SWELA Barks but cannot Bite as SW is Ravaged by War
-Elites and Chiefs of the SW region have said they will
not continue to sit and watch as the “land of their common ancestry” is
desecrated, destroyed and easily transformed into a battle ground for a
“dubious, diabolic and mischievous war”. But can SWELA ever pick the pieces?
By Ojong Steven Ayukogem in Yaounde
 |
| Rt. Hon. Mafany Musonge |
Can SWELA ever pick the pieces and become the “original
SWELA” of the early and mid 1990s? This is the question prying reporters as
well as other commentators were asking each other, as they sat outside the hall
on Saturday 11 August 2018, at the Yaounde Conference Center, as some SW elite
and Chiefs were having a restricted Joint South West Chiefs Conference (SWECC)
and South West Elite Association (SWELA) Concertation Meeting with South West
Elite in Yaounde.
It
however emerged that the SW elite and Chiefs could only bark without being able
to bite, despite the insecurity and wanton destruction that is rocking their
region. The insecurity has literally grounded the socio-politico-economic life
of the region.
Reviewing
the very ‘alarming and troubling’ situation in the SW region, the Rt. Hon.
Peter Mafany Musonge, who is the political God-Father of latter day SW region,
cried aloud in his scripted opening remarks at the joint SWECC/SWELA conclave
that: “as you are all aware and have noted bitterly, the socio-political
situation in the NW and SW regions is quite alarming, and the socio-economic
consequences are even more troubling especially in the SW region, region of our
common ancestry and birth….. As the statistics indicate, the Anglophone crisis
has transformed the SW region into a battle ground…. The SW has become a place
where nothing good or positive can be expected….. Our region has become the
place where traditional rulers and elites can be kidnapped, tortured and
murdered as if the people were not human beings with the right to existence….
Our region has been turned into the experimental ground for mischievous and
dubious people to carry out their diabolic plans against the culture and
development of the region, and as a staging ground for rebellion against the
state.”
Mafany
Musonge noted with dismay and indignation, that: “…. given the ugly and
alarming acts of violence, destruction and murders in the SW region in the last
four months, we, as a region, are being presented as a people without a soul, a
culture, courage to defend our identity and that of the state of which we say
we are an integral part.”
He said
it is high time sons and daughters of the SW rise up like one man and say
enough is enough.
“The
statistics are telling for everyone to judge and we have to decide at one point
or the other as to what we do to meet the challenges and be part of the
solution rather be seen to be part of the problem,” Mola Musonge ordered,
inviting participants at the closed door meeting to suggest ideas on how the SW
can surmount the challenges that she is squarely faced with.
However,
nothing really good emerged from the over 4-hour concertation. The final
communiqué issued after the meeting contained only the same déjà vu and déjà
entendu that has been said after previous meetings of SWECC and SWELA.
It thus turned out that once again SWELA/SWECC could only
bark but could not bite.
The
traditional rulers and elite of SW requested an audience with the head of
state, at his convenience and also announced the convening of a more enlarged
All SW Forum, in Buea, on 25 August 2018.
The elite also empowered the SWELA executive financially
to enable them to fully assume their responsibility and rise to the occasion
and make SWELA more active and vibrant once again. How and whether Moki Jacob
and his team will do this, remains a matter of wait and see.
But the
question begs to be asked: Can a problem be solved with the same mentality that
created it? If SWELA and SWECC have become moribund and are not the veritable
pressure groups that they should be, it is no gainsaying that it is because of
the politicization and especially the forceful infiltration of CPDM politicians
into their leadership. These CPDM bigwigs have over the years been using the
two institutions to seek selfish ends and to do Yaounde’s bidding. And SWELA
and SWECC have since stopped fighting to uphold and protect the general interest
of the people of the SW region.
It
should be recalled that one of SWELA’s landmark achievements soon after its
creation in 1992/93 was the powerful, energetic and sustained lobby for the
appointment of a South West son as PM of Cameroon. If Peter Mafany Musonge was
appointed as PM in 1996, in replacement of Achidi Achu from the NW, there is no
gainsaying that it was thanks to SWELA.
