Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Bref Sejour

Mimboland News Agency: President Longstay of the Republic of Mimboland returned to the country today after a 43-day visit to Europe which official media coyly described as a "bref sejour" - a brief visit. This was president Longstay's fifth bref sejour to Europe and America this year, and yet another demonstration of the Mimboland leader’s "governance by remote control" which he has perfected into a science.

Bref Sejour

It's been a lifetime since he left
for a bref sejour across the seas
In his absence the people grope for survival
like drunken sailors staggering in a dark alley
wishing they had a steady and trusted hand
to guide them through these turbulent times
But this matters little to the Prince
For he knows that upon his return
The docile and groveling masses
Shall welcome him with open hands
grateful that he deigned to return
once again to their cursed land
for yet another bref sejour

Mimboland is a (not so) fictional African country created by novelist Francis Nyamnjoh. The leader of the "land of Mimbo" is president Longstay who is clinging onto power against the wishes of Mimbolanders. Here are some of Nyamnjoh's books set in the land of Mimbo.

The Ghost of Um Nyobe (In Memory of Bate Besong, One Year After)

By Dibussi Tande

Culled from Their Champagne Party Will End! Poems in Honor Bate Besong (Forthcoming Langaa Publishers / Michigan State University Press)

They say you died in enemy territory
They say you died on the wrong side of THE BRIDGE
But what better place to die
- On the other side of the bridge -
Than in the Sanaga Maritime -
The sacred land of the Ngog Lituba
The springboard of Cameroun nationalism
The heartland of the Cameroun resistance;
Purified with the blood of thousands of patriots
Who said NO! to the imperialists and neo-colonialists?

Reliving The Twilight: A Review of Dibussi Tande's No Turning Back

Reviewed by Kangsen Feka Wakai (Originally published in The Frontier Telegraph Vol. II No. 8 of January 29, 2008)

Dibussi Tande No Turning Back: Poems of Freedom 1990-1993 - Available on Amazon.com and Michigan State University Press)

To suggest that Cameroon embodies the tragedy that befell African peoples when European colonialism imposed itself on the continent is quite an understatement.   

Today, Cameroon, like a host of its African neighbors has become a landscape on which real and imagined identities are contested.   This struggle within Cameroon, albeit critical in its evolution as a geo-political entity, occurs against a backdrop of political misrule, economic stagnation, social tensions, and systematic graft.

We Shall Rise Again!!!

By Dibussi Tande (Culled from No Turning Back: Poems of Freedom 1990-1993 - Available on Amazon.com and Michigan State University Press)

From the heights of the Menchum falls
And the heart of the Congress hall
Shall come the long awaited call
That will bring down these walls.

From the mysterious Barombi lakes
And the mythical Oku lake
Shall rise liberty's mermaid
Who shall come to our aid.
From the historic park of Ntarikon
The selfless martyrs shall come
To water the struggle
And break down hurdles.

"Exile": A Poem By Mbella Sonne Dipoko

Originally published in Ronald Segal, ed., Modern Poetry from Africa. Penguin Books, 1968, p. 164

In silence
The overloaded canoe leaves our shores

But who are these soldiers in camouflage,
These clouds going to rain in foreign lands?

The night is losing its treasures
The future seems a myth
Warped on a loom worked by lazy hands.

But perhaps all is not without some good for us
As from the door of a shack a thousand miles away

The scaly hand of a child takes in greeting
The long and skinny fingers of the rain.

Lamentations

By Lloney E. Monono (Author of Beyond the Promise)

With tears I remember -
Yes I remember
How you wooed me
You cooed to me
I was your apple
So young and supple
I was beautiful
Intelligent and resourceful – you said
Remember – you said
You love me
You needed me
You were in flames
When you called my name
Your need
Was my need

Broken Dreams

Dibussi Tande (Buea, February 1993)
 
By the demon's spell they seemed possessed
By their mythical idea they were obsessed.
Theirs was to be the envy of the world
A nation with the best of two worlds.
This hazy concept was seen as "the" solution
And towards it they tolerated no contradiction.