Wednesday 12 March 2014

Abel Eyinga, Charles AtebaYene: Goodbye My Friends!



By TazoachaAsonganyi in Yaounde
There is an anthropologist, Robert Brain, who came to my native Lebialem a long time ago and wrote about the Bangwa concept of the word “friend.” He explained to what was obviously a Western audience that the word has a double meaning in Bangwa: it means age-mate for people who were born around the same time; and it also means people who socialize together, have common interests, common outlooks and expectations, and aspirations.
                Abel Eyinga, AtebaYene and I were not age-mates. News about Abel Eyinga’s shadow boxing with Ahidjo for the 1970 presidential election from his “safe” abode in Paris and his subsequent trial and sentencing to a 5-year prison term in absentia for daring the God-sent “Grand Camarade,” moved quickly around Cameroon by word of mouth to those of us young students in CCAST Bambili at that time who did not have the “luxury” that was the radio set. The obscurantist leaders we have had in Cameroon for over fifty years have been like that. Ahidjo, under the totalitarian system he set up, held elections regularly but was always the people’s favorite, God-sent single candidate; his challengers like Eyinga did so at their peril. His handpicked successor Biya has not been different since his “democratic” system is not too different from the totalitarian system he inherited; he organizes elections regularly and is always the people’s favorite
choice because he always knows how to rig himself to victory.

                As for AtebaYene, he was just what in Cameroon parlance would be a young man of yesterday. But all three of us were “friends” all the same, because we shared the same wish to see change in Cameroon; and our paths crossed several times in meetings where the need for change in Cameroon was discussed. So we can be said to have been friends in the struggle for change.
                It would be recalled that during a visit to France in February 1983 Paul Biya declared that Cameroonians living abroad who wanted to return to Cameroon could do so, independent of their political opinions. Abel Eyinga was one of those who returned home following that call; he returned in 1991 after he was finally given a Cameroon passport. He eventually founded a political party, La Nationale, with headquarters in Ebolowa, his native town. 
 By 1996, the leader of the SDF in Ebolowa was KongaKuate René; he had built the SDF into a strong force there. La Nationale, having just been formed, did not enjoy the same popularity. With the buildup to the 1996 (municipal) and 1997 (legislative) elections, we decided in the SDF to open contacts with some emblematic figures like Mongo Beti, Abel Eyinga, Samuel Eboua and others so they could ride on the coattail of the SDF to Councils or parliament where we expected that their presence would be much felt in the struggle for change. I am the one that contacted Abel Eyinga and Samuel Eboua.
                I travelled to Ebolowa three times to meet and discuss with him, with the blessings of the local leaders of the SDF. During the first encounter, we put it 


                                  Abel Eyinga
  to him that the SDF wanted him to be the head of the SDF list for the municipal elections in Ebolowa. He showed great interest, and continued to show interest during our second meting; but at our third meeting, he said the SDF was perceived as an Anglophone party, and “his” people would not accept that he should join forces with it under the banner of the SDF.

                I met Eyinga again in 2010 in a structure, Amis de l’urnesacrée (AUS) [Friends of the Sacred Ballot Box], which we tried to put together in Yaoundé in 2010/2011. Eyinga was our president and I was the vice, with other members like Ela (Secretary), Maidadi, Eloundou, Garga, and others, but I never met Abel Eyinga in some half dozen meetings I attended, so I had no choice but to preside over the meetings. He later resigned as president because he said we were too interested in elections. 
 Eyinga seemed to be of the opinion that our approach was not the best. As helaterstated in an article: « Le vrai combat citoyen à mener en ce moment, dans l’intérêt de notre pays, n’est pas l’inscription massive ou non pour des élections frauduleuses; le vrai combat que doivent entreprendre les partisans sincères et conséquents de la transparence électorale, de l’alternance et du changement porte sur la nature de l’organe chargé de l’organisation des élections. Aucuneélectionlibre et honnête ne peutsortir d’un scrutinorganisé par le Minat, en réalité par le président-candidat Paul Biya,» [The real Citizen struggle now in the interest of our country, is not the massive registration or not of electors for fraudulent elections; the real struggle that

advocates  of transparent elections, of alternance and of change should engage in is the nature of the electoral commission. No 
                    Ateba Eyene 
free and honest election can result from elections organized by Minat, in reality, by the candidate Paul Biya.

                Although we sent some members to meet him and explain our position, he refused to reverse his resignation decision. In any case, our later efforts to get AUS registered were frustrated by the SDO of Mfoundi who decided not to receive the documents at all, since receiving them would require him to issue us documentary evidence of our request to register AUS.
                Abel Eyinga was suffering from a degenerative disease that affected his physical stature, so he only went around in a wheelchair. This did not tamper his enthusiasm and determination to fight for change in a Cameroon that he considered to be a fascist dictatorship in black Africa, under the control of the French. I met him in many meetings, including those that were held in upper floors of storey buildings without lifts! He showed each time I met him that he was becoming frailer and frailer until his recent demise.
                AtebaYene believed that the regime in Cameroon is an evil regime in a sense that was different from Eyinga’s fascist dictatorship under French control. He believed that under the CPDM regime, the devil had taken over from God in Cameroon with the flourishing of lodges, sects, mafia networks and magico-anal practices; such devilish attitudes and practices today open doors to success in all domains of the Cameroon society, with know-how, talent and excellence no longer being of any value. He wrote many books about these practices and spoke vehemently against them.
                At one of the several meetings where we met, a member of the audience told him that he considered a person who insisted on sharing the same house with “witches and wizards” as a witch himself. Ateba responded that he was not a witch but he was not afraid of witches. His sudden demise may just be an indication that if he was not a witch, he needed to protect himself from witches, or at least distance himself from them! If these people drink human blood and deal in various human parts and all types of animal practices for their esoteric power, I am sure that unlike many of us, they will not spend sleepless nights over the death of AtebaYene because causing such death is their pastime.
                Cameroon is most obviously a neocolonial dictatorship controlled by the French; it is also a country where the ways of the devil have become too visible everywhere. Abel Eyinga and AtebaYene were gadflies that kept reminding us that the gloom-and-doom situation that caused the rebellion of Um Nyobe, Earnest Ouandie and the others is still with us. For sure most of us young and old heard their message loud and clear. As they go, they should know that Man is the unconscious tool of history’s plan; that their messages may have only caused silent and individual revolts now, but tomorrow the revolts may be open and collective.
                Go well my friends!

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