Pull him down (Phd) politics:

Fako elite want my head…..they hate my success!
- Patrick Ekema Esunge, Mayor of Buea
According to the outspoken and tough-talking Buea Mayor, his growing success and popularity, especially after the landmark visit of President Biya to Buea, has caused some Bakweri political elite to gang up with the sole aim to destroy him. 
By Ajongakou Santos in Buea

Patrick Ekema Esunge

The twist of events in CPDM Buea has been intriguing and marked by political manipulations and upheavals. Often times, observers have remarked with unshakable conviction that the political environment in Buea and the South West Region in general is getting deadly by the day. And that may explain why today many young people are wary about joining politics.
    For some time now, the Mayor of Buea, Patrick Ekema Esunge, has been complaining about his name being dragged into the mud and his hard-earned reputation lampooned and rubbished by some people he calls his “enemies”.
    Just like it is often said: “When a cup is overfull, its content spills over”; “when a mountain is saturated, it spits lava”, so too has the Mayor of Buea decided to empty his heart, which he says is inflamed because of the insults, attacks, intimidations, manipulations and other activities of his enemies who are working tirelessly to pull him down.
    During a recent press outing of the SG of the South West Elites Association SWELA, at the Buea Council Hall, Mayor Ekema took the opportunity to condemn his enemies; all those who hate his “meteoric rise and God-given success”. He said he loves SWELA and some of its actions but that he will not and cannot condone the xenophobia and tribal tendencies of some South West Elite, especially Fako political elite.
    Ekema recalled how when he announced his candidature for section elections during the last reorganization of basic organs of the CPDM party, some people in Yaounde called him and urged him to drop “those graffi people” from his list, “else the list would be disqualified.”
    He continued that he refused to heed the instruction of these tribalistic and ungrateful Fako politicians because he did not understand why people that the CPDM party in Buea had counted on and who actually supported the party, at times even risking their lives, just so that the party wins elections in Buea, should be victimized today because they are not Bakweri.

    Mayor Ekema pointed out that when the CPDM won the 2011 presidential election in Buea scoring over 14.000 votes, the bulk of these votes, at least three quarters, were from non Bakweri voters, the so called “strangers”; those people that some Fako elite now refer to as “strangers” simply because they don’t want to share the spoils of the victory with them.
    Patrick Ekema told his hearers that as a politician in Buea and Fako for over 20 years he has since understood that the CPDM can never win elections in Buea or any where in Fako without the votes of “strangers.” He maintains that politics is a game of numbers, and the indigenous Fako people just are too few to count on themselves alone in any political endevour.   
    That is why Mayor Ekema says when he became the mayor of Buea one of his first actions was to recruit some so called strangers to also work at the council. He says today some very strategic positions at the council are occupied by these “strangers”.
    But Ekema says his empowerment of “strangers” in Buea appears to be hurting some Fako elite; they are now conspiring to dislodge him from the council.
    Ekema says he will not stop reminding these ungrateful Fako elite that if Buea is developed today, with beautiful buildings and an active business population, it is thanks in great part to “strangers” and not the indigenous Bakweri people. He noted that business and agriculture in Buea and Fako are animated overwhelmingly by “strangers”. Reason why any right thinking person, be them politician or otherwise, should not attempt to ostracize “strangers” from any activity in Buea and Fako.
 Perhaps it was for these and other reasons that as Mayor Ekema reminisced on the good old days of SWELA, when he once was president of the Buea Chapter, he at once frowned at the fact that his own brothers, as he thought they are, abandoned him just when he needed them the most, and this simply because he included “bajilis” in his list.
    Hear him: “I have once been the president of SWELA. Actions like this should be promoted. But Fako Elite have demonstrated acts of egoism and ungratefulness. Fako Elite have ganged up to fight me. Thank God I am prayerful. I believe in National Unity; I believe in one and indivisible Cameroon, not this fragmented and zenophobic association called SWELA. Some self-seeking individuals, who owed their rise to SWELA, have strangled and pocketed SWELA. We need to chart a new way forward.”
    Mayor Ekema laments further that since the February 2014 celebration of the reunification of Cameroon in Buea; his enemies have not allowed him to rest. “Ever since last February 2014 that the Head of State received me in audience, Jealousy propped from everywhere; every body now wants my head,” he said.
    Ekema also wonders why South West Chiefs should also stand on the way to his success.
    “When I was decorated by the North West Fons after I was elected Best Mayor in Cameroon for 2014, Some South West Chiefs blamed me for accepting a title from North West.”
    He notes that today the threats and attacks are not limited to him alone but have extended to his family.
    “Only weeks ago, some yet unknown persons made an attempt on the life of my 10-month old baby born in the United Sates,” he claimed.
    Amid the persecution, blackmail and back-stabbing, Ekema says he has remained undaunted; he has stood his ground and continues to serve the people of the Buea municipality, the South West Region and Cameroon as a whole. He says he is answerable only to God and the people who put him where he is today; not people with selfish and egoistic attitudes.
    “As long as I remain the Mayor of the Buea Municipality, i will continue to serve my people diligently, not paying attention to the backstabbers and backbiters who only want me to dance to their tune. I fear no one but God alone who is my protector. Those who are using their influence to discredit me to the government will soon get tired of doing so. They should be reminded that as they take so much time monitoring me and my activities, so too am I moving ahead, even faster than they can imagine.”
    It is not however known to which particular persons Mayor Patrick Ekema is directing his message. But some keen watchers of the political scene in Buea said after listening to Ekema one can easily extrapolate that his message is directed at the following three persons and their partisans: Rt. Honorable Mafany Musonge, Hon. Emilia Monjowa Lifaka and Senator Mbella Moki Charles, all of whom have been variously accused of trying to control and tele-guide political events in Fako from Yaounde.
    Observers have expressed fears that by so frontally attacking a personality and statesman like Musonge, whose opinion at times is considered by President Biya, the Buea Mayor might just have compromised his chances of ever emerging beyond his present position.
    But Mayor Ekema has reiterated that God is his protector and guide; that if God is on his side no man however great can turn Him against him.