How SDF Can End Its Reverses And Win All Future Elections

By Julius Nyamkimah Fondong*

Since its audacious launching in May 1990, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), Cameroon’s frontline opposition party has gone from an influential political powerhouse to an inconsequential player on Cameroon’s political chessboard. The story of the SDF as a political formation during the last nineteen years of its existence is also a story of deferred dreams, bungled chances, unfulfilled promises and dashed hopes.

If performance at elections can be considered the main barometer for measuring progress made, or lack thereof, by a political party, then as far as the SDF is concerned, the numbers speak eloquently for themselves.

During 1992 presidential elections, SDF candidate, Ni John Fru Ndi lost to incumbent CPDM candidate Mr. Paul Biya by 4 percentage points (35.97% for Fru Ndi and 39.98% for Biya).  For some inexplicable reasons the SDF didn’t go in for the 1997 presidential elections. Fru Ndi however, participated in the 2004 presidential elections, and lost to Biya 17.40% to 70.92% (a difference of 53 percentage points). This inauspicious pattern of decline is the same for the legislative elections. In 1997, the SDF won 43 parliamentary seats. That number dropped to 21 in 2001 and then to a paltry 16 in 2008. Regions like the Northwest, the West, the Douala and Yaoundé metro areas, the Mungo region and parts of the South-West like Limbe, Kumba, Muyuka and Lebialem, once considered safe SDF strongholds are now being gradually taken over by the CPDM.

The question I have often asked myself is: in the face of such monumental failures, how does the SDF, a party that was once  an incarnation of  the hopes and aspirations of every Cameroonian yearning for change; a party that once wielded so much street power and influence and touched the hearts of many; in the face of such failures, how can  the SDF leadership - I was asking -   continue  to  exude the kind of near imperial arrogance that Mr. Fru Ndi spurted out following  the resignation of Akonteh?

There is no gainsaying the fact that since its inception the SDF has made invaluable contributions to the promotion of democracy in Cameroon. The party has changed the political landscape in Cameroon in a way that no political organization before it had ever done. But since political parties are created with the objective of acceding to power and using the political capital garnered during the process as a catalyst for change, the SDF has fallen far short of that objective. The fact of the matter remains that the SDF is today further away from power than it was in 1990, mainly due to policy inconsistencies, a lack of vision, intolerance and the arrogance of its leadership.

It may be hard to believe but it is now becoming increasingly evident that the SDF has never been able to develop and implement a long-term strategic plan for conquering power in Cameroon. Its vision has been extremely constricted and its strategies have been haphazard, perfunctory and improvised, to say the least. 

A case in point is its attitude towards elections. Political analysts in Cameroon are unanimous that the March 1992 legislative election was relatively freer and fairer than any elections ever held in post one-party Cameroon. It was held at a time of political uncertainty during which all the emerging opposition parties and even the CPDM were anxious to gauge their real potentials within the new political dispensation that the return to multi-partyism had engendered. On the streets, the SDF was undoubtedly the strongest challenger poised to grab a majority of parliamentary seats. But for reasons no one has ever understood, the SDF boycotted those elections.

It is important to note that Mr. Biya, in a bid to make concessions and end the SDF-led ghost town operations, had publicly pledged to appoint the next Prime Minister from the party that will win a majority of seats in the 1992 legislative polls. Had the SDF gone in for the elections and won a majority (as many expected it to do) the party would have had to nominate both the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Assembly. With the government and parliament under threat of SDF control, Mr. Biya would have been left with no choice but to make further concessions or negotiate from a position of weakness. By boycotting the 1992 legislative elections, the SDF indubitably lost its single  best shot at gaining power and  by so doing, strengthened the resolve of the ruling CPDM to make sure the SDF never rises again to any position  of political significance.

Political parties gain and retain political capital by creating, nurturing and sustaining momentum. One way of doing this is through unremitting popular mobilization, participating and improving their scores at each political consultation. The SDF’s participation at presidential elections has been perfunctory thus depriving it of the necessary drive that should keep it alive in the sub-consciousness of the voters. For instance, Mr. Fru Ndi went in for the 1992 presidential elections and lost narrowly to Mr. Biya by a mere 4 percentage points (even though many suspect he won). Just when many expected the SDF to take stock, reorganize, build and maintain its impetus and storm the national stage again, the party decided to boycott the 1997 presidential polls and thus gave Mr. Biya and his CPDM the leeway to consolidate their hold on power.

Mr. Fru Ndi came back to contest the 2004 presidential elections and tried to re-invoke the memories of his historic run of 1992. But twelve long years had elapsed since the voters last saw his name on a ballot paper and the bulk of those who were voting in 2004 were either too young to know what the 1992 momentum was all about, too old to remember it, or just simply didn’t care. He lost woefully to Mr. Biya by a 53 percentage point margin.

As a political organization the SDF has also been considerably weakened by unsound policy decisions made without a proper analysis of the risks and the rewards involved. Two good examples are, first, the decision to call for a boycott of French goods (thus gratuitously seeking confrontation with an influential former colonial power); and second, publicly calling for the disbandment of the corps of civil administrators (D.Os, SDOs and Governors) as well as the national gendarmerie.

Any serious politician seeking to accede to the pinnacle of power in Cameroon should know by intuition that it is in his best interest to be - even if only in appearance - in the good books of the French. He should also do well to avoid any confrontation with the civil administrators (who run elections in Cameroon) and the ubiquitous gendarmerie, even if he really doesn’t think highly of them. I don’t know for sure why the SDF sought confrontation with the French, the civil administrators and the gendarmes and I’m not sure I know what this kind of confrontation was intended to accomplish, but I do know for a fact that it turned out to be both politically and strategically costly for the SDF.

Another important short-fall of the SDF has been its benign neglect of the Greater North. As far as I am concerned, all the about two million odd votes in the three northern regions are swing votes. Evidence of this is the way the Greater North has gone from being a CPDM stronghold, to a UNDP/MDR/CDU stronghold, back to CPDM stronghold.  All in a decade, or so! And in all of this the SDF has never shared in the spoils because the party has never made of the Greater North its priority, instead preferring to cast all its fortunes in the Greater West. 

The SDF has never had any political operation of meaning in the northern regions aimed at breaking new ground and expanding its support and militant base. On the eve of any presidential election in which he is in the mood to  participate, Mr. Fru Ndi makes a quick one-week drive-through in the Greater North, comes back and tells his supporters he has “conquered” the region.

During the 2004 presidential elections I was serving in Garoua as an Adviser to the Governor and part of my election-day duties were to collate and analyze exit polls as they were being reported by field civil administrators. All through election night I was bombarded with phone calls from friends in Bamenda and elsewhere who wanted to know if it was true that Fru Ndi was “sweeping” the Greater North. And my glib answer was: not the part of the North I am familiar with! The SDF has further alienated northerners from the party by systematically purging from its ranks all Northern elite who used to hold executive positions in the party: Souleymane, Maidadi Seidou, and Sani Alhaji, just to name a few.

Going back to Mr. Fru Ndi’s disparaging comments following Andrew Akonteh’s resignation, such an attitude is symptomatic of the kind of native arrogance that has rendered the SDF incapable of conducting a thorough soul-searching so as to determine the root causes of its visible self-annihilation.

Where does a Chairman, on whose watch the SDF has consistently lost an average of 30% of its political fortunes after each election, find the nerve to be so foul-mouthed? Mr. Fru Ndi might have pulled Akonteh from the gutter and paid his rents as he claims, but Akonteh’s commitment and service to the SDF and to Cameroon’s democracy are also unimpeachable. It is thanks to his courage that the SDF asserted itself in the Northwest and thanks to his investigative abilities as an MP that the massive fraud at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications were uncovered, leading to the arrest, trial and imprisonment of Minchipou Seidou, who was the Minister of P&T at the time. The least Mr. Fru Ndi could have done as a leader was to thank Mr. Akonteh for his service and wish him well. Or better still, shut up.

In the face of patent ineptitude and crippling performance deficiencies plaguing the party, the SDF has one simple strategy: blame it all on the CPDM. Militants who seek to usher in new ideas or propose policy options that are different from the Chairman’s are branded as “CPDM agents” and promptly dismissed from the party under the nefarious article 8.2 of the party’s constitution.

In 1998, when I was still serving as First Assistant Senior Divisional Officer for Momo Division, I was appalled by the scandalous and unorthodox way in which the newly elected SDF mayor of Andek Council was managing its affairs. After one year in office, the mayor had not bothered to draw up a budget as required by law and was literally pocketing all the revenue that the council was collecting. When several attempts to call the mayor to order failed, I had no choice but to go public with the details of the mayor’s mismanagement. I also did an audit of all the five SDF-run councils of Momo Division at the time and discovered that at the rate an which they were going, the SDF mayors may end up accumulating more debt in five years than their CPDM predecessors ever did in twenty years.

Instead of taking action on my audit report and collaborating with me to deal with the problem, some SDF officials took to threatening and then intimidating me, claiming as it was common to do in those days, that I was just another CPDM Divisional Officer trying to discredit the newly minted SDF mayors. Let me note in passing that Andek Council, like many others in the Northwest, has since been re-taken over by the CPDM.

Twenty years down the line, Cameroon’s vanguard opposition party is by all counts a dismal failure and an unmitigated disaster. Through the arrogance and intolerance of its leadership it has deprived itself of a crop of committed cadres and talented technocrats who could have helped re-define the party’s long term strategic vision. When a supposedly modern political organization like the SDF goes to great lengths to modify its constitution such that its top executives are handpicked by the Chairman and not elected, that speaks to fear, desperation and naked arrogance. Not to strength.

Nowhere is this lack of technocratic leadership forcefully visible like on the party’s website www.sdfparty.org. The latest piece of information on the website’s “What’s New” webpage dates to 2007 and some of the facts (like the number of parliamentary seats won by the party in 1997) are incorrect. If in this age of information and communication technology an important political organization like the SDF lacks the technocrats to maintain something as common place as a website, what else can it possibly do?

I think it was Al Ries and Jack Trout, in their much-acknowledged book “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” who averred that “Success often leads to arrogance and arrogance to failure”. This of course holds true for politicians too and we have had many instances of daring and popular politicians like Ni John Fru Ndi turning arrogant and this arrogance leading them to the abysses of failure. 

But it may not be too late yet for the SDF to redeem itself. The fundamentals of the party - namely the strength and commitment of its grassroots militants - are still very strong. All the party needs is for a visionary and tolerant leadership, imbued with the capacity to craft and implement a new and realistic long term strategy for conquering power, based on the principles on which the party was founded. The SDF must also accept some responsibility for its own failures and stop blaming them on CPDM. Most importantly, its leadership should shed some of its arrogance, take steps to end the systematic exclusion of its cadres and learn to tap into and manage the rich diversity of its militant base.

*The columnist is a former Cameroonian Field Civil Administrator and currently a Civil Affairs Officer.

Former Ambassador Jerome Mendouga - The Dog That Must Return To Its Vomit

By Avitus Agbor in The U.S

Former Cameroonian Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Jerome Mendouga, made a petition for political asylum in the United States recently. That petition, based on its demerits, was declared ‘dead on arrival’ by the United States Immigration Services, a division of the United States’ Department of Homeland Security. His previous official position as plenipotentiary of the Government of Cameroon to the United States; a priceless actor in the political affairs of Cameroon on the international terrain; a member of a ‘state gang’ that has perpetrated gruesome atrocities against its people; a disciple of the disastrous socio-economic and political policies of the CPDM regime, and currently a person of interest in the investigation of the Albatros affair; no wiser decision could have been reached by the asylum officer than denying the petition.

H.E. Jerome Mendouga resided in the United States, one of the countries in which the number of petitions for asylum (political) by Cameroonians is skyrocketing. As a seasoned diplomat who was misled to believe in the perpetuity of his tenure, he insulated himself from the contextual realities; with regards to the bases upon which such petitions are made, and secondly, who, in practical terms, deserves protection in the United States. Having perused the cap that articulates the eligibility for asylum, he must have been lured to think that not being a permanent resident or citizen of the United States, he would obviously be eligible to make such a petition. However, eligibility to petition for asylum does not necessarily mean approval of that petition.

Had he reflected much on the contextual framework within which asylum petitions are made; he would have understood that different routes could take him to the destination (approval) without electing the option of political beliefs or affiliations. An apostle of a government that has no regard for bono mores, an incarnation of deceit, manipulation and segregation, he could have taken the extra mile to spin his individual circumstances to give some credibility to his claim. To rely on social grouping could have been a viable option. That could have been wiser and better, considering the fact that Cameroon’s persecution of homosexuals has earned the contempt and dismay of the international community. Governors in the United States have openly denounced their families as they change their sexual orientation. Not suggesting what may amount to a conspiracy, he could have engaged in a surreptitious transaction with his family, openly changed his sexual orientation to gay or bisexual, and made his claim. Could he have predicated a case on the UN Convention against torture? Apparently, that is not a remote possibility. However, he was once a distinguished official in a government that is a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture, but is in constant violation of its international obligations as torture (and cruel and degrading treatment and punishment) remain meted to Cameroonians. He who seeks equity must do equity. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands. How clean are his hands if he has to count on protection based on the UN Convention against Torture? Not being streetwise, he could not devise any way to bend the law without breaking it.

To have been appointed an ambassador to the United States, performed the duties articulated in his job description, condoned and endorsed the gruesome political violence and atrocities of a regime he represented, defended a system that is indefensible, and shuttled from one nation to another as chief diplomat of the CPDM regime, the entire world is a living witness to the fact that he actively supported the system and vice versa, and it is too late for him to wash his hands like Pontius Pilate.

Even if he were to wash his hands, the bloodstains remain indelible. The prosecution of Nazi criminals following the surrender of Germany in 1945 was made easier by a simple but effective strategy developed and implemented by United States Supreme Court Justice and Counsel to the International Military Tribunal, Robert H. Jackson. The Allied Powers accused the Nazi regime of criminal conspiracy that led to the perpetration of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Considering the commission of the crimes to be the offshoots of a criminal conspiracy, the Nazi regime (the Party, its leaders, and affiliate organizations like SS, SA, Gestapo) was labelled a criminal enterprise, and its members criminals based on voluntary membership. Applying that approach, strict senso and mutatis mutandi, the economic and political crimes committed by the CPDM regime would make it a joint criminal enterprise, and its key leaders and members like Jerome Mendouga, would be brought to justice.

As chief diplomat to the United States where Cameroonians seek political asylum based on past or well-founded fear of future persecution, Jerome Mendouga stiffened services to those who authored or benefited from such petitions. He established a system that penalized such individuals, confiscating passports sent to the embassy for renewals. With a staff that could not contain its callousness towards Cameroonians with an English accent; arrogance, disrespect and unprofessionalism were the pillars upon which it built its customer service. With live cables building an unattractive cobweb, the embassy building looks desolate and inhabitable. Well located in the heart of metro Washington (DC), it is the epicentre of the healthiest and heaviest roaches, shamelessly and boldly harassing visitors and interrupting conversations. With the staff adapted to such working conditions, any visitor to the embassy down Mass. Avenue ends with an avalanche of pity for those who work there. Circulars dated in the late 90s decorate the walls, at times struggling to secure themselves to the paint that is being eroded by even the gentlest wind. A visit to the embassy building, an assessment of the services rendered, the customer service relationship, and the facilities within the building automatically dictate to the visitor that an intense and undiluted opposition to change resides in the ambassador. Cameroon’s embassy in Washington (DC) is a glimpse of the infrastructural cesspool and decay of the country’s socio-economic and political institutions.

A regime that is saturated with intellectuals who know how to bend the law without breaking it, they possess uncommon skills in a different kind of administration. They record their activities with Teutonic thoroughness. With their records being examined and details of transactions verified, the stage is now set for the settlement of political differences. In what seems to be the scandalum magnatum of the decade, some of Cameroon’s key political actors are now facing the wrath of the master and the judicial system. Needless to name names, surreptitious transactions of unimaginable consequences have been exposed, and political reprisals in the form of accountability before administrative and judicial authorities seem to be the sweet wages for their allegiance to, and betrayal of their master. The Albatros Affair seems to be akin to a Judas Iscariot kiss, both in the nature and consequences contemplated. However, unlike Judas Iscariot, the perpetrators’ master (and his family) did not perish. He survived in order to see them face-to-face and appreciate the nature of their bond. Political tit-for-tat in different forms must come as the unavoidable consequences. Ambition kills, and absolute ambition kills absolutely. It is not new in African politics to see the authors of a political storm identified and victimized in the ensuing calm.

Jerome Mendouga sought to gain political asylum in the USA as a means to circumvent investigation and possibly prosecution. A perfunctory decision that conveys imbecility and naivety, for, had he read Asylum 101 thoroughly, he would have understood that asylum is not, and can never be used by an ex-diplomat like him to evade prosecution. Having lived and worked in the United States, it was commonsensical for him to know that the United States is a country of law, and is built on the rule of law, distinct from the country he represented, which is built on rule by law, and is a country of people and passions. As a country of people and passions, founded on rule by law, he took no positive step to make the judicial system better. Having lived and worked in a democratic country, he must have learned that rule of law is a key institution to the democratisation of a country. If the administration of justice did not bother him because he had been raised to the apparatchik of CPDM, he now sees himself as a potential victim of what he failed to make better. Having coated himself in different layers of self-deception, inevitability and superiority above the legal system, he oscillated between impunity and immunity. Today, he occupies an uncertain position as he vacillates between vendetta with the master, and the wrath of a judicial system that will probably intern him.

No matter how long the extradition process will take, Jerome Mendouga should be bold enough to return to the country he proudly served. He deserves a colossal pension for his extraordinary service to CPDM. It is practically unwise and politically incorrect to castigate a system that he once served when there has been no major change in circumstantial realities. He should go to Cameroon, then, consider returning to the USA to petition for asylum. That would actually give him a sense of what others have experienced, or fear when they make a case based on a well-founded fear of persecution. Jerome Mendouga should return home and drink the cup of coffee he made. Asylum seekers have detested the situation, and he may as well be part of the bandwagon. He should return to Cameroon, reconnect with the political ancestors, see eye to eye with his accomplices, and get the benediction of his long time pal, brother and master, before returning to the United States. As moral author of the atrocities of the regime, he must return to Cameroon to eat, and if possible, choke in his own vomit. Yes, Jerome Mendouga will be the perfect exemplum of a washed sow that returns to its wallow, and as he does that, one lesson he did not know but must learn is that a political system that does nothing to protect the oppressed is a political system that will do nothing to protect the oppressor.

My Inquisitive Pen

Minister Adibime’s Upmanship And The Rot Inside His Ministry

By Chief Bisong Etahoben

For the past several months, only ministers who have a clear conscience and do not see exalted public office as an inheritance to conserve for yeas on end (like my friend) have been sleeping soundly. What with persistent rumours of a cabinet reshuffle, ministers who yesterday saw ministerial office as some place to sit on the throne and pass orders, have been forced to put on their work shoes and hit the road.

One minister on whom a lot of attention has been focused recently, has been the Minister of State Property and Land Tenure Pascal Anong Adibime. Honestly, I think that man has been doing some brave things that others before him dared not do perhaps for some reasons the public may only know afterwards. He has succeeded in chasing away illegal occupants of state houses, some of which were brazen-facedly seized and rented out for commercial purposes by people who have never even worked for government, not to talk of ever occupying them. Minister Adibime seems to have succeeded in dismantling a network of individuals who were making millions from renting out state houses to private individuals.

However, this aspect of his job has only come to the forefront because of his activism in throwing these unscrupulous individuals manu militari from properties that did not belong to them.

The axe the average Cameroonian has had to grind with Mr. Adibime’s ministerial department over the years has been that concerning the issuance of land certificates. It is no secret that getting a land certificate from Mr. Adibime’s ministry has always been as difficult as finding a hen with teeth in a poultry. And this problem continues to this day in spite of all the noise on radio, TV and newspaper columns by the minister himself and his assigns.

One would have thought that with all the arrests of highly-placed government officials for bribery, corruption and embezzlement, those in office would by now be sitting upright doing their job and only their job without having to extort money from users of public services. No! Corruption and bribery are still very much alive and well in the Ministry of State Property and Lend Tenure in spite of all the noise by Minister Adibime. Workers in that ministry still openly ask for bribe before even tracing one’s file there, not to talk of treating files promptly.

I am writing this with all the authority because I am a victim of the evil machinations of Ministry of State Property and Land Tenure operatives who have been holding my documents for a land certificate for about five years now. Living and working in Yaounde, I have made several trips to that ministry, following my documents which were forwarded there from Limbe for a piece of government land allocated to me but to date, I am yet to be issued a land certificate.

In fact, but for the official stamps appended on the letter forwarding my documents to Yaounde in the various offices through which the documents have passed, one may be forced to think my documents are missing. Each time myself or any of the persons I send there to follow up the documents gets to the ministry, we are openly told that to even start searching for the documents, we must give bribe! The woman in the said office asks for the bribe with such alacrity that one would think it is a debt.

I have personally written a number of letters to the minister but I am yet to be honoured with even one reply. People working there behave as if they are in their family estates. Even greeting someone who greets them back seems like a luxury they cannot afford to spare.

Perhaps the day public service workers realise that the offices they work in belong to all the people of Cameroon and that they are only wage-earners in the employ of the people of Cameroon, they would start respecting service users who come to public offices.

The English in their knowledge called government workers ‘civil servants’, which implies they are supposed to serve the public. But in Cameroon, they have gradually elevated themselves to civil masters and today, they are the bosses to the public they are supposed to serve.

Mr. Adibime is doing a great job freeing state property from the pangs of rogue individuals but he needs to do a bigger house-cleaning job in his ministry so that people are better served without being obliged to give bribe money.

Police Demand 100 Million FCFA Bribe To Return Fotso’s Passport

By Our Economic Affairs Reporter

Mr. Yves Michel Fotso, heir to the Fotso business conglomerate and one-time General Manager of Cameroon Airlines who has been in the news recently in connection with the presidential plane the “Albatross” and other alleged misdemeanours, has categorically declared that he had nothing to do with the “Albatross” affair adding that the affair broke after he had already left Cameroon Airlines.

Mr. Fotso who has decided to give his own side of the story after several media stories accusing him of many wrong-doings and interrogations by the press and the police respectively revealed that on being appointed General Manager of CAMAIR he met a file on the purchase of a presidential plane that had been conferred on his predecessor Mr. Atangana Etoundi. He said he continued negotiations for the plane, a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) and the sum of 31 million U.S. dollars – 21 billion FCFA at the time -  (about 40% of the total cost of the plane) was eventually advanced to the Boeing company for the manufacture of the plane.

“In fact, the plane was actually manufactured, according to the specifications of the Head of State, i.e. fitting it with the various security gadgets such as anti-missile capabilities etc., inspected by Cameroonian authorities and received by a team from CAMAIR and the Etat Major of the Presidency of the Republic. At the last moment however, for reasons not known to me, the presidency decided not to take delivery of the plane after all”, Mr. Fotso revealed.

Mr. Fotso revealed that having made the Boeing company to manufacture a plane according to particular specifications and deciding not to buy it afterwards must necessarily involve wasted expenditure, as the manufacturer would not return the exact amount of money deposited as advance.

Pressed to say why he thought the presidency decided not to take delivery of the plane, Mr. Fotso said it would appear some people in the presidency thought he had been paid a commission on the purchase of the plane and felt he had to share the commission with them. However, since he did not ask nor receive any commission, there was nothing to share and so the head of state’s collaborators decided to torpedo the arrangement in the hope of starting a new arrangement from which they would harvest huge kickbacks. They actually did by way of the Albatross.

As concerns the Albatross which is today making headlines and to which he is being linked, the Fotso empire heir declared that he had nothing to do with the Albatross affair adding that he had already left CAMAIR when arrangements for the plane were decided upon.

Asked whether he was sacked from CAMAIR and why, Mr. Fotso revealed that he thinks the decision to send him away from CAMAIR was informed by the fact that he refused to allow CAMAIR planes fly without being insured. He said CAMAIR was owing several millions by way of unpaid insurance and so the insurer informed the company that it would no longer cover its planes. However, pressure was put on him to let the planes fly, a thing he refused to do as this was illegal and against the interest of the passengers. CAMAIR planes, he said, remained grounded for 48 hours during which time the president was pressurised into signing the decree replacing him.

The former CAMAIR boss who revealed that since leaving CAMAIR in 2003 he has never spent more than a week in one country said his passport has been seized since April this year and so he has been forced to remain only within the national borders for the last five months.

Some media houses had alleged that Mr. Fotso had taken refuge under his father’s armpit in Bandjoun their ancestral home since his passport was seized in the hope that his father would protect him from arrest. To this Mr. Fotso replied that he needed time to prepare his response to all the allegations being made against him, and revealed that so far, he has released about 25.000 pages of documents to Cameroon’s judicial authorities to help them in their investigations. Nevertheless, he said, those making such allegations seem not to understand that whether he stays in Douala or in the village, so long as he is in the country, he can be arrested wherever he is. And too, he went on, whenever he is in Bandjoun, he lives in his own house and not with his father.

Also talking about his passport, Mr. Fotso confirmed that some individuals had approached his father demanding the sum of one hundred million (100.000.000) FCFA for them to cause the release of his passport but his father, whom he said believes in the rule of law, has reported the matter to the competent authorities including evidence. “It is now left for the competent authorities to decide on what to do”, he declared.

Mr. Fotso categorically denied rumours that he intended to escape and to live in Singapore adding that he had long before the present imbroglio wanted to go stay in Singapore simply because Singapore is the principal financial centre of the world after New York and he being involved in banking, it was just normal. “I never said I was going on exile”, he insisted.

As to allegations by one Francis Nana, said to be the Director General of a financial outfit known as Sygma that he was a money launderer, which led to investigations being opened against him in Switzerland, Mr. Fotso said he had never ever met the said Francis Nana. He said he did not know why Nana had to make such damaging allegations against him. All the same, he said the allegations were untrue adding that there is no separate case against him in Switzerland but rather, the same allegations Nana made here in Cameroon were deposited at various diplomatic missions here. He said he has never committed a crime in Switzerland.

He revealed that he was convinced the intention is to destabilise the Fotso Group of Companies adding that Nana Francis is a fraudulent individual who claims to be a financial expert owning Cabinet Sygma. He categorically declared that Francis Nana who claims to be a chartered accountant in France is not known as such within French financial circles and the President of the French Accounting and Auditing Commission says he is unknown in France and as such is an impostor.

Mr. Fotso spoke at length on his stewardship of CAMAIR, where Nana is said to have accused him of having embezzled billions of FCFA. He revealed that he was appointed General Manager of CAMAIR on June 20, 2002 and met CAMAIR in “a catastrophic financial situation”. CAMAIR, he said, had been ordered to hand over two of its Boeing 737 latest June 21, 2002 because of debts owed. The Boeing 747 at the time was held up for several months in France because CAMAIR could not pay for its repairs and there were arrears of salary unpaid including penalties on the hire of one CAMAIR plane.

He said when he arrived at CAMAIR, the company had not been audited for over five years and as such, the company had no financial records to treat with.

He finally discovered that the company was 72 billion FCFA in debt when he took it over and some of these debts were fictitious. He said before leaving the company, he had reduced the debt to 49 billion FCFA. Mr. Fotso revealed that he was appointed to head CAMAIR because government wanted him to rescue the company from total collapse. He said contrary to other appointments where people get up to hear their names announced, he was invited by President Biya to discuss the appointment before it was made. He said he is not and was not a civil servant so his was the first appointment of a purely private sector individual to head a state corporation.

Without wanting to call names, Mr. Fotso revealed that after his audience with the president and his subsequent appointment, he set to work to save CAMAIR from total collapse with the conviction that the president’s close collaborators linked to CAMAIR would work in the same spirit. “But it would appear some of his close collaborators were not as faithful to him as they should have been. They rather used their positions to feed their ambitions”, he revealed, insinuating that the Cabinet Sygma headed by a fake financial expert is patronised by some of the president’s close collaborators.

The former CAMAIR boss revealed that immediately he arrived at CAMAIR, he ordered an audit and established accounting records from the 1995/96 fiscal year to 2001/2002 but these records disappeared immediately after he left.

He said he saved CAMAIR about 400 million FCFA monthly by renegotiating some of its hire and rents contracts. Citing one example, he said when he arrived, CAMAIR had a Boeing 737-200 that it was hiring from Ansett at 484.000 dollars (about 217.800.000 FCFA at today’s exchange rates) a month. He eventually renegotiated and brought it down to 295.000 dollars (about 132.750.000 FCFA) thus saving the company about 85 million FCFA monthly on that arrangement alone. He revealed that when he arrived CAMAIR, its annual turnover was 56 billion FCFA, which during the less than two years he worked there, he increased by 64% to 92 billion FCFA.

Talking about fictitious debts, Mr. Fotso cited Mobil Oil, which was billing them more than double the actual amount of fuel consumed and since there were no accounts, the individuals involved in the scam pocketed huge sums of money.

By Kombe Erick in Yaounde

Cameroon’s lone Olympic gold medallist Françoise Mbango may undergo another anti-doping test and should she fail it, she may be stripped of her medal. Fortunately however, Mbango is sure she would not fail the test and has reassured Cameroonians that should another anti-doping test be necessary, it would be normal Olympic procedure. She revealed that she is in regular contact with the Beijing Olympics Organising Committee should she be needed for further tests.

Mbango who was speaking during a press conference at the Yaounde Hilton Friday August 29, 2008 revealed that during the Athens Olympics in 2004, she underwent four anti-doping tests and passed them all with flying ties adding that this time would be no exception should it be decided that she be further tested.

Contrary to the very belligerent Françoise whom Cameroonians saw before the Beijing Olympics who spared no opportunity to lambast the Cameroon Athletics Federation and its president Ange Sama, Mbango who spoke August 29 at the Yaounde Hilton was conciliatory, pouring praises on the Athletics Federation and the National Olympics Committee for contributing to her success at the Beijing Olympics.

“Everybody in his/her own way contributed towards my victory. The Cameroon Athletics Federation contributed by registering me for the Olympics; I have a 2008 licence, and it is still the Federation that recognised my requisite output to enable me take part in the Games. The same thing applies to the National Olympic Committee. I would say that they essentially performed their duties”, Mbango told the press.

The Olympic gold medallist however said the Cameroon Athletics Federation and the National Olympic Committee would have to examine their consciences and ask themselves why a sporting nation like Cameroon could only win one medal at the Olympics though it sent up to 30 athletes to the competition.

Françoise Mbango nevertheless  reserved her ultimate gratitude for the presidential couple whom she said contributed most towards her success by offering her 80.000.000 (eighty million) FCFA to enable her prepare for the Games.

“That is why I have dedicated my medal to the President of the Republic”, Mbango said.
Françoise Mbango revealed that her ultimate goal is to beat the world triple jump record adding that her determination at the Olympic Games had been to do just that but regretted that she did not succeed in that regard.

“I am satisfied with my performances but I think I can do better. There is still the world record to be beaten and that record should be held by a Cameroonian”, Mbango said with determination written all over her face.
The 32-year-old world champion revealed that she would be going to Germany on September 14 where she would take part in an athletics competition in Stuttgart.

“I am 11 centimetres away from the world record and it is necessary that I beat it”, she said.

Asked how she thought she would use her Olympic glory to help young Cameroonians, Mbango revealed that she would soon begin touring various schools in the country to encourage young Cameroonians to take part in triple jumping.

She revealed that she brought along some sporting equipment from China, which she intends to distribute to various schools for the promotion of triple jumping.

The press conference ended with a one-minute silence in honour of a man who died in Biyem-Assi whilst taking part in a debate on the Mbango phenomenon. The said man was on the side of Mbango against other debaters who were on the side of the Athletics Federation president Ange Sama. A fight ensued during the debate and the man was mortally wounded.

As we went to press, Mbango was still camped in the Yaounde Hilton waiting to be received by President Paul Biya on a date yet to be announced.

Column – My Inquisitive Pen

By Chief Bisong Etahoben

Making Cameroonians Feel At Home In Bakassi

I have always told friends that if there truly is reincarnation, then in my second coming on earth, I would not go to school. That way, you live a happier life like my kinsmen have been living in the village over the centuries. They grow older and die happy. Yes, they do because they are not involved in all the skulduggery that “book” people and town dwellers are artists at.

In my village, folks get up in the morning, wear their farm dresses, pick up their cutlasses and hoes and head for the bush. Those who have their felled palms tap them and during rest time, their wives roast some cocoyams, which they jointly eat with red oil and salt and finally, they take sweet seeps of the palm wine. By evening they are done for the day and head home with the foodstuff they have harvested which they cook on arrival at home and feed themselves and their children with. The same exercise starts all over again the next day and so on and so forth.

Try to discuss some complicated political issues with them like the embezzlement of public funds, nepotism, bribery and corruption and all the ills in our society today and sometimes some of them even ask you how that concerns them and you!

The Bakassi hand-over thing once again aroused my worries about the way that part of Cameroon is being treated. Some years back after the Nigerians had put in about five years in Bakassi, I travelled to Ubenikang and had the opportunity to discuss with some young Cameroonians from that area. Honestly, I was shocked by what they told me. They informed me for the short time Nigerians had been in their area, they had done enough development to last them the lifetime of all Cameroonian administrations. Besides infrastructures, youths from the area had been granted scholarships to enable them attend school and some had even been sponsored to universities in Europe.

In fact, I was shocked to hear a compatriot say they would rather that Bakassi is not handed back to Cameroon! “What did they do for us for the whole time we were under Cameroon?”, the young man asked. Though shocked, I was honest to see with him there. What really had the Cameroonian government been doing for the Bakassi people until the Nigerians came? Nothing!

I know many Cameroonian administrators who were supposed to lead the way for the Cameroonisation of Bakassi who rather remained in Kumba or Ekondo-Titi at most than go to Ubenikang, Kombo Abedimo, Kombo Etindi etc when posted there. Most government functionaries who were supposed to lay the groundwork for the movement of Cameroonian people, goods and services to Bakassi remained in other divisions in the Southwest province and some even in Yaounde from where they wrote fictitious reports about their activities in Bakassi.

Even treasury officials who were posted there and who were supposed to oil the investment machinery by disbursing funds intended for the development of the area stayed away from there but connived with administrators and other government services to embezzle budgetary allocations meant for Bakassi.

Nobody cared about Bakassi and even as we make noise about the place today, so many things are still happening there yet our big talkers turn their faces the other way. One big tool of sovereignty is the national currency. In most parts of the Bakassi peninsula today, the Cameroonian currency is not legal tender. Even our military posted in those areas use the Nigerian naira!

One may be forced to ask: What is the difficulty imposing our currency in our territory there? Over the years, even the military posted to Bakassi went there only to extort money from the few Cameroonians and majority Nigerians living there. In fact, the Cameroonian military did a lot to chase away the few Cameroonians who were trying to compete with the Nigerians in Bakassi.

I knew a classmate of mine who was hurried to his grave because of the treatment he received from the Cameroonian military in Bakassi. James Tambe, whose other family now lives in Mile 4 Bonadikombo in Limbe, was a tailor who had a workshop in Gardens. He eventually raised enough money and decided to buy a canoe and venture into fishing in Bakassi. That was about twenty years ago. He started off very well and shortly afterwards, bought another canoe. Then the Cameroonian military one day swooped down on him. They seized his two canoes ostensibly to use them in tracking down Nigerian military infiltrators. Tambe’s canoes were never returned to him! With everything he had taken away from him, he was forced to leave Bakassi and headed back to Manyu, his division of origin where he died shortly afterwards because of frustration.

To date, nobody has asked to know where he is. Granted that his two canoes were commandeered in order to help our military secure Bakassi for us, did it mean the owner of the canoes did not merit any compensation? You know of my classmate’s case now because I have written about it here. There are so many other Cameroonians who were chased out of Bakassi who left the place and went away to die in silence and despair.

Francophones have always treated Anglophones as Biafrans. And those Cameroonians who were in Bakassi who tried to liase with our military there were always treated with suspicion and branded “Biafran” spies.

We have taken back Bakassi but unless we make it Cameroonian and treat the Cameroonians living there as compatriots, militant Nigerian groups would continue to call the shots there.