The Fall of Sesekou E. T. Egbe and The Book of his Life

By Bate Besong

SESEKOU’S entourage is distraught. When rumours circulated, in 2002, that the old man had passed on during a heart surgery in the U.S that cost the family 50 million FCFA, the Presidency, promptly, suspended the roving ambassador’s stipend. It was never reinstated until his death, in Easter, 2005.

And now this: The children are angry that their father "would not have died" but for the "combination of blunders" at the Yaounde Referral Hospital.

One son had hired a private jet at 30 million francs CFA to fly from South Africa to pick up Sesekou in Yaounde. The family claim that had the hospital staff been monitoring the oxygen supply gauze, the break in the oxygen supply would have quickly been detected and going – by recent press reports – "Their father would not have died", wearing an oxygen mask!

This tragic event took place after "the surprising refusal" by the French Embassy, in Yaounde, to issue a visa for his evacuation for treatment at the American Hospital, in Paris. The pleas of Mr. Ephraim Inoni, General James Tataw, Minister Hillman Egbe not withstanding etc. Even after the family had made a deposit payment, in the interest of the Cameroonian people, in advance for his treatment, at the embassy’s insistence.

All this for a man who would have officially clocked 90 barely five Easters away, this week.

Memory will remain an important talking drum to the present on how the historical journey of a people is perceived, against the backdrop of an oppressive, neo-colonial culture. For one who was essentially a profiteer, a political entrepreneur who sought to maximise resources and rewards from the political market place for his use and for his children, the assumption here is that the process of gnosis, (knowing) and praxis (doing) are clearly linked to the development of His Excellency Sesekou E.T Egbe’s political, torn-coat character.

The Cameroonian Dream was deferred with the rise of the malleable Tandeng Muna and Tabi Egbe the self-perpetuating Siamese twins of the C.U.C who, refused to look beneath the surface of the bogus concept of national unity to ascertain the underlying socio-political currents and forces that shaped the systemic omissions of the AbuGhraib interment camp called Re-Unification.

We have noted elsewhere (2004) that to survive as a nation state the Cameroonian Federation, must restructure its political relations, vesting, a substantial degree of autonomy in the composite units.

The question of establishing, broadening and maintaining Re-Unification space has become a central issue on the Cameroonian agenda, precisely, because the majority of the people have become the scapegoats of the instability of the CPDM emergency mode of governance, its idiom of monolithism as well as its ingrained fear of multivariate, democratic structures.

His Excellency, the Roving Ambassador Sesekou E.T Egbe was alienated in the Marxist sense of not only becoming a stranger to his constituency but more pre-eminently to himself. He not only acted as a barrier to an awareness of the Southern Cameroonian world and its people, often calling for their complete subjection and fatal resignation to the neo-colonial status quo, as the deceptive politician of the historical time, he was the incontestable metonymy of the Baba Toura Ahmadou Ahidjo and much later Biya – Essingan power who stood in the way of the Anglophone Cameroonian unity and liberation.

After he joined S.T Muna of Ngyembo to create a split in Dr. J.N Foncha’s KNDP shortly after the advent of the CNU leviathan, during his close to five decades career in mephistophelian intrigue and unsurpassed guile, his own Manyu people fault him for recommending low level positions for them in the Post and Telecommunication Ministry.

The estrangement of the marionette of imperialist tutelage, in Fanonist terms, dear reader, is alienated from both himself and others since the very Manichean nature of the neo-colonial behemoth necessarily affects the political stooge’s behaviour.

We may re-call that the present SWELA is not what the patriotic and visionary Barrister A. T. Enaw and other progressive minded South Westerners of the ilk of Dr. Simon Munzu and Chief Charles Achaleke Taku envisaged. The now feeble, flatulent and wholly opportunistic SWELA was fashioned thanks to His Excellency’s supreme capacity for political Houdinism.

He did not seem to understand the socio-political parodies afflicting the new nation. He tried to sacrifice South West and its alternative voices to bogus claims of national unity and national integration.

For close to five decades, in his Yaounde political sanctus sanctorum where he was always plotting and calculating how to widen the gulf between South Westerners and North- Westerners; ever-ready Vidkun Quislings of the Cameroonian Dream, handmade opportunists, political careerists and bare-faced adventurers, fed, from the prurient diet of his imaged nation.

It was this detritus of South Westerners, nurtured, on Sesekou’s porridge of ethnic consciousness, bigotry, exclusivist sentiments and narrow-minded irredentism who found Etoudi approval for Ministerial and Ambassadorial appointments, Directorships of Parastatals, Captainships of industry, scholarships for their children, contracts etc.

Given the political clowning, quibbling and recantations of the SWELA elites in Cameroon politics, the end, when it comes for the South West, will be a swift process of degenerescence, and political nightmare.

The recent action of the French Embassy in Yaounde adumbrates their prophetic reading of Sesekou E.T. Egbe’s Book of Life.

Comments

[frank]

It is only when the powerful, including the Esingan pharoah are banned by law from seeking treatment abroad that they would put resources into developing a worthwhile health care system.

Bate Besong, you are a truthful man, you curry no favours and have balls to match. Your work in teaching the young is not going to waste.

[The Prodigal Son]

Hei BB
You have spoken again. You have made us know some of those things that were hitherto unknown about the ongoings and the last days of Seseko E.T Egbe. Well what draws my attention to this write up is the seemingly and comparative simplicity that you embrace to talk on this issue-compare the articles:
"Chief Inoni Ephraim’s Constituency – and – Vision will Never go Beyond Bakingili", and
"Query To George Ewane, Presidential Mimic Man"
and you would agree with me that many will quickly understand what you are saying.
As usual, you have in your straight-forward,hit the point style quizzed the legacy of a man whose lack of foresight, gross selfishness and political gullibility helped in shaping the faith of the anglophone Cameroonian.
KUDOS!

[Martin Douala]

One distinguishing feature between a developed country and the Third World is that almost every citizen in the former is a Bate Besong. Politicians are held to account for their actions and decisions. Nobody is above the Law of the land. Even the Head of State is merely a first citizen amongst equals.

Martin
Mutengene

[Frank]

Martin, you give too much credit to the citizens of the West. The majority of people in the West are cowardly and tend not to want to rock the boat. Whistle blowers and other truth tellers pay a price, a different kind of price, but a price all the same and most people strenously avoid doing anything that could hurt their bank account. Bate Besongs in any society are the exception and not the rule. Do not undervalue our treasures.

[E Moses]

Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai, Boston, Massachusetts
USA

This write-up was prompted quite understandably by the recent opinions expressed by Bate Besong on what legacy, if any, that Chief E.T Egbe leaves for posterity. There is no doubt in my mind that Bate

Besong's diatribe, published by The Post newspaper and posted on manyunet was ill-advised, selfishly motivated and, of course, misplaced. But I do not intend to make it a defence of Egbe Tabi in the traditional mode of journalistic guerrilla warfare.

Neither do I intend to judge Egbe Tabi. He, like all of us will find his judges elsewhere. His records speak volumes. Rather, I will use it in the manner of Egbe Tabi himself to ask some crucial questions: What is the purpose of political power? Why do you seek a ministerial appointment? What should a minister do to score a pass mark with his people?

Whatever you may think of him, Egbe Tabi lived a fulfilled life. Doing justice to his life story will require an outsize biography; one that not only tells his story, but sets it on the broader canvas of Cameroon's political evolution.

What is important for historians is not to foster vaingloriously opportunistic agendas by inflaming emotions and sentiments with prejudices and valued judgments. All of us know who has done what or failed to do what in Manyu.

Criticising Egbe Tabi does not automatically make Bate Besong a more successful Manyu man. Egbe Tabi may not be anybody today by Bate Besong's imagination, but people do not become somebody in one day.

Aggregate activities of a man on earth are usually the springboard on which a hero is made out of him. Bate Besong and his ilk should be told in clear terms that rushing to flash points to foment controversies is in bad taste; an unacceptable method of vilifying the dead.

In his characteristic style, Bate Besong makes no effort to hide his biases. His criticism of Egbe Tabi is telling of an unrepentant intellectual gangster, unabashed and more than a little intoxicated with glamorous verbosity and linguistic inflation.

It is unfortunate that BB chose to extol the diseased tradition of tribal expediency, materialistic woolliness, consummate selfishness and self-centered pedestrianism. This is quite understandable; our literary genius of travesty has neither Egbe Tabi's powers of elocution nor his taste or good breeding.

By all accounts, Egbe Tabi deserved to be celebrated in death, as he was in life. He was exceptional; a man who attained great heights through sheer diligence and extraordinary devotion to his calling. His life should be a source of pride to all Manyu people.

The trust and confidence bestowed on him by late President Ahidjo and President Biya extols a mental and practical identification, so complete and uncompromising that it cannot be subverted by a patently ungrateful patriarch of an obsolete disposition, opinion-shopping for cheap popularity.

The importance to society of people like Egbe Tabi is not that every politician can be like him, for this is an impossible and totally unrealistic expectation. But the monumental fact which Egbe Tabi underscores, and which even Bate Besong cannot ignore is this: Emmanuel Tabi Egbe-Tarkang was real; he was not an angel in heaven.

He was human like the rest of us with his own strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, after his example, anyone who reduces the high purpose of public office which Egbe Tabi exemplified to a gratuity and clannish swindle, cannot do so without bringing history's merciless judgment on himself.

Manyu will never be the same again because Egbe Tabi lived there. But let me remind BB and all those who share his parochialism that no man, however great, ever won judgment against his own people.

And even if you do (as I did with Manyu Chiefs), your people will still say you betrayed them…BB, nothing personal, this is why we are radicals…

[Ekue John Epimba]

Haba Ekinneh,
I thought linguistic inflation was only for the likes of BB.You have clearly not extricated yourself from what you accuse BB of. That is refusal to give credit where it is due and the use of highfallutin expressions..

Having known you for a while, I want to believe that you are quite aware of the leit motif of BB's write-up on Sesseku E.T. Egbe,which is that Hon S.T. Muna and himself changed the course of Cameroon's history and by extension entrenched the marginalisation of Anglophones. The rest is verbiage.

I do share your concern for the respect that E.T. Egbe ordinarily would have deserved at least for his erudition and conversationalist savvy. However, history will not forgive him for his crimes against Anglophones.

[Samuel Tabe]

I went through BB's gosple & the annotations that were failing to terrorize it's legitimacy. One thing remains crystally clear. A lizard in a Bachuo river can never become a crocodile in a Ndekwai river.
It's obvious that there's no human being who's virtuous through out or decomposed to the core.
A handful of people earned salaries in the P & T era b/c of E.T. Egbe. Let's not harp on the values of those pay packages b/c E.T. Egbe was never a Minister of finance.
As one time Minister of Justice & Telecommunication, we expected him to sincerely communicate the interest of the people he epitomized to the government.
After a close scrutiny at Hon. Egbe's life, BB was traumatized by a flood of awkwardness that wrecked his cultured mind. Immediately he recovered from this catastrophic revelation, he decided to do justice to his mind.
Who else could have understood BB better than the Late politician? He was once laced in confidence with the ministerial status of minister of Justice. The prefix would have done justice to his understanding.
The truth is usually perilous to the minds of the majority as it is to the minds of our french politicians. Even Lucifer can't smother it. It has a suffocating tendency to the the lawful minded.
Why on earth should BB squeeze life out of his words to pacify in the garment of homage, the feelings of the followers of a late political figure who is most excellently remembered for his dexterity in sustaining power?
Hon. Egbe's character was sincerely vivisected to expose nakedness that was masqueraded behind a composite configuration of ministerial, political & traditional status.
One disciple said BB was trying to obtain cheap recognition. Popularity is the twin brother of Majority. What Disciple Sesekou said was therefore not syllogistic.
In my view, BB's editorial is outstanding for it's great character depiction. No where in the history of our land has the law of gravity paid disrespect to a recognized political figure as it did to His Excellency Sesekou.
The humiliating truth was verbally clothed to size. It stripped off the camouflage fold of importance that has been seeking asylum in the conscience of the late lawyer.
Who can blame BB? When the truth knocked at the door of his heart, he gave him a chair & later showed him the garden of his tongue to do some cultivation. What I hate with the truth is that it's not a respecter of persons.
BB's move was an intellectual radical gesture that most bigoted minds will despise.
BB is not a bogus radical. He's one of the few who on meeting one of the wives of a paramount Chief, will compliment her health if she's in good health or simply greet her. He will not like to embarrass his conscience with the Pharesee hym of 'you have a pretty wife' while the image of an ugly physiognomy is tearing his retina. If some magpie orifice of a commentator decides to be nosy, he will say she's not of his taste. If his taste aligns with the moral yardstick, he will use this barometer to talk.
People usually have something to say when someone dies. Sango if you have nothing to say, your silience will be appreciated. No one will say you are suffereing from halitosis. On the other hand if you have the right thing to say, vent it out even if you have rotten teeth. Which is better? Truth that comes from decayed teeth or lies that comes from strong white teeth? If you tell a friend he's got rotten teeth after he has told you the gosple truth, glory be to God.
BB I have my vote in the ballot box of your opinions. Maybe I have not been sincere in taking sides with you. This will help me one day, b/c I have phantasmagoric imaginations of becoming a politician one day. If I can practice insincerity on a daily basis, then I have the secret of succeeding as a politician @ hand. And any moment from now the chauffeur of my ego will be a bulldog. I don't mean to be nasty to myself. I am simply frank. Savage truth is the the only barbarism that God has no predicament with.
More grease to your knuckles BB.
Samuel Tabe.

[PRINCE ETCHU RAYMOND]

IT IS BETTER TO ACCEPT REALITY THAN REGRET ITS EXISTENCE. THE DEPARTURE OF CHEIF E.T. EGBE HAS LEFT A VACUUM IN THE MINDS OF THE MANYU PEOPLE, AND A BITTER PILL FOR ALL ANGLOPHONES TO SWALLOW. NOW IS TIME TO FORGET ABOUT PAST HEROES AND ENCOURAGE THE YOUNG GENERATION TO WORK HARD AND PRODUCE MANY MORE OF THEM.
GRAND PA, YOUR DEATH WAS SHOCKING, BUT LIFE WILL GO ON, AND WE WISH YOU SAFE JOURNEY.
MANYU HAS LOST AN IROKO.