Canute - Chronicles from the Heartland

BIMBIA SLAVE TRADE SITE

BIMBIA SLAVE TRADE SITE

AT THE 46 HECTARES BIMBIA SLAVE TRADE SITE

BIMBIA SLAVE TRADE SITE

BIMBIA SLAVE TRADE SITE

At the 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 Canute 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 Canute 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 10-YEAR OLD HAWKER IN DOUALA By Canute 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 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 narrate 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 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 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 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 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! Verily, Water No Get Enemy as black legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, once belted out.

Our two-room shack that houses ten of us 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 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 or Alain Nteff of GiftedMom renown. I take a look at myself at the barber's hard by and wonder!

ATANGANA MEBARA: PICKING THE MINDSET OF MISTER PRESIDENT By Canute 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 Canute 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 Canute 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 Canute 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 Canute 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 Canute 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 Canute 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.