and so on.

Man and the environment are at the centre of all these themes. The rollercoaster crests and troughs are symptomatic of the biblical rise and fall of Man-within an Eden-like environment-a latter-day amusement park; and at play in this environment are human ingenuity, genius, intelligence and talent.

When the rollercoaster troughs, our hearts throb and we introspect like the famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawkings, on how our intelligence and genius can threaten our very existence. The defining moment of how far artificial intelligence can go was the 1997 very tight chess contest between Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue (a machine), the latter won! At that time, we hailed our scientific and technological prowess. In the process, artificial intelligence took flight until Stephen Hawkings admonished in a BBC interview (2/12/2014), ‘the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.’

Thus, would the battle of all battles before the world implodes be between fast-thinking, fleet-footed machines (robots) or biological creations and human beings? Paradoxically, mankind would eventually succeed in creating machine or biological monsters (Frankenstein of sorts) in its image and likeness that would end up stalking and wiping out the human race!

Better programmed and remote-controlled, our machine or test tube creations should be invaluable partners in medical, archaeological, space and ocean explorations as well as the impending clash with unidentified persons in outer space! On the other hand, very intelligent machines or clones can take us 2,000 years and more down history; thus we would be able, in partnership with robots or clones, to unravel our far-flung past!

Though it is arguable that smart machines or clones would outsmart human beings in the near future, the fact that such a concern is raised by a top-notch scientist should be a cause for concern. 

Interlude: It is written that we are little less than gods; are we daring the gods or nature by tinkering with their handiwork through genetic cloning/engineering and stem cell research? Did we fiddle with our genes to produce an Albert Einstein, a Chinua Achebe or a Cheikh Anta Diop? Why are we in such a haste to replicate an Einstein, a Mandela or a Pele for instance? This is a rollercoaster age; it is fashionable to be on the fast lane and to be at the cutting edge not in style but at all cost! Watch Barcelona FC of Spain play, you would think these football glittering stars, marshalled by the greatest of them, Lionel Messi-whose ‘talent can light up a grid’ were plucked from Mars! Fifty years on, we would love to make clones of them because they are apparently hard to come by!

When the rollercoaster crests, we puff up and punch the air with pride and make futuristic projections like Bill Gates or Steve Job. When the latter died, smartphone and tablet users worldwide paid him a religious-like reverence with lit candles to boot! He epitomised a sector where innovation is so fast that my grandmother who never used a land line leapfrogged or jump started and made her first telephone call by manipulating a mobile phone!

In the 21st century, the cell phone (mobile telephony) and computer (Information technology) are the ultimate game changers: shooting down communication barriers at minimal cost as well as transforming dramatically health care; the manner we run businesses/government and conduct warfare; carry out and showcase terrorist attacks; how we entertain ourselves, organise our lives, as well as conduct and win elections.

Interlude: According to UN and World Bank reports and other related reports, out of the world’s population of 7 billion people, 6 billion have access to mobile phones while only 4.5 billion people have access to working toilets! In the world, about 783 million people do not have access to clean potable water! Cameroon that has the third hydro-electric potential in Africa, less than 50 % of the population has access to electricity! Yet with no electricity, no clean water and no working toilets this seemingly impoverished people can afford mobile phones and to a lesser extent computers!

The rollercoaster troughs and we catch our breath. Boko Haram is wiping out whole villages and occupying swathes of territory: slaughtering, maiming and burning in the process. Brutality, barbarism, hostage taking and wanton killings are its trademarks. Indeed, a Sumanguru is holding court! ISIS is over running huge chunks of Syrian and Iraqi territory, unleashing in its stead horrific, inhuman and atrocious terrorist acts. Beheadings, hostage taking and ransacking of World Heritage sites are its signature tunes. Verily, a Ghenghis Khan is holding court!

A twenty-one year old white young man walks calmly into a church in Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America, sits and listens to the preachments of the pastor for about an hour, then unsheathes a gun in the manner of John Wayne and shoots indiscriminately at the congregation killing nine people, all black! You would expect remorse like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the infamous 2013 Boston Marathon bomber! No, the Charleston terrorist, Dylan Roof, maintained a terrifying sangfroid and coldness! Indeed, Satan is holding court where the pilgrim fathers sought to build a city of Light!

When the rollercoaster crests, we thumb up for the triumph of democracy in Africa's most populous country and largest economy, Nigeria. Like Wole Soyinka, we see 'something born again' in Muhammadu Buhari alias Mister WAI (War Against Indiscipline). Like Jerry Rawlings, we see Buhari's election as a clear indication where Nigeria wants to go and inevitably restoring its battered pride.

Nigeria once knew where it was going but paradoxically it was under a military strongman, the late General Murtala Muhammed and a host of visionary military officers. Today, a one time maximum leader, Muhammadu Buhari who has apparently undergone a Damascus road conversion is bent on taking Nigeria where it rightfully belongs. He is a strongman keen on putting in place strong institutions. Not quite in tandem with Barack Obama's strong institution not strongman mantra. However, in line with Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, would he change the idea of government in Nigeria as a 'few holding the cow for the strongest and most cunning to milk?' (Obafemi Awolowo).

When the rollercoaster troughs, Kamer recounts: Today, it rained heavily all-through the night and late in the day at Makepe-Missoke and elsewhere in Douala. When it rains there is some respite from the oppressive heat. Our abode, like most houses, is built on marshy reptile cum mosquito infested land; quite close to the sooty smelly green-black rubbish-filled stream that snakes and meanders laboriously across the city and empties its contents into the Wouri River.

We use plank boards as makeshift bridges to move from one dwelling to another or out of the neighbourhood. There is water everywhere but we do not have clean potable water. Electricity supply is intermittent so we make do with bush lamps or candles; though clandestine electricity supply abound.

When my younger sibling falls ill, we buy drugs from a local drug vendor or hawker. The most common drugs for all ailments are Efferalgan and Paracetamol. Going to school is a game of chance. Daddy virtually throws lots on who goes to school or not while the others get up early enough to start hawking ground nuts or kola nuts in the streets of Bonamoussadi and as far as Bonapriso where the rich and powerful live.

As a ten-year old hawker when I reel off my experiences you might think I am an adult. However, I now know that life is a constant battle and each day I arm myself to face whatever circumstances; from the drug traffickers at Quartier Makea, violent-razor blade wielding street children, petty and hardened thieves to the child traffickers lurking everywhere. Now I am streetwise.

But hawking can be exciting; when I am tired I pose my wares on a table at a joint and watch television and get the feel of an air-conditioner. I like watching football but I cannot remember when Dad bought us a ball. But as I move around I hear people say Samuel Eto'o Fils or Lionel Messi were once  lads like me. I wonder.

My customers are varied, from the rich to the dirt poor. However, I must admit that I have a problem with a certain category who always ask for ‘la boite de Bepanda.’ I move around with two small groundnut measuring tins of equal but unequal sizes (depends on the eyes of the beholder); the large size for poor neighbourhoods like Bepanda and the seemingly large but smaller size for rich neighbourhoods. You have to be smart, quite smart you know. Though I have never read The Road to Hiala by Fotso, I hear that most of our rich businessmen began by selling ground nuts. I wonder.

Indeed, the rain drummed all night on our roof. When I heard utensils knocking against each other, I knew the water level has attained a dreadful level and we were in for another flood. Floods per se are not the preserve of my neighbourhood because I was surprised to be caught up in one at Bonapriso-Bonanjo of all places! The flip side is that on that day the flood waters enabled the population to lay hands on a notorious thief who on fleeing on a bike got stuck in the muddy flood waters!

Our two-room shack that houses ten of us is completely flooded so we have to remove furniture, utensils, mattresses and place them on our rooftop until the water level drops. This is routine because year-in-year-out we have to save the little property we have this way. However, there is another routine that always make me cry; the sound of women wailing for the lose of a child who has been swept away by the floods. Yes, I always cry and shudder because I lost my bosom friend in this manner three years ago. 

However, there is seemingly a glimmer of hope in this morass because as I walk from Bonatone towards Deido, I stop at the famous Mbanga-Jo. As a good eavesdropper, I hear Sango Mboa talking about the entry into ENAM (prestigious school that trains administrators and magistrates) of a bendskinneur (bike taxi driver). He rattles off some names of young innovators like Arthur Zang of the Cardiopath fame. I take a look at myself at the barber's hard by and wonder. 

[Picture of the Day] Cameroon Football Giants: Petit Ngando & Bekombo aka Moros

Francois Bekombo played for Caiman Douala and was one of the most gifted defenders of his generation. His football career ended prematurely in 1972 following a vicious tackle by Brazilian 1970 world Cup hero Jaïrzinho. This was during a friendly encounter at the Douala reunification stadium between Botafogo football club of Brazil and the Cameroon national team which was preparing for the 8th African Nations cup tournament hosted by Cameroon.

[Travel Diary] Sangmelima-Djoum: The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born!

By Canute Tangwa

In the heart of the evergreen, dense and lush equatorial forest of the South Region of Cameroon lies Djoum, one hundred and forty kilometres from Sangmelima- headquarters of the Dja and Lobo Division that by the force of circumstances, fate and design, begat the second president of the Republic of Cameroon.

Meandering, wheezing, gasping, bumping, heaving, spitting and hissing on the 140km untarred rugged-slimy road, our Toyota 4x4 pickup manned with unparalleled dexterity by our driver, Boko, grinded to a halt in front of Mado Bar at Djoum. “C’était vraiment un parcours du combattant”, he sputtered in French.

TALKING ABOUT THINGS REUNIFICATION THROUGH A CHILDHOOD PRISM

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

Ecole Francophone de Buéa! Lycée Bilingue de Buéa! Centre Culturel Français de Buéa! Monsieur Valabanga, notre professeur de français!It was striking that the Ecole Francophone de Buéa was located quite close to the Buea Army and Gendarmerie Camp at Long Street, Woganga. It was easy to decipher: the first francophones that arrived in droves in Buea were military men! Their kids had to go to school. Thus, Long Street looked like a Francophonistan, a francophone stronghold or enclave.  

 

2013 LEGISLATIVE AND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS: OBSERVATIONS ON SOCIOLOGICAL COMPOSITION AND GENDER CONSIDERATION

By CANUTE TANGWA

This is the Republic of Cameroon’s would-be third experience with twin elections: legislative and municipal. The first initially slated for June 23, 2002 wobbled under the auspices of the then Minister of Territorial Administration (MINAT), Koungou Edima Ferdinand and a fledging Elections Observatory dubbed ONEL.

Achebe, Pope of African Literature

By Canute Tangwa

The last time I read the unputdownable Things Fall Apart was about three decades ago. Ivo Lysinge as usual sprang a surprise. I was cooling down (u know what I mean) somewhere (a week ago) when he breezed in from Ghana with a copy of Things Fall Apart! Whao ! Together with Manna Gerard (Arantes) we read excerpts of this epitome of penmanship or craft in its sublimest form.

BERNARD FONLON: THE BUSINESS OF MEMORY

By Kanute Tangwa aka K(C)anute Tangwa

As a school boy I had varied impressions about Bernard Fonlon. We learnt through teachers, colleagues, kinsmen and tribesmen that he was a genuine intellectual, a moral colossus, an epitome of down-to-earthedness and a proud-gallant son of Nso. From his posturing, he understood national unity and later national integration better than most political slogan drumbeaters of his time and today.

 

LONDON 2012 OLYMPICS: BURNISHING CAMEROON’S LATENT CULTURAL DIPLOMACY

By Canute Tangwa

Afo-akom, Bamoun Things of the Palace, and Soul Makossa were to Cameroon’s nascent cultural diplomacy as the gaudily decorated, graceful, resplendent, striking Bamenda regalia and football are to our latent cultural diplomacy. When the Cameroonian delegation to the London 2012 Olympics marched past, commentators virtually combed their thesauruses for the most apt phrase to pin on the Cameroonian contingent.

REUNIFICATION SUNDANCE

By Canute Tangwa
 
We are witnesses to recent events that tend to make or mar; to build or to destroy; to clarify or to obscure; to raise or to dampen spirits. Cameroon will be celebrating its 50 years of reunification this year in Buea, capital of the South West Region, capital of the South West province, capital of West Cameroon, capital of Southern Cameroons and capital of German Kamerun.

Ahmadou Ahidjo; ST Muna; Paul Biya; JN Foncha

MAURICE KAMTO: THE EARLY BIRD EATS THE WORM?

By Canute Tangwa

Professor Maurice Kamto, former seven-term Minister Delegate to the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, must have realized that the closer you get to a fossilized political system the more obtuse it becomes. He entered, saw, stayed and was overwhelmed! He came in like a knight in shining amour, like a gold braid from the Bakassi front. Indeed, he marshaled the victorious Cameroonian legal team against their Nigerian counterparts before the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

OCTOBER 9 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FEAR TRIUMPHS OVER THE BALLOT

By Canute Tangwa

On the eve of the October 9 presidential election, there was manifest fear in the city of Douala! You could feel and touch it in the eyes and gestures of Doualans. Douala, la cité rebelle suddenly became la cité collabo.

Fear is the absence of hope, courage and will. Fear is acknowledgement of erosion of hard earned liberties and freedoms wrestled from the clutches of an unyielding benign despot in the heady 90s! Fear is the manifestation of uncertainty and resignation to a despoiled and tremulous fate. Fear is also an indication of what Achille Mbembe refers to as the generalized tonton-macoutization of the mindset of Cameroonians. Hence, phrases like “how we go do?” “On va faire comment?” “Le Cameroun c’est le Cameroun” “Il faut supporter” and so on.

On the run-up to the election, there was palpable unease. This was perceptible in the virtual run on the banks; reluctance of loan sharks (money lenders or shylocks) to lend money; emptying of market stalls of foodstuff; congestion at bakeries; closing of bars, off-licences, bakeries at 6 pm; increase in price of basic commodities; rumours of a curfew as well as interminable traffic jams since every one was rushing home!

The visible and menacing presence of gendarmes in the city heightened fear in Doualans. Before and during the president’s campaign stopover in Douala, fierce looking gun toting soldiers of the Praetorian Guard were posted on the streets and strategic areas of the city evoking memories of the BIR (Military Rapid Intervention Division) during the 2008 February riots. On 29 September, unidentified armed persons in fatigues pumped bullets in the air and unfolded a banner calling on Biya to leave power. Huge posters of President Paul Biya adorned streets and public places, giving the impression of Big Brother on the lookout. Thus, there was ample reason to be cautious, apprehensive and to move about like ngong dogs.

The day before the polls, we sat at an open-air joint opposite the Bonamoussadi council office. This cannot be gainsaid because the day was quite hot. Suffice to say, I was in the company of Mr Lainjo, one of the siblings of the late venerable Southern Cameroons politician Vincent T. Lainjo (last of the Mohicans), and Manna Gerard.

Before I joined the duo, the first apprehension of I-know-not-what was at home. All eyes were on me; searching, questioning and pleading. Do not forget to buy this and that. We need to stock the refrigerator because Cameroon might cease to exist tomorrow! And, do not forget the baby’s milk and yoghurt; buy as much as you can. The house was full of in-laws and neighbours who commented on the impending gloom and uncertainty that will engulf Cameroon come 9 October.

I had barely sat down, when I received the first volley. “Do you think there will be problems tomorrow?” “The way things are going, I have the haunch that we might be in for a rough ride.” “Have you collected your voter’s card?” “By the way, did you register?” “Why bother when we already know the winner.” “Il n’y a pas match.” “The opposition is in disarray.” “Don’t you think the real problem will crop up when results are proclaimed?” “People will not take it lying down.” “Let’s wait and see.”

About 6pm the barman began collecting empty bottles and packing chairs. He said the bar owner has instructed him to close because there was talk of a curfew from 6 pm! Then, I remembered that I was supposed to buy bread, milk and yoghurt. I rushed to the bakery that is just a stone’s throw. Lo! It was closed. We drove to the next bakery. Fear spreads like brushfire. The huge crowd in front of the bakery said it all. Who gave orders for businesses to close a day before the polls? That is the five francs question. Cameroun c’est le Cameroun!

Ivory Coast: We can now stand up!

By CANUTE TANGWA
 
Because they stole our creamy-white dignity?
Because they stole our yellow cocoa pods?
Because they stole our red coffee beans?
Because they smelt black gold around our shore

Willy Nfor: Bass Guitarist As If To The Manner Born

By Canute Tangwa

When he died on February 11, 1998, the gurgling rivulets cascading and tumbling down the undulated hills of Ndu in Donga Mantung did not stand still nor did the incessant drumming of the Mentchum Falls!
 
Neither did the timeless tidal hush of the Atlantic breeze on the simmering palms of Victoria were he was born in 1956! Yet, when a count down is made of bass guitar greats in Cameroon, Willy Nfor, stands head and shoulders above a good many who have a very good press stringing on the bass guitar.

2011 Presidential Election: To Register Or Not To Register

By Canute Tangwa

Apparently, when memory takes flight, we loose a huge chunk of our ‘private literature’. There was a time when registering for elections and obtaining a voter’s card was a must. In those times, you could spend some nasty time in a police/gendarmerie cell or feel the nuisance capacity of the security apparatus if you did not possess a voter’s card.

ELECAM and The Conundrum of Election Rigging in Cameroon

By Frankline C. Kimbeng*

What is being foisted on Africa is a version of liberal democracy reduced to the crude simplicity of multiparty elections. This type of democracy is not in the least emancipatory, especially in African conditions, because it offers the people rights they cannot exercise, voting that never amount to choosing, freedom which is patiently spurious, and political equality which disguises highly unequal power relations (Ake, 1996).  Cameroon’s successive history of flawed elections and our so called “advanced” democracy depicts the above assertion.  

Revisiting & Breaking Cameroon’s Flawed Electoral Past: The Challenge for Mr. Tanimou

By Frankline C. Kimbeng*

Elections do serve many useful purposes for democratic transition and consolidation.  As Handelmon (2003) has pointed out, elections are designed to give the mass of the people opportunities to have a say in who (leaders) governs them and how (policies) they are governed.   As a means of giving accountability to citizens, elections are supposed to be a constant reminder to public office holders of the limited nature of modern government. 

 

The aftermath of flawed elections

Celebrating 50 Years Of Reunification In Our Own Way

By Canute Tangwa

Should we as Anglophones celebrate in our own way fifty years of reunification come 2011? This was the question I put to Sam-Nuvala Fonkem, current Public Information Officer for ONUCI in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. He shot back: Is there cause to celebrate? No but we could showcase the best and brightest of Anglophone brains and brawn in various fields 50 years running. He retorted: but do not forget those who have brought us shame! Our collective psyche is the sum total of our good, our bad and our ugly.

Why in our own way? I have never had cause to call any newsroom in Cameroon to react to a publication. This I did when I stumbled on a copy of Les Cahiers De Mutations titled PALMARES - LES GRANDES FIGURES DU FOOTBALL CAMEROUNAIS (Février 2010). I got Emmanuel Gustave Samnick on the line and asked him whether the likes of Raymond Fobete, Mark Nibo, Peter Essoka, Zachary Nkwo, Michael Wacka and so on did not have a place in his publication. First, I was impressed with his sound knowledge of the actors in question. Then the usual you-see-we-had-to-make-do excuse because of space and…a firm promise that part two would come out soon!

Al Qaeda Suspect Was In Cameroon!

By Canute Tangwa

Apparently, in the year 2005 or thereabouts, the alleged Al Qaeda petrel, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in the company of about ten classmates made a trip up the 4070 metre high Mount Cameroon! Probably, they were final year students at the British International School in Lomé, Togo.

I Weep For Bamenda

By Canute Tangwa

Apparently, as a Buea boy I have no business weeping for Bamenda aka Abakwa. I should not weep more than the bereaved! However, two things took me up country: one that entailed weeping, pain and sorrow - the death of one of our best and brightest, Peter Terence Awa alias Peter T (Binot) and a joyous event in far-off Fundong - the traditional and 'whiteman' wedding of my friend in need and in deed, Ivo Lysinge or simply Papin or Marvé to friends.
 
I used a stone to shoot two birds! We hit the road from Douala in the evening of Friday, October 16. It was bound to be interesting because I was in the company of friends I have known for over 35 years!

Guinea-Conakry: From Glory To Decadence

BY CANUTE TANGWA

On October 2, 1958, Ahmed Sekou Toure said ‘NON’ to General De Gaulle and wrested independence from France. “We prefer freedom in poverty than wealth in bondage”, he thundered to the face of the insufferable French and his bemused peers like Leopold Sedar Senghor and Houphouet Boigny. French reaction was swift and telling (economic sanctions) but Guineans clung to their dignity.

IF THERE IS BLOOD IN MY EYES (PART I)

By CANUTE TANGWA

After three gulps of afo-fo, J. Safour smacked his lips and continued our story. The fog was quite heavy and visibility was almost nil. The cold went right into the bones. This was Buea in August of the late 70s. It was also the month of fear. The fear of the nyongo man, a senior cop who owned a beetle with license number 999.