Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Obituary: Puis Njawe, the Beacon of Press Freedom is No More!

Pius Njawe, pioneer journalist and pre-eminent Cameroonian press freedom activist, died yesterday in Washington, D.C. in a car accident. He was in the United States to attend a conference organized by the Cameroonian Diaspora to discuss the country's future. Cameroon has lost a colussus who came the closest in establishing a veritable fourth estate in the country. May his soul rest in peace.

 (c) lemessager.net

Excerpt from Pius Njawe's 1998 Prison Diary 

My treatment in prison is highly humiliating. The objective is surely to break my morale, if I cannot be eliminated physically. I share Cell 15 with about a hundred other prisoners, almost all of whom are criminals convicted of murders, assassinations, hold-ups and so on. My bunkmate, for example, was the leader of a gang that emptied out my neighbour’s house.

In Memoriam: Mbella Sonne Dipoko - The Bard Who Dared To Be Different

By Dibussi Tande (Originally published in Palapala Magazine)

Mbella Sonne Dipoko, one of the leading first generation Cameroonian writers and, without doubt, the most internationally recognized Anglophone writer, died on December 5, 2009 in his hometown of Tiko. His death not only leaves a huge void on the Cameroonian literary landscape, but also marks the end of a most storied and colorful life that began 73 years ago on the banks of the River Mungo and continued through the Southern Cameroons, Nigeria, Europe and then back to the banks of the Mungo. 

Dipoko began writing very early on in his life. In 1960, he left for France at age 24, after a brief stint as an accounts clerk with the Cameroon Development Corporation and a news reporter for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.

A Man, A Plan, A Cyber Café

Here is a very heartwarming and inspirational story from Cameroon about a teenager who beat the odds stacked against him to become a success story and a role model. Orginally published by RPVC Bill on his blog, 27 months.

Sometimes, it’s the small successes that make everything worthwhile. This isn’t a story about a Gates Foundation grant, a fabulous new software project, African tech startup, or a microfinance program designed to serve the needs of thousands. Rather, it’s the story of a single young Cameroonian who through his own grit, determination, talent, discipline and tireless effort made a bright future for himself. His name is Simon, but everyone (and I do mean everyone) in Buea knows him as “Wise Man” now.

Wise Man is just nineteen, and the youngest cyber café owner in Buea, probably the southwest of Cameroon—maybe even the entire country.

In Memoriam: Jean-Marc Ela, Africa’s “Liberation Theologian” is Dead

By Dibussi Tande

“If Christianity seeks to be anything more than an effort to swindle a mass of mystified blacks, the churches of Africa must all join to come to terms with this question.”

"liberation of the oppressed must be the primary condition for any authentic inculturation of the Christian message.” Father Jean Marc Ela.

The death has been announced of Father Jean Marc Ela, one of Cameroon’s leading scholars, who has variously been described as “the nearest Africa has come to a liberation theologian in a Latin American sense “, the “Champion of a theology under the trees “, “Africa's first liberation theologian of note outside South Africa”, and as “one of the best known and most read African theologians not only in Africa but also elsewhere”. He died recently in Canada where he had been on exile since 1995.

Born in 1936 in Ebolowa, Cameroon, Jean-Marc Ela was ordained priest in 1964. He subsequently earned doctorate degrees in Theology from the University of Strasbourg, France (1969) and Sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris (1978).

Revisiting The Legacy of Dr. EML Endeley

By Dibussi Tande (Originally posted on the CAMNET discussion forum in 1998 on the 10th anniversary of EML's Death)

Had he not by accident of birth come from a minority tribe, monuments would have been raised to his honour in the Cameroons, for his thirty-seven years of counsel and vision to his people. N.N Mbile

Ten years have gone by since Dr. Emmanuel Mbella Lifafe (EML) Endeley, the first Premier of the British Southern Cameroons, passed away on June 29, 1988. Over the years, much has been said about and against him, particularly by a younger generation of Anglophone Cameroonians who still do not understand his naive romanticizing of the Nigerian option during the 1961 plebiscite, and his lukewarm attitude towards the so-called Third Option (i.e., the school of thought defended by P.M. Kale, that called for the complete independence of Southern Cameroons from both the Nigerian federation and La Republique du Cameroun).

Serge Fosso: Why I was Kicked Off a Brussels Airlines Flight To Douala

"I am still very angry as I think of my daughter for whom I had exceptionally taken this vacation... I was treated with contempt and brutalized just because for one moment, I was the voice of a misfortune which did not have a voice; because I had come to the aid of a human being who was being ill-treated and needed help."

On March 27, 136 Nigerian passengers were ordered off a British Airways flight to Lagos after they complained about the brutal treatment of a man who was being deported to Nigeria. One of the passengers, Ayodeji Omotade, whom police considered the ringleader of the protest movement, was arrested, abandoned at the airport and banned from flying on British Airways.  One momth later, the outrage over this incident is still growing.

Last week, Nigerian President Yar’dua launched an investigation into the incident. Nigeria’s foreign Minister also met with the British high commissioner in Abuja to inform him in no uncertain terms that Nigeria “would not tolerate the inhuman treatment of any Nigerian for any reason, even when there are allegations of criminal activities” and that “Nigerians must be treated with dignity within and outside the shores of the country.”

Joe la Conscience: Cameroon’s Forgotten Prisoner of Conscience

By Dibussi Tande

In the past couple of weeks, there have been numerous stories in the national and international media about the arrest of prominent Cameroonian protest singer Lapiro de Mbanga. However, the arrest, summary trial and sentencing of the less known protest singer, Joe La Conscience, has not received as much attention.

Unlike Lapiro who is accused of being the mastermind behind the February riots, particularly in his native town of Mbanga (although eyewitness accounts and initial reports from local officials indicated that he had helped calm down angry rioters…) Joe La Conscience is not accused of any violence. His only crime is that he organized a one-man nonviolent protest against recent moves to scrap presidential term limits in Cameroon.

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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.”

An African Hero: Biko - The Forgotten Martyr

By Raymond Whitaker (Originally published in The Independent)

Thirty years after he was murdered in police custody, the African trade unionist remains a thorn in the side of the ANC and a stark reminder of a more radical approach to dealing with apartheid and its aftermath.

"History called upon Steve Biko at a time when the political pulse of our people had been rendered faint by banning, imprisonment, exile, murder and banishment... It is the dictate of history to bring to the fore the kind of leaders who seize the moment, who cohere the wishes and aspirations of the oppressed. Such was Steve Biko, a fitting product of his time; a proud representative of the re-awakening of a people." Nelson Mandela

I met Steve Biko once. His miserable death on the floor of a South African prison cell, 30 years ago today, still lay a few years in the future. So did his friendship with the white newspaper editor, Donald Woods, resulting in the book and film, Cry Freedom!, which made him an icon. But if the name of Biko became a thorn in the side of the white regime, today's commemorations will be equally uncomfortable for South Africa's black majority government.

Wole Soyinka - The Writer as a Citizen

International Herald Tribune

LAGOS, Nigeria: When Nigerian Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka contemplates the role of a writer in society, he defines it in terms of action.

In 1965, upset that a politician who had rigged the vote was about to claim victory in a radio broadcast, Soyinka, then 31 and already a famous writer, stormed the radio station armed with a pistol, and substituted the politician's tape with one denouncing the usurper.

Once Upon a Time… Osende Afana (II)

Dibussi Tande

On March 15, 1966 at 10:30 am, comrade Osende Afana, Secretary General of the bureau of the Steering Committee of the UPC gloriously fell at the battlefront, his heart cowardly pierced by bullets of the imperial armed forces and their Kamerunian lackeys… French imperialism, along with its sinister manservant Ahidjo, has perpetrated a horrible crime against the Kamerunian people…. Editorial of l’Etudiant d’Afrique noire

The Death of Moumie and the UPC Split
Following the assassination of UPC President Felix Moumie in Geneva, Switzerland in November 1960, cracks began to appear in the hitherto solid edifice of the UPC in exile. This ultimately led to a split within the party.

Once Upon a Time… Osende Afana (I)

By Dibussi Tande

'the majority of them... when they returned to Africa shamefully betrayed the noble ideals which they defended... in Paris'. They joined the ranks of the bourgeoisie and adopted the motto FVVA (Femmes, Villas, Voitures, Argent). Only a few militants like Osende Afana practised what they had preached and died for the causes in which they believed: that of revolution." Gonidec, African Politics. p. 73

On March 15, 1966 Osende Afana, one of the last of the “intellectual revolutionaries” died in Ndélélé subdivision deep in the dreaded Djoum forest in what is today Kadey division in the East Province of Cameroon. The circumstances of his death are still unclear to this day but what is known is that he was tracked down by Ahmadou Ahidjo’s security forces, ambushed, killed and then beheaded. While his headless body was buried in an unmarked grave, legend has it that his head was taken to Yaounde and put on display for some members of the Ahidjo regime as a “war trophy”.

A Baobab Fell in the Forest But Did They Notice? Bate Besong or the Symbol of the Cameroon Divide

By Dibussi Tande

“And yet, there was a time when people had faith, implicit faith - in this Union – without making any investigations. But I ask you, where is that faith now? It has vanished. So utterly! The bonds have snapped. We carry the scars of ‘brotherhood’ in a country so unaccustomed to candour.” Bate Besong - 1993

A common (in fact the most prevalent) theme in Bate Besong's writings (fiction and non-fiction) is the fate of Cameroon's English-speaking minority whom he referred to in his famous Beasts of No Nation as 'nightsoilmen" locked up in the antechamber of the bilingual republic; a people whose culture, history and even existence was an afterthought to the French-speaking majority of the bilingual Cameroon Republic.

"A Baobab Has Fallen": Bate Besong is no More!!!

Bate Besong, the revered lecturer of literature at the University of Buea, fiery social critic, and unarguably
"Anglophone Cameroon's most versatile and charismatic playwright and poet", died today, March 8, 2007 in a ghastly car accident on the Douala - Yaounde highway. This was barely a few hours after the successful launching of his latest book, Disgrace. BB, as he was fondly called, was on his way to the US embassy to obtain a visa to attend this year's American Literature Association (ALA) annual conference taking place in Morgantown, West Virginia.

In Memoriam: Bate Besong: The Man

By George Ngwane (Culled from Bate Besong (Or the Symbol of Anglophone Hope). Limbe: Noomerac Press, 1993.)

Bate Besong is Bate Besong. If you call him Besong Bate, it will be somebody else. His name refuses to obey the law of choice. Born on 8th May 1954 at Ikot-Ansa Calabar, former Eastern-Nigeria, of Cameroonian parents from Ndekwai-Mamfe, Bate Besong (BB) began his secondary education at St. Bedes College, Ashing Kom. While in Kom, his passion for Art was nursed and nurtured as he developedan interest for music, playing in the school orchestra with mates like Kenneth Komtaghi of the "Do Good" fame and earning the show business tag of James Brown (JB).

Louis Etongwe: Fighting Against Domestic Slavery in the Cameroonian Community

Culled from Renew America

Louis Etongwe helped free domestic slaves in the Washington, D.C., area. "I was horrified because I thought — not in this day and age that there could be some who would trick someone's child into slavery — not like this." Louis points out how even the smallest action to fight slavery can make a big difference.

Marc Vivien Foe: Year Three

"Marc-Vivien Foé not only epitomised talent and professionalism on the field of play but also the strength and vibrancy of Cameroon football" Jane Bateman - Head of International Relations, English Football Association (June 26, 2003)

 

The Yondo Black Affair: Catalyst for Multiparty Politics in Cameroon

Dibussi Tande

"Mine was not an act of bravery. I had a duty to use my knowledge to enlighten my fellow citizens. I wanted to initiate a political debate which the Cameroonian had been deprived of for too long. I assume my responsibilities. I am a democrat... I am not afraid to go to prison. I am a transparent and upright man and I have never cheated in my entire life." Maitre Yondo Black's Pre-Sentencing Statement - Yaounde Military Tribunal, April 6, 1990

On April 4, 1990, the notorious Yaounde military tribunal was the focus of national and international attention as arguments in the trial of Yondo Black Mandengue and 10 others began. They had been arrested in February of that year for trying to create a political party. Officially, however, the accused were charged with holding clandestine meetings, fabricating and distributing tracts hostile to the Government, rebellion, and insulting the Head of State.

Sita Bella: The Final Journey of a Renaissance Woman

By Dibussi Tande

This weekend, a woman who was a pioneer in many fields was buried at the Mvolye cemetery in Yaounde amidst national soul-searching. Her name was Therese Bella Mbida, popularly known as Sita Bella. It is no surprise that although she died at the ripe age of 73, most Cameroonians never heard of her until her death a couple of weeks ago.

Sita Bella was Cameroon's first female journalist who started plying her trade on the eve of independence. She was also one of the first African female filmmakers, her most popular work being a short 1963 documentary titled « Tam-tam à Paris ». But that was not all; she was Cameroon’s first female pilot, a writer, guitarist and model.

Living Up to the Olympic Creed

Dibussi Tande

I just watched bits and pieces of the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics on TV. From an organizational stand point, the Italians have everything to be proud of. But these games lacked the passion and drama of the 2002 Salt Lake City games. In fact, the most memorable event of the 2006 games was the doping scandal involving the Austrian team. Here in the United States, Bryant Gumbel’s putdown of the Winter Olympics on HBO generated more passion than the performance of any athlete in Turin, and virtually started a mini race war.