Looking Back at the Messi Messi Affair (1): "The Greatest Politico-Financial Scandal of all Times"

By Dibussi Tande

14 years ago, the Biya regime was rocked to its foundations by the Messi Messi affair which many still consider as Cameroon's greatest politico-financial scandal of all times. As a new anti-corruption caravan rolls on, kicking and screaming, we revisit the scandal that brought the country to a virtual standstill back in 1992.

The Genesis
It all started on April 19, 1992 when Garga Haman Adji, then Minister of Public Service and State Control, announced that the Disciplinary Council of the Office of Budgetary Control (IGERA) had charged Robert Messi Messi, the former Director of the Société Camerounaise de Banque (SCB), with embezzlement. Messi Messi had been fired as General Manager of SCB in August 1988, barely a month before the bank collapsed under the weight of its astronomical bad loans totaling over 150 billion FCFA. Over one thousand employees also lost their jobs in the process.

The Charges
IGERA accused Messi Messi of swindling over two billion FCFA (2.285.178.792 FCFA), and asked him to explain the whereabouts of another 45 billion FCFA missing from SCB coffers. IGERA barred him from holding public office in Cameroon for a 10-year period, and instructed the Minister of Justice to begin judicial proceedings against him. Messi Messi was also slapped with a two million FCFA fine.

As far as Garga was concerned the charges against Messi Messi were simply part on a long-term campaign to unearth and sanction high-ranking state officials (whom he referred to as “large whales”) who had swindled state funds over the years. The Biya regime, however, saw things differently: Coming after similar charges against former top government officials such as Nkolo Fanga (former Director General of the postal service), Leon Bahounoui Batende (former Director General of Banque Camerounaise de Development - BCD) and Florent Etoga Ely (former Director of Cameroon Radio Television - CRTV), the charges against Messi Messi were supposed to be the final chapter in a “clean up campaign” that had achieved its primary purpose of winning over the public by sacrificing a few scapegoats.

So on the same day that Minister Garga announced the charges against Messi Messi, President Biya signed decree no. 92/070 reorganizing the Presidency of the Republic. The most notable element in the reorganization was that IGERA, which was formerly under the control of the Ministry of Public Service, was now placed under the control of the Secretary General of the Presidency. Garga Haman, the celebrated “whale hunter” had lost his harpoon for being too overzealous in his anti-corruption campaign (Garga would later reveal that he had submitted a list of 42 “whales” to President Biya but the list was simply ignored. On August 27 1992, Garga resigned from government in protest).

Messi Messi Goes on the Offensive
As soon as the charges against him were made public, Messi Messi, who had fled two years earlier to Montreal in Canada, went on the offensive. He telephoned Blaise Pascal Talla, the publisher of the Paris-based Jeune Afrique Economie (JAE) with the proposal for an exclusive no-holds-barred interview on how and why SCB became insolvent.

Selecting JAE for the exclusive interview was no random choice for Messi Messi. A few months earlier, in January 1992, JAE had published an article on governmental corruption in Cameroon which identified 15 officials whose corruption and mismanagement had contributed to the economic crisis ( JAE, "Chronique d'un Pillage Annoncé," January 1992, pp. 175-183). In that explosive issue, Messi Messi was singled out and described as “the most famous scoundrel on the Cameroonian political landscape (“le plus célèbre fripouille de l’échiquier politique Camerounais”). Thanks to JAE, Messi Messi instantly entered national folklore as the poster boy for the greed, corruption, mismanagement, and “ostentatious consumption” that had characterized the first decade of Biya’s Presidency. Messi Messi was therefore anxious to use the pages of the same magazine to tell his story clear his name.

Blaise Pascal Talla agreed to do the interview. However, since he was not a banking expert and did not want Messi Messi to manipulate him, Talla solicited the assistance of celebrated Cameroonian economist, Celestin Monga. Monga was also a leading pro-democracy advocate in Cameroon at the time, and a perpetual thorn in the flesh of the Biya regime. Celestin Monga agreed to accompany Blaise Pascal Talla to Canada for the interview which the government-owned Cameroon Tribune would later describe as “the most controversial interview since the advent of democracy and press freedom in Cameroon” (no. 1461, July 13, 1992).

As Blaise Pascal Talla and Celestin Monga flew over the Atlantic, little did they know that they were about to become key players in “the presidential scandal of all times… the most scandalous exploits involving the presidency of Cameroon since independence” (Cameroon Post, no.109 May 6-13 1992). As their plane touched down in Montreal, the wheels of history were already in motion, and the foundations solidly in place for the mega politico-financial scandal of all times.

Bracing for the storm
As soon as Talla and Monga returned to Paris with the Messi Messi interview, work began on the May issue of JAE which was to carry the explosive revelations. While the issue was still at the printers in Belgium, Blaise Pascal Talla sent an advance copy to Andze Tsoungui, Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration. The Minister immediately informed the Presidency, and then dispatched a telex to Talla informing him that the issue was banned in Cameroon.

After a crisis meeting at the Presidency, the government filed a motion in a Paris court seeking an injunction banning the sale of the incriminated issue in France. However, before matter could be brought before a judge, the magazine was already in news stands across Paris. The Government withdrew its complaint. Cameroon’s ambassador in Paris, Simon Nko’o Etoungou, then made an offer to Thierry Peloille, the JAE Director of Finance and Administration, to buy off 6000 copies of the magazine. The offer was turned down. With the failure of the carrot at the stick policy in Paris, Cameroonian officials turned their attention preventing the entry and dissemination of the banned issue of JAE in Cameroon.

While the entire security system is on the lookout for “illegal” copies of JAE, a local newspaper, La Nouvelle Expression (No. 048 du 4 au 11 Mai 1992) bypassed the censors and reprinted the Messi Messi interview in its entirety. A few days later, Cameroon Post, the leading English language paper at the time, published a translated version of the interview (no. 193 May 6-13, 1992).

Yaounde and Douala were in an unofficial state of siege as security forces unleashed an orgy of violence against newspaper vendors in an attempt to seize any newspaper with even the slightest reference to the Messi Messi interview. But the horse has already left the stables.

The Messi Messi affair (or “Irenegate” in reference to the prominent role that the late First Lady Irene Biya played in Messi Messi’s narrative) had begun.

To be continued...

Click here for Part II of the Messi Messi Affair

Comments

[sir.abotoky]

when are we going to stop theoritical facks and emback on practical realism in recovering funds embezelled by currupt individuals in cameroon.when,when,when!!!
in other countries,when such embezellers are sighted and arrested,the next and and only important step will be to recover the money.so when is that going to be put in to practice.

[Ma Mary]

Biya has appointed himself head of his own anticorruption squad to forestall the emergence of another Garga. Biya being the biggest crook of them all knows that his fingerprints must be all over the place and a properly functioning commission will eventually point at him. So he becomes his own gatekeeper.

Southern Cameroonians should stop wasting time with this nonsense and work harder on splitting the ties that remain. American Ambassador Marquadt, we hope you are watching. This thing that you started has rapidly become a FARCE.

[Nkosi Jacob]

The Messi Messi Affair would be only a chapter in the annals of financial scandals under the New Deal.
Financial scandals abound in Cameroon so much so that when historians shall judge the Biya rulership, corruption would occupy a very big chapter.

Just yesterday March 13, 2006,ANICET EKANE-leader of MANIDEM in an article in the French language daily, LE MESSAGER, quizzed president Biya why repair works had to be done in prisons in Douala and Yaounde preceding the arrest of some regime barons. He further wonders why VIP treatment is given to these thieves instead of allowing them live the realities of typical prison life in Cameroon. He states that in France, big names like Bernard Tapie,Floch Prigent [CEO ELF], and Jacques Medecin have all been variedly arrested and imprisoned like other prisoners. But most revealing of all ANICET EKANE states that the current minister of Economy & Finance is purported to have bought at the cost of hundreds of millions of FRS CFA the home of Jacques Medecin [mentioned above] in Nice France.Is ABAH ABAH the next?

[Frank Wolfe]

When power shal be decentralised then it is a sign that we are heading to recuperate somthing; this our fellow leader made himself head of the anti corruption drive.
There is no consistent public debate in cameroon, there is just a vox pop which is not a true representation of the subject topic. The public of any country has power but they are being abated especially by the media. Media's social responsiblity oncemore has failed. They knwo best whom they invite to come and talk in their Talk-show programs
you cannot bite the hand that feeds u

[Nga Adolph]

When the history of Cameroon shall be rewritten,before the close of this decade, we shall be overwhelmed with a brutal shock of the extent to which 'Man's Injustice to Man',Man's egocentrism has brought the whole nation to the very precincts of socio_political and economic collapse.The Cameroonian people shall then see the ultimate need of "REVOLUTION".
They say that history often repeats itself and the situation in Cameroon in all its ramifications be compared to that 18th century France of Marie Antoinette and King Louise 16th.We must destroy that generation which has brought untold sufferings to our people.
ALUTA CONTINUA.

NGA ADOLPH.
LEUVEN_BELGIUM.

[Christian]

Le changement au Cameroun passera par la revolution violente ou ne se fera pas!

[Ndim Bernard Ngouche]

It has never been a true spirited fight against Corruption in Cameroon for the "chief de gang' can't be moving about while others are arrested for small thievery. When so many years ago; he in a serious note wanted proof that there were embezellers in Cameroon. This happened after an Interview granted by Eric Chinji; it was an indicator that he was unwilling or had soiled hands and therefore could not go before equity. Since in law "It is said that he who must come before equity must come with clean hands" Knowing that his hands are soiled he has become the chied investigator of financial crime so that he remains covered. The question is for how long shall this criminal gang be allowed to govern? God bless and save Cameroon.

[SERGE SIMO]

The fight against corruption in Cameroon will gain credit only when Biya himself will be held accountable for his numerous financial misdeeds.
Before that day , every thing is just useless and distractive.