Paul Biya est toujour en haut. Il doit descendre en bas. Nous serons la bas (Paul Biya is still up there; he has to come down, we are there/we are the BAS). Those could be the words of some of the 5,000 anti-Biya protesters at the foot of the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva at the weekend. The pun could be read variedly. It could mean Biya is still in power, he ought to step down or be deposed.
Literally, it means Biya is in a standoff with the Brigard anti-Sardinard or the Anti-Sardine Brigade, fashioned by those (mainly supporters of Maurice Kamto making a mockery of Biya supporters (mainly his fellow ethnic Beti, their critics suggests) seen gluttonning over bread and sardine shared in exchange for votes at campaign rallies during the October 2018 presidential election campaigns.
Giving it an ethnic coloration in return and implying that Kamto supporters were mainly Bamileke, the Beti press and activists retorted that Kamto supporters were tontinard – a reference to the characteristic thriftiness and of his ethnic Bamileke and their affinity for small savings in informal common initiative groups commonly called “tontine” or “njangi” in English. The ethnic slurs may be prospering but the focus remains on the anti-Biya versus pro-Biya tug-of-war.
BAS were not distracted by two obvious attempts to confuse them. Towards the weekend, information floated on social media suggested that the Cameroon presidential couple had been expelled from the hotel by Swiss authorities because of repeated disturbances to other guests at the hotel. It is now believed to have been a tactic to fool those travelling from far and near to converge on the hotel.
It could be guessed that choosing to travel at this time after several delays or postponed trips, Biya’s strategists might have hoped that euphoria around the Indomitable Lions AFCON participation and the Lionesses’ at the Female World Cup, would distract anti-Biya protesters. That too proved to be a miscalculation.
Besides seemingly seeking to simply be a nuisance to Biya, aged 86 to deny him quiet enjoyment or rest to, possibly push him to an early grave so he can “let the people go”, the BAS are also protesting against Swiss authorities and proprietors of Intercontinental for allowing the president of a underdeveloped country to spend so much time at huge cost on the state treasury. Though Biya’s visits are described as private and supposed to be paid for from his private funds, they are believed to be financed by funds from the National Hydrocarbons Corporations resources, most of which is not accounted for in the state budget.
Investigations reported in some of the most reputable newspapers around the world in 2018 suggested Biya has spent a total 1645 days out of the country during his 37 years in power and Wikileaks, revealed he pays a whopping 27.3 million FCFA a day for an entire suit of 43 rooms at the Intercontinental Hotel. This time around, there are hints the president’s entourage booked, not one but two floors for security reason. Attempt the math if you can!
Repression lessons from Swiss police
I have not read a statement yet from Swiss authorities or Geneva police explaining their resorts to force against peaceful anti-Biya protesters, nor have I read any reports yet of violent action from the anti-Biya protesters to justify the muscled Geneva police action against them.
It was earlier reported that Swiss authorities authorized requests for demonstration by both pro- and anti-Biya groups at the venue, but it is curious that they turned water cannons on the anti-sardinard but not on the sardinard.
It is expected that the muscled response by Swiss police to a peaceful demonstration is sending signals back home to Cameroon security forces and that may impede the impact of future missives from the European Parliament like the one condemning the methods used against pro-Kamto supporters earlier this year and Anglophone protesters in 206 and 2017.
It also leaves questions over the expected neutrality of the Swiss in view of hints they would mediate in talks between Ambazonia and Yaounde authorities. Or was that a rather a gesture of trustworthiness to Biya to show the Swiss are not against him?
Amba punishing or consulting Fru Ndi?
Coming from his second “abduction” by supposed Ambazonia fighters, it is still unclear why he is taken on brief visits to their camps. As clear as it is that his SDF party has not championed the Ambazonia movement as some would have wished and that he has openly objected to Ambazonia demands for SDF parliamentarians (most of them Anglophones/Ambazonians) to withdraw from “La Republique” parliament, some numbers still do not add up to explain why the SDF chairman is such a target. His sister had reportedly been abducted. His village cottage was arsoned and his younger brother abducted too before his own first experience.
Are those Fru Ndi abductions really the work of genuine Amba Boys? Why? There have been suggestions in press sympathetic to certain members of the ruling CPDM that the first abduction was a ruse by Fru Ndi. The suggested reasons were not clear. Others guessed the chairman might have faked the abduction to enter into direct contact with the Boys to pay a ransom to obtain his brother’s release. Others hinted he might have used it to regain political relevance at a time his party was in decline. And Fru Ndi himself might have given some beef to this line of thinking when he emerged from “captivity” saying how much he impressed the Boys, giving them advice which they readily accepted. It could be reasoned that, for boasting about his aura among the Amba Boys, Fru Ndi was suggesting he has a hold on them and could influence them to lay down their arms.
A recent official statement from his party later said so formally, when they proposed their chairman as the best potential mediator. Coming just after the abduction of the Archbishop of Bamenda, Monseigneur Cornelius Esua could establish a trend that the Amba Boys could be reaching out to potentially influential personalities – even if not the ideal mediators – to transmit certain messages in view of imminent talks to resolve the Ambazonia crisis.
Political manoeuvres and tactics – even by “mere” Amba Boys – are often too complex for even political analysts to grasp with certainty. Observers are advised to not rush into conclusions from simply what meets the eye.
unsung heroes
John Nkabi Bunyui
The trees John Njabi Bunyui planted in GBHS MUea will be standing there in 2119 (100 years from) and beyond . The environmental promotion songs he played would have entered public domain by 2069 (50 years from now) yet they would still be relevant, sensitizing the world at large (he sang some in Finnish). Yet at his death, they high and might where not there, nor were some of his own “fans” who used him as resource person to spice their radio and TV programmes. Neither were there a host of reporters to bid a hero fellow. There was no “Celcom” Officer to dole out gombo. He lived meek and died meek. He was an unsung hero!
The easy-going environmental campaigner, educator, film-maker, and musician died this month and he was laid to rest at the weekend in Buea without a medal of honour neither in his lifetime nor posthumously, but he had touched environmentalists within the country, but especially around the world. And he had been recognized far and wide, among others in South Africa, Greece, USA, and Finland.
In 2012, his “Gold in Garbageria” won the audience award at the TVE Bio Movies Festival. In Garbageria vision, he posited that gold could be obtained from judicious use of garbage and proved it. That earned him the nickname “Njabi Garbo” from his colleagues at GBHS Muea. In collaboration with one of his environmental club students, he produced coal from biotechnological combination of cow dung and burned out maize stems to produce cow dung coal as an alternative energy source.
His other awards included: 2014, second prize in South Africa. 2015, two awards in San Francisco Green Festival and San Francisco Global Compost Film Contest. 2016: with his film “The Eye Opemner”, he wherein he proposed alternative energy sources, he won an award at the Vaasa Wildlife Film Festival in Finland. At the festival opening, his music video “Water Time Bomb” drew thunderous applause. In 2017, the same “Water Time Bomb” won the special prize at the Godollo International Nature Film Festival. In 2018, he the EduDoc Fellow Programme award in India. Tributes from his foreign friends with whom he collaborated on his projects were eloquent testimony of the caliber of man they lost.
Remember the guy stinging his guitar up the mountain featured in an international award-winning TV documentary series “Voices in the Wilderness” by Emmanuel Wongibe in the early 1990s? That was Njabi Bunyui. Before he won his own awards, his works helped others to win awards.
A school administrative staff at GBHS Muea where he ran an environment club and planted most of the trees that transformed the hitherto “desert” campus into a green garden that drew international visitors, Njabi Bunyui also made films and played quality and melodious reggae music loaded with environmental messages like “Don’t burn the forest”, “Water Time Bomb” in which he says, “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink” because of pollution.
Njabi who had furthered his education in the University of Buea with a degree in 2004, was due to travel to Latvia on scholarship for post-graduate studies when he died suddenly in Buea. I write this tribute to John Njabi Bunyui in sincere recognition of his uncelebrated merits, especially here at him, but also in restitution to John for an article I owed him earlier in his career.
Back in 1997 or 1998, early in my career at the nascent The Post newspaper, I happened on Njabi, had a conversation with him about his projects and dreams and resolved to write a story on him. He gave me pictures for the story which I never wrote because of other pressing newsroom engagements. I did not apologize to Njabi. I hope he would understand. Had I written that story then, he would have read and loved it. Today I write it posthumously and I know my testimony will live longer in the minds of those who still live and can learn to celebrate our heroes even when they do not pay us to do so.
outside africa
Trump, Iraq, N. Korea: double standards
It sooths hears around the world to see leaders of belligerent countries walk towards each other across hostile lines to a warm embrace. What Donald Trump is doing with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a good thing for world peace. It has the potential to tame the leader of a “Rogue State” brandishing the dirty bomb at the world and threatening its neighbours and the US too.
Only that the same “good heart” Trump shows Kim, he denies it Iran whom Barack Obama showed “good heart” to. It is hard to understand the logic in pampering North Korea over its nuclear programme and demonizing Iran over its own. The same pampering Trump is doing with North Korea to tame a “wild dog” is about what Obama did with Iran. Why does Trump demonize Obama and Iran but plays kind to North Korea?