Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh Regional Director NDI
US Based, Cameroonian born Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, Regional
Director of a Non Governmental Organization known as National Democratic
Institute, NDI, for Africa has made startling revelations recently on a
Television interview that the ongoing Anglophone crisis has gone past the level
at which decrees from a Government Minister can handle. According to him this
crisis is more than one government can handle and drive it to its logical end.
If the present situation continuous it would be terrible. When he Dr Fomunyoh
looked at the list of men in uniform who have lost their lives it is telling
not to talk of civilians overwhelming dead toll.
Focus now is on Presidential election and looking at the
context with which the country is gagged between two major crisis thus Boko
Haram in the North of Cameroon and the Anglophone crisis in the two English
speaking regions, it necessitates that peace be ensured before any election. Dr
Fomunyoh reiterated that the constitution makes provision for a delay in
capital election in article 14 in case the country is caught in a grievous
crisis. The said two crisis amount to enough reason to delay Presidential
election by two or three months and have a peaceful environment good enough to
ensure credible election. Some aspects of the constitution should not be
revised only when personal interest is concern. Should those in charge push
ahead and organize the election they risk two things either they win and would
have a country to govern for lack peace or it would give credence to those
clamoring for restoration to say election did not take place in their Regions
which is prove that they are not part of the whole.
“Cameroonian people would judge each actor on the rule he or
she played during this crisis. At the time I and others were proposing
dialogue, the ears of the powers that be could only listen to the voices of
those who opt for the use of brute force on the agitators.” He said. Looking at
the role apportioned to the new MINAT Boss towards resolving the crisis rocking
the two Regions. Dr. Fomunyoh retorted that Anglophones should not be mocked
that it is the very person who at the onset of the crisis screamed at the top
of his voice that there was no Anglophone problem and when he was appointed
Minister of Territorial Administration, he sounded louder that Mr. Biya was too
generous with Anglophones. Such persons who have lost credibility in the eyes
of their people cannot be sent to go get the people back home.
The Senior Associate intimated that it is time people get to
be more sincere and would not sit in their cozy offices calmly as if the
country does not have a veritable crisis. He stated that living together is not
a slogan and that living together is materialized in the acts that we pose on
the people and the manner of talking to the people. They cannot want to bring
back people to the house and at the same time giving instruction to go cause
disorder and send troops to the field to brutalize more people to run away into
the bushes. This total contradiction and that to him people have to re-examine
themselves and assess whether the role they play is to bring back peace in the
country. After the auto examination, they should create a platform where
Cameroonians of goodwill can make their proposals on the way out of this
crisis. Dr. Fomunyoh insisted that he cannot sit on television to spell out his
ten points proposals because they are people out there who would attack the ten
points without haven studied or mastered the document. To him there is need for
a national dialogue and to say the Musonge Commission is already doing that,
Dr. Fomunyoh lauded the job the commission and its members are doing in the
field. That structure going by the articles of its creation was created to favour
Bilingualism and hasn’t the vehicle to assemble the grievances of the people
for possible solution. It is not its role and said if he has propositions to
make so that the country should come out of the crisis, where should he table
them? That is why he is insisting that there is need for a institution
purposely for that and where Cameroonians of good will would forward proposals
and be sure that their proposals are being integrated in a National reflection
on a way out of this crisis. To him the decrees and orders coming from most
authorities are not enough coupled with the fact that most of these authorities
have lost legitimacy in the eyes of their people right in their villages. These
are indicators that the country is going through a serious crisis which is
claiming several human lives and warrants that serious and urgent measures be
taken to ensure that people come out of this grievous crisis.
As it stands now in all the ten Regions of Cameroon each
family must have lost a loved one in this crisis and some cases parents have
buried their sons. What can a Minister tell an orphan whose father left in the
morning in uniform and never came home? Many young people running away from the
crisis get killed in high seas reasons why Cameroonians should reassemble and
do something to resolve and come out of this situation if not the country would
still be plunged in to more grievous situation that would be difficult to heal
the hearts. Even if they stop shooting today there is a lot of work to
reintegrate the people back to normal life.
Talking on those to be on the dialogue table, Dr. Fomunyoh
did not blink to state it bluntly that those who were at the head at the time
when the crisis started would be those to dialogue with. Head of Lawyers and
the Teachers grievances and those who wrote severally to the Presidency on the
same subject like the clergies what happened to them was most of them were
arrested and locked up in Kondengui. The people turn to question whether one
doesn’t have the right to ask for what are their rights are citizens in this
country and out of fear of the unknown, most of them fled the country in to
exile. When Mancho Bibixy, the Journalist, led a manifestation in Bamenda,
asking for amenities for better living condition for the people. He was asking
for roads, water, electricity and proper management of the city. What did he
get in return, he was rounded up and jailed which left many wondering as to
what has become of their country where they no longer have a voice. Many of his
followers escaped in to the Bushes. Sisiku Ayuk Julius Tabe and his group were
moving from one country to the other in suit and tie talking on the Anglophone
concerns and at the time Dr. Fomunyoh and others were concluding to begin talks
with his group to pave the way for dialogue, they were whisked off to Yaounde
and from then many youths were pushed in to radicalism and many deaths were
registered. Before now these young people were doing it in hiding but today on
social media girls like boy pose with their faces to the pubic calling on
soldiers to come. With this situation to think that you sit in the office and
sign decrees and send Musonge Commission to the field and the crisis would go
away? That would be far fetched a wish.
Quizzed as to why he is not in a haste to yield to the
people’s hope to run for President given his acumens on issues of governance.
Dr. Fomunyoh said even if he were to run for the top job, it shouldn’t be on
people’s blood reason why his stance is that there is need to put the
Presidential election on hold and bring back peace before organizing any
election. Were he to run with the present context it would be a total betrayal
of the suffering masses and posterity to would judge him that he too was an
accomplice to the mayhem that befell them.
By Ignatius Nji in Bamenda
