Comica scandal:

Miss Cameroon stripped of her crown                   

By Rachel NtubeNgwese in Yaounde

Julie CheugueuNguimfackFrankline

Julie CheugueuNguimfackFrankline winner of the Cameroon beauty pageant for 2016 was accused of acts of gross indiscipline and consequently stripped of her crown. Talking to CRTV the president of the commission that organizes the Miss Cameroon pageant (COMICA), Ingrid SolangeAmougou officially made public the decision of the commission to dismiss Julie, who after several warnings between the months of August and September, remained stubborn and not willing to respect the terms of her agreement with comica.

                Accordingly, the president of comica forwarded several reasons which amounted to her dismissal some of which include her inability to comply to the requirements and refusal to run as Cameroon’s candidate at the Miss World elections in USA; her refusal to respond to the Chinese ambassador’s invitation; her refusal to stop organizing private fund raising activities out of the rules of comica and her insistence to stay in Douala instead of Yaoundé.

                Amougou added that comica could no longer tolerate Julie’s stubbornness and in order to ensure the continuity of the activities of Miss Cameroon in accordance with the rules of comica, the second and third runners of julie’s mandate were contacted for replacement but they too signaled their unavailability to carry on with the activities of miss Cameroon.

                Given that the first runner up had resigned earlier in the course of the crisis, the commission was obliged to nominate Minkataangele Michele previously 4th runner up as the new miss Cameroon who was officially presented to the public on the 26 of January in Yaoundé during the launch of the 13th edition of the miss Cameroon elections.

      According to Julie, she remains the 2016 miss Cameroon elect with or without the crown until the end of her mandate. In an interview with CRTV on the 2nd of February, her desire is to work for Cameroonians who elected her and not for comica. She accepts her share of responsibility over the crisis and puts forward reasons to justify her actions. For instance, her failure to attend to the invitation of the Chinese ambassador she argues was due to ill health and she had informed the commission on the state of her health at the time of the invitation.

Secondly, her inability to run for Cameroons candidate for the miss world elections was not of her making but rather the responsibility of the commission that requested her to raise 1.5million fcfa to meet up with the requirements for participation in the pageant.

                She explained further that according to the terms of their contract, the commission was supposed to take care of her travel expenses and besides she could not afford 1.5 million to give to the commission. She further explained that even when she wanted to start arrangements to run for the elections, comica had already written to the American organizers that she was not running on behalf of the commission which made things more complicated for her.

         Concerning her private activities, Julie holds that all the fund raising activities she has been organizing was to enable her meet up with the execution of the projects she had promised to Cameroonians when she was elected miss Cameroon, and this she has never done without the knowledge of the president of the organizing commission IngirdAmougou. She added that the president in question had even seized part of the money that was given to her by an enterprise to execute her project. What to her seems to be a problem in this respect is because the commission wanted her to start her project towards the end of her mandate which to her was impossible since she believes she will have to render an account to Cameroonians about the promises she made on the day of her election. Douala to her is her home town and since comica could not provide her a home in Yaoundé as it was suppose to be, she had no other option but to remain there. This notwithstanding, she added that she always came over to Yaoundé each time she was called up or assigned.