Election of City Mayors:

Biya Calls Outgoing Sangmelima Mayor To Order

-SDO to install newly elected Mayors Tomorrow Tuesday, as CPDM Scribe, Jean Kuete, appoints new ‘mandataires’ to conduct fresh investitures of mayoral candidates.

By Ayukogem Steven Ojong in Yaounde

Newly elected mayors of Sangmelima, the home town of President Paul Biya, will be installed tomorrow, Tuesday 3 March 2020, according to a radio message issued on Friday 28 February by the SDO for Dja and Lobo division, Koulbout Aman David.

                The SDO will preside over the technical hand-over from the outgoing to the newly elected mayors, following the ‘very high instructions’ of the ‘highest hierarchy’, states the SDO’s radio message. 

                The installation of the new Mayor and deputy mayors of Sangmelima by the SDO for Dja and Lobo division will take place in spite of a decision by the SG of the CPDM Central Committee, Jean Nkuete, assigning new representatives of the party to go and supervise fresh investitures of candidates towards a re-run of the vote that saw the election of the new mayor and his deputies.

                Information we gathered is to the fact that the new mayor and deputy mayors of Sangmelima were elected despite the walk out staged by the outgoing Mayor and his supporters from the council session that was dedicated solely for the election of the new mayors..

                We learned that the walk-out by the dissatisfied former mayor and his supporters, did not deter the SDO and the CPDM ‘mandataire’ from proceeding with the election. This was because the councilors that stayed back in the hall were enough to give an absolute majority to the eventual winner that is, if they all voted in his favour, we learned. And it turned out that the winner secured the requisite absolute majority.

                As the SDO proceeded with the election in Sangmelima, the outgoing mayor and his supporters rushed to the CPDM headquarters in Yaounde and filed a petition against the CPDM mandataire and the SDO.

                They told Jean Nkuete in the petition that the party representative to the council had not respected the party circular issued by him to guide the election of mayors.

                Perhaps, not oblivious of the attachment that the president of the CPDM, Paul Biya, has for his native Sangmelima home town, Jean Nkuete thought it expedient to dispatch a new team led by former Finance Minister, Edouard Akame Nfoumou, to go and supervise fresh investitures of candidates towards another election of the mayor and his assistants.

                But President Biya stepped in just in time to halt the sinister and recalcitrant move by the outgoing mayor, who is believed to have induced the CPDM scribe, Jean Nkuete, into error.

                It should be noted that in a note addressed to President Biya’s high attention, the Director of Civil Cabinet at the Presidency, Samuel Mvondo Ayolo, told the President that he had ordered Jean Nkuete to suspend all moves he had engaged towards conducting new election to choose the Sangmelima mayor.

                Ayolo informed the head of state that he had also informed the South Governor to instruct the DO of Sangmelima to go ahead and install the new mayors that were voted on Tuesday 25 February.

                Ayolo further informed his boss that he had also called Akame Nfoumou and transmitted the president’s high instructions to him, and the outgoing mayor, instructing him to ensure a smooth transfer, in all quiet, of power to the newly elected mayors.

                Ayolo assured the President that by midnight on Friday, he had informed all the parties concerned of the president’s high instructions.

                It should be noted that Sangmelima is President Biya’s home town and political base and bastion, and any misguided happenings in the town only put a smear on the president’s good image as a leader.

                Recall that only very recently, Sangmelima came to the national limelight for all the wrong reasons. This was when indigenes of the town attacked ‘stranger’ populations, mostly Bamouns and Bamilekes, asking them to leave Sangmelima and go back to their native West region.

                It is now clear that President Biya does not want Sangmelima to misrepresent him again, reason he intervened to ensure that the new mayor is installed and without further disorder.

                Needless to mention that the political events in Sangmelima are the fallouts of fierce battles for political control and supremacy by sons of Dja and Lobo division, many of whom are well-placed in the Biya regime.