What compensation for ministers who wept at Chantal Biya’s mother’s funeral?

·   Tears were seen gliding down the cheeks of at least five ministers during the burial of Biya’s mother in-law in Mvomeka’a last Friday. Who were these ministers and what did they intend to achieve in return for those crocodile tears?

By Amindeh Blaise Atabong, back from special assignment in Mvomeka’a

 The funeral of the mother of Cameroon’s First Lady, Rosette Marie Mboutchouang, last Friday in Mvomeka’a, is still making headline news.

Apart from the controversy that surrounded the decision to have the mother of the First Lady buried in her husband’s Mvomeka’a home town in spite of the fact that she was legally married in Bandekop in Bangou, at least five government ministers were spotted with tears gliding down their cheeks as President Biya’s mother in-law’s casket was being lowered into the grave.   

Transport minister, Robert Nkili, the minister of vocational training, Zacherie Perevet, the minister of environment and nature protection, Hele Pierre, the minister of social affairs, Catherine Bakang Mbock  and the minister of youth affairs, Bidoung  Kpwatt Ismael shed tears either at the Yaounde general hospital mortuary or in Mvomka’a.  Their eyes remained frightfully swollen and bloodshot as they kept soliloquizing in tears. 

 Even though he was not spotted crying, labour and social security minister, Gregoire Owona also attempted to mourn more than the bereaved when he issued a statement ‘lecturing’ the media on what to report on and what not to report about the funeral of the First Lady’s mother.

For his part, communications minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, hastily organised a press conference during which he energetically defended the presidential couple for opting to bury the remains of the mayor of Bangou in Mvomeka’a. In doing so however, Tchiroma ended up burning his fingers because he said both the birth place of Chantal Biya’s mother, Nkoteng in Nanga Eboko and her marital home, Bandekop in Bangou were too remote to have hosted the calibre of dignitaries who accompanied President Biya’s mother in-law to her final resting journey. Tchiroma has since been reminded by critics to tell his hirer, Biya, that it is the president’s duty to develop every locality in Cameroon; whether he intends to pay an official visit there someday or not.

Meanwhile analysts have been quick at sustaining that ministers who shed crocodile tears at the funeral of Chantal Biya’s mother’s funeral or took to defending the presidential couple for laying her to rest in Mvomeka’a might only have done so in anticipation of being compensated in the expected new government.  A source hinted The Guardian Post that a former minister, (now deceased) who wept bitterly when the former First Lady, Irene Biya died, was called back and posted as Cameroon’s Ambassador to the Central African Republic after the funeral.

Would Biya therefore in like manner compensate those ministers who cried out their eyes when his mother in-law died? Affaire a suivre...