For Saying Truth To Power:

CPDM Conseillers Toxiques Want Nfon Mukete Hanged 

The remarks of the eldest senator in Cameroon, Nfon Victor Mukete, in an interview with French weekly Newsmagazine, Jeune Afrique (No 2980 of 18-24 Feb. 2018), have been (mis)interpreted by some local news editors to mean the centenarian is criticizing the head of state. But what did Chief Mukete say to Jeune Afrique that regime apologists consider as so tickling to president Biya?

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Kumba

Chief Victor E. Mukete, Paramount Ruler of the Bafaws and Dean of the Cameroon Senate, has been stigmatized as an enemy of the CPDM regime because of his ‘frank and sincere’ remarks on the Anglophone Crisis.

Chief Mukete is known for his frank, unwavering and unrepentant position on the ongoing crisis in Anglophone Cameroon. In an interview with French Weekly Magazine, Jeune Afrique, Senator Nfon V.E Mukete has once again reaffirmed his stance on the burning and disturbing problem.

            Though the interview was conducted about one year ago and published only on Monday 18 February 2018, it still has the relevance and force of argument as if it was done only yesterday.

            But some apologists of the CPDM regime, perhaps for self-seeking reasons, have refused to look into the veracity and pertinence of the very salient and eye-opening remarks of the centenarian paramount chief of the Bafaw people of the SW region (Nfon Mukete will turn 100 in Novenber). These conseillers toxiques of the regime have hastened to tag Chief Mukete as an enemy of the regime, who is sparing no opportunity to criticize president Biya and his policies.

            But commentators say these newspaper editors fail to understand that at 85, president Biya is wise enough and he knows only too well that the centenarian Nfon V. E. Mukete can only serve as a living encyclopedia of Cameroon history, and his informed, objective and of course, experienced opinions, especially on issues of national interest should be taken not only seriously but also in good faith.

            These critics of Nfon Mukete’s also failed to read meaning in the veteran statesman’s remark, when he used the opportunity of the interview to thank president Biya for, once again, giving him the opportunity to contribute in nation building by making him Senator. They failed to read into the Nfon’s craving to meet president Biya and share his mind with him especially on the Anglophone crisis.

            The question therefore begs an answer: Would Nfon Mukete wish to meet and talk with President Biya, if he were ill-willed or if he really meant evil for the president and his regime?

            But what exactly did Nfon Mukete say to Jeune Afrique that some consider as anathema, and tickling to the president and his image?

            The first remark Nfon Mukete made to Jeune Afrique is that the ongoing crisis that started in October 2016 could have been avoided if the powers that be had listened to him or taken his repeated alerts seriously. He recalled that when he called a meeting of the Chiefs of NW and SW to brainstorm on the problem and find a consensus solution, the government suspected his intensions and banned the meeting.

            Chief Mukete went on to note for example that he had long proposed the creation of an institution like the present day Bilingualism Commission, but that when he summoned some regime guys and sold the idea to them for it to be developed, they instead wrote a report to hierarchy stigmatizing him of wanting to divide the country. Chief Mukete regrets that the Bilingualism Commission that was eventually created on 23 January 2017, came a little too late, only when the problem has degenerated further, rendering the commission irrelevant in the present circumstances. The patriarch maintains that the Bilingualism Commission can do little or nothing to douse the present tension, and the secessionist tendencies now prevailing in the country.

            Nfon Mukete said he would have loved to meet the president of the republic in person and present his Bilingualism project to him, but regretted that unlike the former president Ahidjo, President Biya is too inaccessible.  .

            Nfon Mukete who is also Board Chairman of Camtel, member of the Economic and Social Council, member of the High Court of Justice and member of the Cameroon Chamber of Commerce, believes that the present crisis would never have gotten to where it is if the authorities had not arrested and imprisoned the leaders of the Consortium, who were moderate voices who never mentioned secession.

            He regrets that none of the several Anglophone Prime Ministers that Biya has appointed has ever had the honesty or mustered the courage to sound the alarm bells to Biya about the deep-seated and long-dated frustration among the Anglophone community.

            Nfon Mukete says that only a federation of ten states can play the trick and bring an end to the present impasse in the country. But he says this should be instituted only when the country can afford the means. He says he is ready to meet president Biya and make this suggestion to him, believing that the president will likely buy his idea, especially giving that the present over centralization has proven to be an error. 

            Arguably the only surviving architect of the reunification, Nfon Mukete affirms that if given the opportunity to choose again between reunification or separation he will still stand for reunification, the present crisis notwitstanding.