BY BATE BESONG
The POST Newspaper No. 155, Monday, January 24, 2000
We, Southern Cameroonians, have always had leaders that are archetypal mediocres: tribalistic, deceitful and fraudulent - since Foumban. Our daily lives are, therefore, viewed by the neo-colonial askari, through a distorted Quai d' Orsay prism, where the sum total of a person's character, merit, and worth is defined by De Gaulle's language. We have always been frog-marched in the limbo of marginality, alienated and directionless. In the depths of ignominy. Yet, we need someone who could give a strong sense of belonging to all, since the alternative, revolutionary front, is a special one that requires special techniques not perceived, understood, or appreciated by apologists, jobbers and other such thieves-of-power.
The Henry Fossung and Esuka Ndoki Mukete-Ivo Yongbang SCNC gave no leadership, clarified nothing, and confused everything.
The disturbing thing about the latter is that it was so frighteningly superficial, routine and unoriginal when stacked against the complexity of the Southern Cameroonian situation today in a steadily worsening crisis. Freedom from the eminently duplicitous Mukete-Yongbang SCNC duo is, therefore, even more important than freedom from schizophrenic despotism. That in a moment.
Sam Ekontang Elad demonstrated a combination of adamantine integrity and conviction which is the stuff of heroic legend. Before his voice was drowned by the faceless multitude and the numberless tattooed, conservatives in the SCNC whom Monsieur Biya's "New" Deal had excavated from the troglodyte stables of political irrelevance and somnolence, Sam Ekontang Elad's SCNC was powerful enough to arouse the concern of the slave-drivers at the Champs Elysées about the idiomatic direction of the Southern Cameroonian Revolution.
Chairman Sam Elad seemed to have transcended bourgeois limitations since his political metaphor was one which opened all doors, loosened all chains and dumbfounded the nation's captors. The vivid images of liberation from the Gaullist gulag that he evoked, affected the consciousness of the activist. Sam had acquired true inspiration. Only such a vision - in every material particular - could abort a tribalisation, and, hence, a feudalisation of the entire Cameroonian polity. Experience has, however, shown that if you stand on principles, on what you believe, you will attract a lot of detractors. So, Sam had to be cannibalised by SCNC "privileged slaves" and time-pleasers, clamouring for the perpetual tarry of the despot in power.
Southern Cameroonians are neither wont to forget in a hurry the deep wounds Ndoki Mukete-Ivo Yongbang has left in the SCNC psyche. For, what this clumsy and awkward "revolutionary" but, essentially colourless bread-and-butter politician, has so far done, has not been contrary to his de-personalised and de-realised academic ancestry. Long before it sent out its own obituary notices, Albert Womah Mukong, it was, who had pointed out the hypocrisy in Ivo Yongbang's panel-beaten SCNC. In a moment of succinct candour, Albert had remarked to this writer that any revolutionary circle that would allow a (now defunct Rev. Quiggle) Baptist Academy (Muyuka) secondary school drop-out to such a dais of political visibility, with the intimidating cognomen of "His Excellency Prince Esuka Ndoki Mukete III" was, inherently, flawed. Germane.
The Ndoki Muketes do not understand the adage that a man who seeks vain political utopia by riding roughshod over his own people will reap the Iscariot fruit of the corruptible. Since he believes in mischief and has a distorted understanding of values, the totality of his character is, amply, signposted by his chameleonic and pandemic, political prostitution. So, yesterday, it was Prime Minister Simon Achidi Achu. Today, at his Prestige Hotel, Yaounde, he is being courted by mere CPDM Ministers. A haughty spirit before tumbling! As the synecdoche of the cabal that cannot stand the truth, that does not believe that the wealth of the Cameroonian people is for the benefit of all of us, not for a few, selfish individuals, this SCNC Vidkun Quisling is the veritable embodiment of the social arthritis against which Cameroonians have struggled for so much of their lives.
This man cannot know the meaning of SHAME!! Ivo Yongbang's frankenstein, "His Excellency," may be living happily in his five-star Yaounde hotel room, courted by CPDM envoys and, silently, celebrating his imminent annunciation as Vice President of FECAFOOT, but tomorrow NEMESIS will surprisingly confront him.
thanks for the clarifications on twisted ideas
Posted by: ade john | October 27, 2004 at 05:55 AM
I'm a English speaking Cameroonian but know out off my country because of my member ship with the S.C.N.C. The goverment of Cameroon don't want to give the rights of the English speaking Cameroonian. I'll like to see the English speaking Cameroonian one have the same rights as the French speaking Cameroonian.
Posted by: fankem | November 26, 2004 at 07:43 AM
jhd aeaw
Posted by: nie | November 06, 2005 at 08:59 AM