Anticipated presidential election:

Churchill Monono opens Biya’s campaign with book launch?

The journalist and career diplomat simply fell short of asking attendees of the book launch to come out en masse and vote for President Biya when the time is right. But he strongly insinuated this in many ways.

By Douglas A. Achingale in Yaounde

H.E. Churchill Monono literally gave it

all to Biya in his book

He might not have intended the launch of his new book to be a squealing call for the people of Buea in particular and Fako division in general to vote massively for President Paul Biya in the coming presidential election. But the 1 March 2016 event turned out in various ways to be so. At the launch of “Buea: Capital of the Cameroons (Symbol of the Nation and of Reunification)”, at the Solomon Tandeng Muna Foundation in Yaounde, the pivotal message of the book came out much stronger: that President Biya is unquestionably the light that has shone and is still shining luridly on Buea and Fako division. 

                Speaker after speaker extolled the stupendous writer that Churchill Ewumbue-Monono is for the profundity of the research that gave birth to this work with outstanding artistry. They and the other attendees sided tenaciously with the author in his view that if the headquarters of Fako division has a complete facelift today, it is thanks to the special concern that the President has for its people and, in a broader context, for all Cameroonians.

                Hear part of what Monono highlights in the work about President Biya’s unalloyed determination to render Buea more attractive and conducive: “Fortunately, God gave Cameroon President Biya…Thirty years since President Biya promised to preserve the town’s heritage and to guarantee a better future, Buea has changed significantly. It was upgraded to a sub-division and his government has since created 10 new secondary schools, 8 high schools, 40 primary and nursery schools, a regional hospital and a dozen health centres. The town has also witnessed the construction of roads, low-cost houses and government buildings. The golden jubilee celebrations of Cameroon’s reunification in Buea were therefore in line with President Biya’s pledge to preserve this historic capital’s heritage and guarantee its future…”  

                The foregoing is a glaring pointer to the fact that the author simply fell short of literally asking attendees of the book launch to come out en masse and vote for President Biya when the time is right. But he strongly insinuated it after all.

                Some speakers might not have agreed with Monono that the President is “God-sent” as he described him in the book. However, they expressed no modicum of doubt that given what Biya has done for Buea, for Fako division and for the country as a whole, he is the right President for Cameroon at the right time.

Those who came to the event thinking that they            would meet mostly people from Buea and Fako division were pleasantly surprised. The more than 200 lovers of the written word who thronged the venue did not only hail from different regions of the country and beyond but were also from various walks of life. Prominent amongst them were former ministers and veritable ideologues of the CPDM party - John Ebong Ngole, Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle and Christophe Mien Zok; representatives of sitting ministers, the GM of Customs, the Deputy GM of CRTV, university dons, secretaries general of ministries, directors of the central administration, senior journalists, diplomats and other top state functionaries plus the British High Commissioner to Cameroon, Bryan Oulley, who said he could not afford not to be part of the book launch given that Buea was also the capital of the then British Southern Cameroons.

Even those who piloted the event at the high table were from divisions other than Fako. They also reflected the author’s multi-dimensional academic and professional undertakings: The moderator was CRTV’s Tabe Enonchong (a journalist from Manyu), the impresario Eugene Nforngwa (a journalist and development expert from Donga Mantung), the biographer François Hervé Moudouoru (a diplomat from Wouri), the first reviewer Douglas A. Achingale (a journalist, author and social worker from Ndian/Lebialem), and the second reviewer Prof. Willibroad Dze Ngwa (a historian and political researcher from Menchum). The only son of Fako in this group was Mola Peter Ray Lyonga Ikundi who was brought in on account of the strategic position he holds as the father of CPDM politics in Fako division and the first ever Municipal Administrator of the Buea Rural Council. He and the Mayor of Buea, Patrick Ekema Esunge, drove to Yaounde from Buea that evening particularly for that event.

                Two messages stand out Chrystal clear here: first is the fact that Churchill Monono is a unifier and a national and even an international figure; one whose views and feelings go beyond his native Fako division. Second, he is a perfervid progressionist who prefers not to trudge in the hazy path of conservatives but rather to leap on the kind of pellucid terrain where dynamic and visionary young people tread. Reason why most of those he decided to work with to make the event the glowing success that it was, are forward-looking personalities who have hardly attained 50 years of age. 

                Much of the content of “Buea: Capital of the Cameroons…” as well as what was discussed at the book launch are reminiscent of the intrepid and spirited fight that Monono put up in Muyuka, the hotbed of opposition politics in Fako division, to win that town for the ruling CPDM during the twin municipal and parliamentary elections of 2013. History has it that the victory in Muyuka was the best result recorded in all of the South West region at the elections, given the sturdy resistance usually exhibited by the SDF here.

                It is believed that President Biya chose Churchill Ewumbue-Monono to head the CPDM campaign in Muyuka in the 2013 twin elections because of the latter’s political maturity and more so because of his mastery of the political terrain in Fako. It should be recalled that Churchill Monono before his departure abroad, notably to Addis Abeba, Ethiopia and later Moscow, Russia for diplomatic service, was divisional and later regional charge de mission of the CPDM party in Fako Division and the South West region respectively, and this was during the turbulent and very scary years of a burgeoning opposition in Cameroon.