Affair Nganang in Cameroon: When the Ladies play to win
CAMEROUN :: POINT DE VUE

Cameroun :: Affair Nganang In Cameroon: When The Ladies Play To Win

The article by Joseph Mbede’s “Voici comment l’affaire Nganang a divisé le palais d’Etoudi” cameroonweb.fr, 12/15/2017 (http://cl2p.org/le-fond-de-laffaire-nganang-au-cameroun/) is very informative on the ways Mbede goes behind the scene to expose how the sauce of legal despotism is made and it is not very rewarding.

First, we noticed that the first lady and the first daughter whose supporters have represented as “innocent victims” of Dr. Nganang are really the mastermind behind the sneaky manners and the blunt force that led to Dr. Nganang’s kidnapping and sequestration.

As the CL2P has always documented, kidnapping and sequestration of ordinary Cameroonians perceived to be “opponents” of the regime is not legally unprecedented in Cameroon even if strategically reckless. What Mbede’s article does is to expose the blunt force approach the regime of Yaoundé frequently uses against people declared to be “enemy of the state.” This blunt force approach is not based on the merits of the law but on the privileges and the intimate conviction of members of dictator’s nepotistic inner circle in their self-made bubble that a crime has been committed. More, in these circumstances, nothing is off limits. That being the case, the ladies in the palace have no worries about possibly tainting their own “investigation” against Nganang.

Second, in their disdain for Dr. Nganang, the women in the palace felt no need for worry that their aggressive tactics against a world renowned writer and civil right activists will end up tarnishing the cosmetic façade of “Appeased democracy” the regime of Yaoundé has carefully cultivated over the past 35 years. It is true that the regime of Yaoundé like his opponents to be silent and keep their mouths shut but the problem is that even a fake democracy has to be able to tolerate some forms of dissent. Indeed, the disagreements between Nganang and the regime of Yaoundé are substantive and serious. It would be wrong to construe his quest for justice, particularly, for the Anglophone’s minority as motivated by pettiness. That would be to say that the CL2P fight for political prisoners in Cameroon is motivated by pettiness.

The real question is must every serious critique of the Biya’s regime be reduced to a vicious takedown or an ugly act of hatred? Can we not acknowledge that there are deep disagreements among us with our very lives and destinies at stake? Is it even possible to downplay our personal insecurities in order to highlight our clashing and conflicting ways of viewing the cold and cruel world we inhabit?

What Dr. Nganang does so well is try to understand how an individual can make their way in a world which defined them before they were born. More, the huge cost we have to pay for that situation – all of us ordinary Cameroonians must recognize this as our struggle instead of continuing to be accomplice of the Biya’s regime power fetish.

Hence, by kidnapping and sequestering Dr. Nganang, the women of the Etoudi palace have inadvertently opened the gates of hell on their beloved regime because their pettiness and hubris showed to the world how the criminalizing of politics looks like in Cameroon. Indeed, Dr. Nganang, in short time compared to the Biya’s regime, has learned how to dominate debate in global media in ways that the Biya’s regime can never do even with all their stolen money.

The CL2P understands that to misgovern oneself is a political right but after 35 years of ethnofacism, economic suicide, political witch-hunt and now civil war, misgoverning has a price even for people who believe they were ordained by God to be ruler.

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