Biya’s anniversary of mixed demands & hypocritical actions!

-- Bamenda: CPDM militants converted to CPDM in the name of SCNC

-- Buea: Biya told to take 32 more years

-- Balikumbat: Blaise Compaore type-trap set for Biya

-- Misaje: ‘Married’ to Biya for better, for worse

--Kumba: Quarrelling CPDM militants told to reconcile

-- Limbe: Infighting, bad-mouthing mar celebration

--Ndu: CPDM bigwings boycott event

-- Nkambe: Ndu SDF joins CPDM in celebrations

-- Yaounde: Gov’t officials down tools…

By Amindeh Blaise Atabong in Yaounde with field reports from Michael Ndi & Leinyuy Marilyn in Bamenda,  Mua Patrick Mughe in Buea, Njingang Godwin in Kumba, Carine Takusi in Limbe, Chinje Hopeson in Balikumbat, Ashu Tidings in Nkambe & Misaje, Nfor Adamu in Ndu and Desmond Ekellem in Yaounde

Last Thursday’s nationwide celebration of President Paul Biya’s 32 years in power was characterized by mixed demands and what political analysts have qualified as hypocritical actions and political gangsterism by CPDM sycophants.

The drama of the day was staged at the Bamenda congress hall where individuals some observers claimed were CPDM militants were paraded in front of television cameras as SCNC activists who had converted to the CPDM. Minister Paul Atanga Nji who doubles as section president for Mezam I was ‘credited’ with convincing the supposed secessionists to join the ruling party.

 But while he celebrated for undertaking such a bold venture, SCNC officials accosted told our reporters in Bamenda that the supposed activists had never been members of the movement that champions campaigns for Anglophone independence. “If those Minister Atanga Nji claims he convinced to abandon the SCNC for the CPDM were truly activists, why did they not show ownership of the movement’s membership cards? …Those who decamp from one association to the other do not only often brandish the membership card of the former body but have them burnt or destroyed in the glaring view of everyone…unfortunately, this was not the case with Minister Atanga Nji’s own kind of SCNC decampees,”  a political observer in Bamenda pointed out.

In yet another action that has been judged as hypocritical, the Fako III WCPDM section president, Hannah Etonde while addressing militants in Buea called on President Biya to stay on for the next 32 years. In Balikumbat sub division in the North West region, a motion of support that sanctioned last Thursday’s celebrations pleaded with President Biya to seek another mandate when the current one runs out in 2018. Coming on the heels of what has befallen Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso for attempting to hang on to power against the will of his people, political analysts have qualified the Balikumbat motion as setting the Blaise Compaore-type trap for President Biya who would have clocked 36 years in power when his current mandate expires in October 2018.

In Misaje sub division in Donga Mantung division, Minister Fuh Calistus announced a better, for worse marriage with President Biya even without the presence of a civil status registrar to sign the marriage certificate. Even if President Biya’s opinion on the marriage was not sought, analysts say it can only be a “come we stay marriage” and not a legal marriage in the real sense of it.

Perhaps, the other big news of last Thursday came in from Ndu where party officials not only ‘boycotted’ celebrations marking President Biya’s long stay in power but refused categorically to support the event financially, morally and materially. CPDM locals in Ndu told The Guardian Post that apart from former Minister Ngafeeson Emmanuel Bantar and SNH director of exploration, Tamfu Simon who contributed 50.000FCFA each to the more than twenty five sub sections, all other Ndu CPDM officials even refused picking their calls throughout the period of last week. In frustration, Ndu CPDM locals were about taking their beggar’s bowl to the market place to get funds to celebrate the day until Minister Fuh Calistus who hails from far away Misaje sub division rushed to their rescue with the sum of 400.000FCFA.

It was apparently the quarrel over who contributes what for the celebration of President Biya’s anniversary in Ndu that forced the town’s SDF mayor, Bunyui Emmanuel Nyugab to go gate-crashing in Nkambe where there was much to eat and drink. He told those who cared to listen at the residence of the section president for Nkambe, Ngala Gerard that he does not believe in politics of bitterness.

In Limbe, an ambitious party official who is eying the post of section president almost spoiled the day’s party when he started throwing bank notes to the crowd. The move was seen as tacitly campaigning for the position that is currently held by the government delegate to the Limbe city council, Andrew Motanga. He was thus pulled out of the crowd and told to stop over exhibiting his political ambition. The SDO for Meme in Kumba was on hand to plead with quarrelling CPDM militants to reconcile while in the nation’s capital like elsewhere in the national territory last week, public offices were empty by mid day.