Smear Campaign:

Victor Mengot pelted with sterile stones

The Minister of Special Duties at the Presidency has since become the target of all kinds of attacks and allegations ever since Manyu became the epi-centre of hostilities in the ongoing war between secessionists and government forces

By Essan-Ekoninyam in Yaounde

Minister Victor Mengot patronized sports tournaments in the four divisions of Manyu just to convince the youths to go back to school

Who wants Victor Mengot’s head? Who wants to put the leader of Manyu CPDM in the black book of his boss and mentor, Paul Biya? Who wants to use Victor Mengot as ladder to get political ascendancy?

                All these questions have continued to hover across the mind of this reporter, ever since allegations started making the rounds in Yaounde to the effect that Victor Mengot collected money from Yaounde to ‘motivate’ Manyu chiefs to dissuade their subjects from joining the secessionists but the Minister diverted the money instead into his private pocket and the money never got to the Chiefs.

                 According to the propagators of this false and ill-intentioned allegations, Manyu is today the headquarters of the Anglophone secessionist struggle because the local chiefs have turned their backs on Yaounde and have allowed the Anglophone separatist leaders to create their base in their backyard, simply because they want to punish their ‘greedy’ son, Victor Mengot.

                But these ‘conseillers toxiques’ forget that, Victor Mengot is one minister in government who has hardly been linked with any corruption dossier; and that he could not invite a stain on his good name only now, at this time when the President desperately needs trusted lieutenants to help him combat ghost towns and secessionist activities in the Anglophone regions.

                Yet, it can however be easily understood that the persons who are sponsoring this smear campaign against Victor Mengot can only be people who believe they will get political ascendancy if they can succeed to bring down the Manyu political leader. And these people are convinced that they can attain their wicket objective if they can cause President Paul Biya to start viewing Victor Mengot only through the tinted spectacles of corruption and betrayal.

                But these doomsday protagonists forget that if President Biya has written Victor Mengot’s name in his good books, and has decided to keep him for all these years by his side, it is because the President has convinced himself over time that Mengot is a trusted ally that merits to be among his inner-circle.

                For his part, Victor Mengot has succeeded to build a good reputation of himself to the President after years of loyal and painstaking services to his boss and the regime. As one of the President’s advisers on infrastructure development, and a behind-the-scenes player in the President’s greater ambitions policy, Victor Mengot has worked so hard and has convinced his boss and mentor that he can count on him, anytime.

                One instance where Mengot has proved his mettle to Biya, is the Lom Pangar Hydro-electric Dam Project, which has been completed and is now only waiting to be inaugurated by the President.

                Then as a politician and a trusted Biya ally, Victor Mengot has succeeded to avoid controversy. His admirers say for Mengot to have accepted to work under the shadows of Prof. Agbor Tabi, even though the latter met him in government, was proof that Mengot is a rare breed of Manyu men. This is because humility is hardly a character trait of even the average Manyu man, and the typical Manyu man is never known to play second-string.

                Needless to mention the indefatigable job that Mengot has been doing, and still continues doing, ever since the Anglophone crisis started. On several occasions the Minister has rallied the Manyu people both at home and in Yaounde to renew strategies to counter the ‘ghosts’ that have hoodwinked Manyu children to abandon even their most cherished activity – education. Though just a Minister without portfolio, Victor Mengot on many occasions still had to singled-handedly bankroll field trips to Mamfe and the Manyu hinterlands to try and dissuade Manyu children from yielding to secessionist rhetoric.

                It is intriguing therefore that despite all the sacrifice Mengot only ends up being smeared and accused, albeit falsely, of wrongdoing. Did someone say “man to man is a wolf”?