After Mendo Ze’s arrest

Epervier now targets Anglophones?
- Who are they?
By Macquens Balemba in Yaounde

Gervais Mendo Ze

The number of Anglophones to be roped in by the dragnet of the anti-corruption drive codenamed “Operation Sparrow hawk” is likely to increase in the weeks ahead, if reports coming from the Special Criminal Tribunal in Yaounde are anything to go by. After the arrest and imprisonment last week of the former general manager of CRTV Prof. Gervais Mendo Ze, that of a sitting Anglophone minister and a former government delegate may follow suit.
    The Median has been informed that Laurent Esso, the minister of Justice, has already been informed of charges brought against Paul Atanga Nji, minister of special duties at the Presidency of the Republic, and which has to do with the alleged misappropriation of funds he collected from the defunct Postal Savings Bank (Cheques Postaux) in Yaounde over a decade ago.

    In the same vein, Samuel Lifanda Ebiama, former government delegate to the Limbe urban council may also answer legal questions concerning his alleged mismanagement of funds while he was serving as government delegate. Both case files, we were informed by sources at the court, are already lying on the table of the procureur-general of the Special Criminal court, Emile Zépherin Nsoga.
    The files are part of 20 preliminary enquiries received by the court since January 2013 but which are still to be opened by the said court. Meantime, we were further told that 53 other enquiries received on this date have long been opened and further investigations are ongoing.  Our sources did not however reveal exactly when investigations on the 20 earlier mentioned files will begin.
    The other personalities concerned with these preliminary enquiries are mostly former ministers and general managers of state corporations as well as sitting mayors and government delegates, most of them Francophones. 
    Prominent names in the list given to the special criminal court, The Median learnt are Jean Tabi Manga, former rector of University of Yaounde II, Bruno Bekolo Ebe former rector of the University of Douala, Jean Jacques Ndoudoumou who headed the public contracts regulatory board ARMP and Marie Claire Nnana, the director general of SOPECAM.
    Others include Clobert Tchatat, former minister of Agriculture; Anong Adibimé, former minister of State Property and Land Tenure, now senator; Iya Mohamed, former FECAFOOT president now in detention at the Kondengui maximum security prison; Jean Baptiste Nguini Effa, former GM of SCDP now in detention at the New Bell central prison; Francoise Fonning, sitting mayor of Douala V council (her signature has already been suspended), Emmanuel Ngollo Ngama, former government delegate of Nkongsamba; André Noël Essiane, the sitting mayor of Sangmelima; Samson Ndongo Ela, the sitting mayor of Ma’an; just to mention these. Names of some Senators and MPs are also contained in the list that was handed to the special criminal court.
    It should be recalled that the Special Criminal Tribunal was created in 2012 and handles only cases that have to do with embezzlement of sums ranging from 50 million FCFA and above.
    An intriguing future in the sparrow-hawk operation is the small number of Anglophones who are suspected of crimes or who have been accused and arrested. Observers say the number of Anglophones so far arrested is a mirror image of the number of Anglophones who are occupying high positions in Cameroon. 
    So far, Zaccheus Fornjindam, former GM of Chantier Naval and Thomas Ephraim Inoni, former PM, are the only Anglophones to have been arrested and detained on charges of corruption. 
    The Median gathered that ministers, GMs and governors of the ten regions have all been barred from travelling out of the country, according to a letter the president sent to them few weeks ago. This explains why so much anxiety and uncertainty now reigns within the ranks of top government officials.