Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

An Overview of Cameroon Prison Literature From Albert Mukong to Titus Edzoa

By Dibussi Tande

In the last six months, three former high-ranking government officials currently in jail for a variety of financial crimes have published books about their prison experience. These books also explain their own version of events that landed them in jail, while casting a critical glance at the political system in which they once played pivotal roles.

The courtyard of Kondengui Prison in Yaounde

Prominent among these unlikely authors are two former Secretary-Generals at the Presidency of the Republic, Atangana Mebara and Titus Edzoa, and Nguini Effa, the former Director General of Cameroon Petroleum Depot (SCDP).

BOOK REVIEW: Scribbles from the den: essays on politics and collective memory in Cameroon

Review of African Political Economy Vol. 37, No. 124, June 2010, 239–240

Scribbles from the den: essays on politics and collective memory in Cameroon, by Dibussi Tande, Bamenda, Cameroon, Langaa Publishers, 2009, 212 pp., £19.95, ISBN 978-9956558919

Dibussi Tande’s Scribbles from the den: essays on politics and collective memory in Cameroon definitely contains no ‘scribbles’. It is a collection of well articulated essays capturing the socio-cultural and political fabric of the nation state of Cameroon and of Africa in general. The 49 selected essays in this volume first appeared on ‘Scribbles from the den,’ Dibussi Tande’s award-winning blog, www.dibussi.com, between 2006 and 2009, a fact which has implications for the tone and texture of these essays. Tande is not oblivious to these implications. As he explains: 

Cameroon: The Historical Amnesia and Confusion Continues...

 

French Cameroons gained its independence from France on January 1, 1960 while the British Southern Cameroons gained its independence from Britain and (re)united with the French Cameroons on October 1, 1961. However, the Biya regime has decided to commemorate the "Fiftieth Anniversaries of the Independence and Reunification of Cameroon" not on January 1, 2010 and/or October 1, 2011 but on May 20, 2010, the day when the Cameroon federation, which gave the former British Cameroons significant autonomy as a distinct political and territorial entity, was dissolved to be replaced by a centralized unitary state. The historical confusion of generations of Cameroonians contnues unabated...

Click here to visit the official "fiftieth anniversaries (SIC)" webiste.

Memory lane (March 13 1962): Kennedy Welcomes Young President of Cameroon

 
New York Times, March 14 1962

WASHINGTON, March 13 - Ahmadou Ahidjo, President of the Federal Republic of Cameroon, arrived today for a two-day state visit. The 38-year old leader of the West African republic was greeted at the Washington National Airport by President Kennedy.

Movie Trailer - Kuva Likenye and the Bakweri Armed Resistance to German Colonization

AFRICAphonie (with an OSIWA support) presents Kuva Likenye, a historical Documentary. Directed by Kome Epule Mathias. Editor: Njukeng George Njukeng. Script Consultant: Dibussi Tande. Narrator Muema Meombo. Executive Producer: George Ngwane.

For details on how to obtain a copy of the documentary, contact:

George Ngwane
Executive Director
AFRICAphonie
Tel: 77 66 84 79
E-mail: gngwane@yahoo.com or Africaphonie2000@yahoo.co.uk

The Political Legacy of Ruben Um Nyobe 50 Years After His Assassination

Dibussi Tande

"Ruben Um Nyobe is too little known among Anglophone africanists, he was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant political thinkers and organizers to emerge after the Second World War in Africa. Had he survived to lead his country to independence, he would most certainly be ranked today on the same level as Julius Nyerere, and the late Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba." Richard Joseph

Exactly 50 years ago, on 13 September 1958, Ruben Um Nyobe, leader of the nationalist Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) was assassinated by French forces in the outskirts of Boumnyebel in the Sanaga Maritime division. Um Nyobe’s death set in motion a series of events that culminated in the elimination of the UPC as a political force in Cameroon, the exiling and/or assassination of its entire leadership, and the establishment of a French-controlled neo-colonial police state in Cameroon led by individuals who either played a marginal role in the struggle for independence or were even opposed to that struggle.

Statue In Honor of Ruben Um Nyobe in Eseka

"The collective memory of a nation is represented in part by the memorials it chooses to erect. Public memory is enshrined in memorials from the newly opened Holocaust memorial in Berlin to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Whatever a nation chooses to memorialize in physical monument, or perhaps more significantly, what not to memorialize, is an indicator of the collective memory." (Anonymous)

After nearly half a century of institutional attempts to erase Ruben Um Nyobe from Cameroon's collective memory, the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) began the slow process of redefining the nationalist leader's legacy by constructing a monument in his honor in the town of Eseka where he is buried.

The project went ahead - inspite of the lukewarm attitude, if not hostility of the Biya regime -because the Eseka municipal council is now controlled by the UPC, the party which Um Nyobe founded in April 1948.

Mboua Massok Awarded the First Felix Moumie Prize for Democracy & Human Rights

Cameroonian political activist and pan-Africanist, Mboua Massok ma Batalon ba Bilap bi Momoso, has been awarded the first-ever Felix Moumie prize, named after the Cameroonian nationalist leader who was assassinated in Geneva in 1960 by the French secret service.

The Dr. Felix Moumie prize was instituted by the Cameroonian pro-democracy organization, CODE (Collectif des Organisations Démocratiques et Patriotiques des Camerounais de la Diaspora), to “encourage individuals who contribute towards the construction of democratic values and human rights in Cameroon”.

According to Prof. Kapet de Bana, President of the award organizing committee and former comrade of Felix Moumie in the UPC, “the prize carries a powerful symbol which seeks to restitute Moumie’s memory and give Cameroonians the opportunity to appropriate his values of courage and audacity.”

A Sample of Autobiographies, Biographies, Memoirs and from Cameroon

In spite of the paucity of memoirs, autobiographies and biographies by and about prominent Cameroonians, a number of personalities (politicians, political activists, musicians, sportsmen, etc.) have written their memoirs and autobiographies. For example, Albert Mukong and Christian Tobie Kuo both wrote two volumes of their memoirs. Same with Jean Martin Tchaptchet (who shared that infamous last meal with nationalist leader Felix Moumie in Geneva in 1960), who has published two autobiographical volumes, and promises more. Footballer Roger Milla and musician Manu Dibango both have autobiographies.

Individual Memory and Collective Amnesia: Where are the Political Memoirs?

Dibussi Tande

Andze Tsoungui, one time Vice Prime Minister and one of the longest serving cabinet Ministers in both the Ahidjo and Biya governments died early last week in Brussels, Belgium. Andze’s career spanned close to half a century, beginning in 1958 when he was appointed assistant to the sub-divisional officer of Nanga Eboko. That same year, he was transferred to Douala as assistant to the head of the Wouri region. This was at the height of the UPC insurgency of which Wouri, along with the Sanaga maritime was a hotbed. After a brief stint in the East, he was appointed the Divisional officer for Mungo in 1961.By this time, the UPC insurgency had ended in the Sanaga Maritime, and the area of operations moved further west to the Mungo and Bamileke regions.

Repaid in his own Coins: Ahmadou Ahidjo and the Politics of Ostracism

Dibussi Tande

"Let me state it loud and clear: The past is what it is. We are on our part determined to look toward the future... Let's refrain from throwing an armful of wood into a fire which is about to go out … We have forgotten. Why do they want us to remember again? Ahmadou Ahidjo (responding to calls to rehabilitate UPC exiles) - February 25, 1959.

On November 30, 1989, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first President, died in exile in Dakar, Senegal, far away from the country that he had ruled with an iron and bloody fist for over two decades.

Ostracized by the Biya regime which considered him public enemy number one, scorned by Cameroonians for his alleged role in the bloody 1984 coup attempt against his successor; and banished from official Cameroonian discourse and memory (bank notes with his image were withdrawn from circulation, public spaces that bore his name - such as the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium - were renamed, his name a taboo in the official media, etc.), Ahidjo like the UPC exiles of the 50s and 60s, became, in his final years, a sad and lonely figure in exile, moving from Morocco, to France, and then finally to Senegal.

Mboua Massok in his Own Words: "Why I Want to Destroy Leclerc's Monument"

The idea to destroy General Leclerc's statue (which some refer to as a monument) first came to me in 2001. At that time, I thought the statue was made of concrete. I tried to destroy it back then with a chisel. Unfortunately this was not possible. I was arrested and later released...

Mboua Massok's Masterpiece: General Leclerc Defaced...

The Cultural Alienation and Historical Amnesia of Public Spaces in Cameroon

By Dibussi Tande

"Does General Leclerc, a French soldier, deserve to be honored at the Bonanjo [Douala] independence square of all places, at the expense of Cameroonian martyrs such as Douala Manga Bell and Ngosso Din?”
Mboua Massok ma Batalong after defacing the Leclerc Monument.

Colonial Relic: General Philippe Leclerc's Monument in Bonanjo, Douala