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1 1 An Open Letter to Pa Foncha (Published October 11-18, 1990) Dear Pa, I hope that this letter will meet you in good health and enjoying your voluntary retirement from the rough and tumble of active political life. For some time now, I had thought of writing to you privately. But on further reflection, I am convinced that a letter to one of the founding fathers of the nation, precisely in his capacity as a founding founder of the nation, cannot be a private affair. That is why several thousand Cameroonians will be reading this letter with you. The year 1990 will probably go down in our political annals as a landmark year, comparable to 1961 and 1972. 1990 has witnessed a quickened tempo, temperature and pressure in our political affairs that would have appeared impossible even to an optimistic dreamer a few years ago. All this is in a positive direction. At long last, Cameroonians have awoken from a deep slumber and political apathy and are poised to take their own destiny in their hands instead of leaving it as heretofore in the hands of self-appointed messiahs and autocrats. By far the most important event in this process of reawakening was the launching on May 26th of the SDF party in Bamenda against fierce opposition and intimidation. Another was the unprecedented memorandum of the Mezam section of the CPDM to the Head of State on the events of May 26th . The third was your own resignation on June 9th from the CPDM party as a sequel to the events of 26th May and their aftermath. I last wept in 1970 on the occasion of the tragic death of a young sister. Since then I had resolved never again in my life to weep for any cause. But when I read your letter of resignation from the CPDM of which you were the First National Vice President and your memorandum entitled “A Brief Account of the Events Which Took Place in the Bamenda Township on Saturday 26th May, 1990, 2 Culminating in the Shooting and Killing of Five Innocent Young Men and One Girl,” tears involuntarily flowed from my eyes. We all knew you had been marginalized and rendered irrelevant since the time Mr Ahidjo, in his political wisdom, carefully manoeuvred you out of power and replaced you with a self-serving political prostitute who helped him in completing the sell-out of his own people and patrimony for a mess of pottage. But who could really have imagined, Pa, until you yourself put it down in writing, that as first National Vice President of our single party, requests by you “for audience with the Chairman of the party to discuss issues were systematically turned down” or that “several memos and presentations you made in writing on several national issues were ignored”? Eh Pa, who could really have believed before you yourself confessed it, that in this our Republic you used to be summoned to meetings in Yaounde by radio or that members of the Cameroon armed forces could actually stop your car, knowing fully well who you were, and subject it to a meticulous search before “scornfully asking you to go”? Your resignation was thoroughly justified though not timely and history will never forget your courage at this particular point in time nor your place as one of the founding fathers of the nation. You were the architect of Reunification although after that momentous event you seemed to have been rendered completely impotent and your pet projects – a deep sea port for Limbe, CamBank, marketing board, WADA, Cooperative Movement, Ring Road, Mamfe Road etc. – all abandoned. How indeed, Pa, is it that, thirty years after independence and Reunification, all the roads in your primary constituency, Northwest Province are in a much worse condition than they ever were when you used them while campaigning for Reunification? Politics is a game of numbers and a politician within a democratic set-up, true to his calling, is the representative of his people. This means that if the collective interests of those people are threatened or violated, he cannot afford to practice the virtue of quietism, much less engage in stoogy handclapping. A certain Fon of the North West Province once removed a medal with which President Ahidjo had decorated him and sent back to the President through the SDO in his Fondom because, in his view, the president had taken an action he [3.133.109.211] Project MUSE...

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