By Ernest Sumelong & Olive Ejang Tebug Ngoh
The government of Cameroon came close to declaring a state of emergency on Thursday, April 10, as contingents of troops were deployed in major towns of the country, apparently, to forestall any upheaval against the controversial amendment of the 1996 Constitution.
In Yaounde, Douala, Bamenda, Buea and Kumba, armed troops inundated the streets, occupying strategic positions, while truckloads of soldiers drove through the length and breath of the towns, ostensibly to scare denizens from mobilising for any protest action.
Security was reportedly beefed up at the National Assembly and its environs, where combined troops patrolled the area, interrogating and searching passers by. Also, journalists and others, who had business at the Glass House, were routinely searched and questioned.
In Buea, troops could be seen at Bongo Square, public buildings, bars and other popular spots. In neighbouring Tiko, soldiers of the amphibious battalion took up temporary residence in almost every street corner. Inhabitants of these towns lived the weekend in fear and made comments about the amendment of the Constitution only in hushed voices. Police officers, on their part, intensified checks on township taxis, demanding passengers' identification cards.
After news broke that MPs had voted the controversial bill, irate inhabitants seethed in anger, cursing the MPs and the regime, but none could openly react. The Constitution was modified following calls by some members of the ruling CPDM party to give President Paul Biya another chance to stand as candidate during the presidential elections of October 2011.
But it came against popular outcry from the teeming masses of Cameroonians who argued that the President has already served for a very long time and should step down when his mandate ends in 2011. Prior to its modification, the constitutional amendment proposal became the most unpopular project in public debate, and the February nationwide upheaval has been largely attributed to it, ignihted as it were, by the hike in the prices of fuel.
On that Thursday, before the amendment, the CPDM Parliamentary Group leader urged all CPDM MPs to vote the bill. Among other things, the adopted bill scraps out Article 6.2 that limits the term of office of the Head of State and also gives him immunity against being tried for offences committed while in office.
SDO Convenes Peace Meeting
Meanwhile, in Kumba, soldiers are camped at the Kumba Company Gendarmerie daily. At night, they patrol the town, ostensiby to crush any suspected mobilisation by the population. Besides, the Kumba police have intensified their search of vehicles and people entering the town.
Some people told The Post that they were searched by the police but that they dared not question the motive for their actions.In the same vein, Meme Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, Magloire Abath Zangbwala, convened a crisis resolution meeting on April 11.
According to a communiqu? aired over local radio stations, he invited the Kumba public to meet at the Kumba City Hall. But only a handful of people reported, as many were suspicious of the motive behind the meeting.
Zangbwala said the meeting was to evaluate the February strike in Kumba and seek to forestall such demonstrations in the town in the future.He blamed Kumba people for supporting and condoning with the rioters to destroy private and public property.
Zangbwala disclosed that the administration, in collaboration with clergymen would organise an ecumenical service on Monday, April 14, at the Kumba Urban Grandstand, to try and cleanse the land and invite God to take control of Kumba.
But a cross-section of the population felt that Zangbwala had convened the meeting because he was afraid people could go on strike after the constitution was amended. They further asked why the SDO waited for close to three weeks before convening an evaluation meeting.
They said he would have organised such a meeting after the students' riot that claimed the lives of innocent souls. An observer said the SDO would have publicly declared that the meeting was to prevent a strike after the constitution was amended so that people would have bared their minds on the issue.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Biya Crowned President For Life
By Kini Nsom, PostNewsOnline
The National Assembly , April 10, adopted the Constitutional amendment bill, thereby delimiting the number of presidential mandates in Cameroon.
Observers have interpreted the adoption of the bill as a tacit crowning of the incumbent Paul Biya as life president. The voting of the bill by the ruling CPDM parliamentary majority and its NUDP ally came in the wake of widespread protests by civil society organisations, the opposition and ordinary citizens.
After its proposed amendments to the bill were rejected, the leading parliamentary opposition party, the SDF, stormed out of the House in protest, leaving the CPDM MPs and their NUDP ally to go solo in voting the bill that gives Biya immunity against prosecution for crimes committed in office.
Thus, 157 MPs, out of the 162 present at the hemicycle voted for the adoption of the bill. The four CDU MPs, whose private member's bill on Constitutional amendment was ignored, voted against the bill. The lone MP of the Progressive Movement, Hon. Jean Jacques Ekindi, also voted against it. Thus, only five MPs disapproved of the controversial bill.
Last Thursday's plenary sitting that held a day earlier than programmed was marked by the heavy deployment of troops around the National Assembly premises in the Ngoa-Ekelle neighborhood and in the city of Yaounde in general.
The troops were combat ready to crack down on any group that could muster the courage to protest against the Constitutional amendment. Everybody who came for the occasion was searched. Even journalists who have been covering the National Assembly for years went through humiliating checks and were pushed around by gendarmes.
When the 15 MPs of the SDF Parliamentary Group walked out after the plenary began at about midday, CPDM MPs took turns in calling on their colleagues to vote the bill without hesitating. Everything was done in the presence of the CPDM Secretary General, Rene Sadi, the Prime Minister, Chief Ephraim Inoni, the Minister Delegate at the Presidency In charge of Relations with the National Assembly, Gregoire Sebastien Owona, and other CPDM bigwigs.
All the amendments the NUDP party presented during the plenary were rejected, while those of government were adopted. The Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, amended one provision of the bill, stating that the mandate of the members of the council is renewable.
Open Ballot Controversy
Although the standing orders of the National Assembly provide that votes should be by secret ballot, the voting of the Constitutional amendment bill was by open ballot.
The House Speaker, Hon. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, the Secretary General of the National Assembly, Samson Ename Ename, and other CPDM barons watched keenly to see the MPs who voted for the amendment.
After voting, the Secretary General of the National Assembly read the names of all the MPs who voted for and those who voted against the bill. The names of the MPs were even found in the ballot papers.
When The Post quizzed the MP for the Akwaya constituency, Hon. Paul Ayah Abine, he said the reading of the names for those who voted was a flagrant violation of the standing orders of the House. According to him, the standing orders prescribe secret ballot and nothing else.
During the plenary, the CPDM authorities avoided leaving anything to chance. For want of an absolute win, the National Assembly scribe ordered the Deputy Chief Whip of the CPDM Parliamentary group, Hon. Emelia Monjowa Lifaka, to vote for Hon. Ayah by proxy. But Ayah, who was in Buea, said he was embarrassed when somebody told him that his name was read as one of those who voted the bill.
"I did not authorise anybody to vote for me," he said. He said he wrote a letter to the secretariat of the National Assembly, stating clearly that he would not be attending the plenary. Ayah said he rejected the idea of delimiting the number of presidential mandates and could not turn around to vote the bill.
Condemning The SDF
After the SDF Parliamentary Group MPs marched out of the hemicycle, CPDM MPs took turns in lambasting them. The MP for Lebialem constituency, Hon. Bernard Foju Ateawung, said SDF's walk-out was an undemocratic attitude. He claimed the idea to delimit the number of presidential mandates came from the grassroots.
He said when the SDF went out for campaigns during last year's twin elections, they called on the electorate not to vote for the CPDM because they would change the Constitution. The fact that Cameroonians massively voted for the CPDM, he said, means that they really needed the Constitutional amendment. He said by voting the bill, CPDM MPs were hearkening to the aspiration of Cameroonians.
The MP for Menchum, Hon. Fidelis Nji, described SDF's walk-out as a sheer manifestation of hypocrisy and deceit. He castigated Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam, claiming he gave his blessings to the bill during deliberations in the committee and even participated in writing the report only to turn around and condemn it at the plenary. He wondered who Mbah Ndam was trying to deceive.
Hon. Njingum Musa indicted the SDF MPs for running away from the truth only to go and lie to people in their constituencies. He said the constituencies in the English-speaking parts of the country where the SDF MPs come from are underdeveloped because they always run away when parliament is discussing important issues.
Jean-Jacques Ekindi regretted that SDF MPs moved out of the house and called on them to recognise the fact that they are a minority. Many MPs who took the floor, asked Minister Marafa when ELECAM, the Constitutional Council, the Senate would be put in place.
Marafa said ELECAM would be put in place before the end of June while other institutions enshrined in the Constitution will be put in place progressively.
Reactions
Reacting to the fact that such a bill was voted, Ekindi said it was the greatest violation of the people's sovereignty. He regretted that such a bill came when government had stifled debate on the issue of the Constitutional amendment. To him, the worst of it was when the Littoral Governor, Francis Fai Yengo, banned public meetings in Douala.
He said by going ahead to change the Constitution in such circumstances, the CPDM MPs were in total disregard of the aspirations of the sovereign people of Cameroon.
The NUDP MP for the Benoue constituency, Hon. Amadou Adji, said he was disappointed that the Constitution was amended to block power change, but said he was compelled to vote the bill because of party discipline. CPDM MPs argued that by voting the bill, they had only taken Cameroon to modernism because the limitation of presidential mandates is no longer in fashion in the Western world.
The CDU MP for Noun Constituency, Hon. Hermine Patricia Tomendo Ndam Njoya, said the four MPs of the party voted against the bill because they did not want to be party to the rigging of the aspirations of the Cameroonian people.
Meanwhile, Hon. Evaristus Njong, who is the SDF Parliamentary Group Scribe, described the adoption of the bill as the darkest spot in Cameroon's contemporary political history.
Controversies
The Constitutional amendment seriously tampered with some of the institutions put in place by the 1996 Constitution. For one thing, the new Constitution provides that the Senate would be put in place before the Regional Councils. This means that the Electoral College for Senatorial elections will be municipal councillors and not regional councillors as earlier provided.
Unlike before, the new law gives the interim president the power to hire and fire ministers and even reorganise government within his tenure of office of a maximum 120 days. Many ordinary Cameroonians went into a state of mourning in Yaounde when they learned that the bill was adopted. But no mark of street demonstration was registered anywhere in the nation's capital.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
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Opposition Accused Of Striking Deal With Gov't
By Peterkins Manyong
The Social Democratic Front, SDF, and the Cameroon Democratic Union, CDU, have been accused of striking a deal with government over the recent constitutional amendment. Fru Ndi, who had earlier said at a press conference that his party could not champion the struggle to pre-empt Biya's life presidency, later recommended a constitutional conference when the rest of the country was against any amendment of the 1996 Constitution.
But Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam, one of the Vice Presidents of the National Assembly , has refuted the allegations, maintaining that he and fellow SDF MPs have not betrayed Cameroonians.
A government insider, who preferred not to be named, revealed to The Post that the parties struck a deal with government. He insinuated that participating actively in the debate on the revision of the constitution was a tacit approval of the amendment bill.
The SDF has been faulted for tabling a bill to amend and supplement some provinces of the 1996 Constitution whereas the party's MPs were supposed to maintain the stand of the Cameroonian people that there should be no amendment at all.
Deal?
A two-page document titled Take Special Note On Cameroon Constitution addressed to heads of diplomatic missions in Cameroon tried to buttress the claim. The document states that Article 26 (3) a, b, c, d, of the 1996 Constitution deprives the National Assembly of the powers to amend the Constitution.
The document also cites Article 36 (1) (a), which states that "The President of the Republic may, after consulting with the President of the Constitutional Council, the President of the National Assembly and President of the Senate, submit to a referendum any reform bill."
Therefore, sending a bill to parliament (which is the National Assembly and the Senate) for the amendment of the constitution is illegal and anti-constitutional. The document rather recommended the setting up of a Constitutional Revision Commission manned by political parties and civil society leaders.
The parties to be represented are those who took part in the 2002 and 2007 twin elections alongside prominent civil society personalities, to study articles of the constitution that warrant amendment to present to Cameroonians through referendum following Article 36 (1) (a).
Our source disclosed that Article 26 was injected into the constitution when the opposition had a majority with 92 MPs as against 88 for the CPDM after the 1992 parliamentary elections. Biya feared that the opposition could use their majority to amend the constitution and include articles that could make it easy for Biya to win the October 1992 elections.
This reporter learned that the two-page document, stating that parliament lacked the jurisdiction to amend the 1996 Constitution, was drawn up by Cameroonians in the Diaspora and copies given to the diplomatic community, some political parties including the SDF.
The Post also learned Fru Ndi handed the copy given his party to Hon. Mbah Ndam who used it to strike a financial deal with the Biya regime. It is this same document, which Tabi Awonor has used to sue Biya at the Supreme Court.
Mbah Ndam Refutes Accusation
Mbah Ndam told The Post that he had never seen the document. He said he was not aware that Awonor had sued President Biya at the Supreme Court. He also denied that he and fellow SDF MPs took part in the debate at the Constitutional Laws Committee because they were bribed or supported the idea of the bill.
"If the SDF never tabled the motion as it did, people would have still seen it as a sign of complacency. Whatever we did, nothing would have changed," he said. Many have questioned why it was Mbah Ndam and not Hon. Joseph Banadzem, SDF Parliamentary Group leader, who championed all activities related to the bill.
The CDU has also been accused of compliantly in the plot by first tabling a bill calling for the amendment of the constitution even though it recommended the omission of the controversial Article 6(2).
Whatever the argument it may advance, the parliamentary opposition should not have started the move, calling for constitutional amendment, our informant said. It is noteworthy that SDF National Chairman, John Fru Ndi, called on his MPs not to boycott the session during which the bill was to be tabled.
Fru Ndi, who had earlier said at a press conference that his party could not champion the struggle to pre-empt Biya's life presidency, later recommended a constitutional conference when the rest of the country was against any amendment of the 1996 Constitution.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
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