Echoes from SW Peace & Dev’t Forum: Paul Biya must hear this!.

17/05/2023

The dust raised by the xenophobic rantings by some speakers at last weekend's South West Peace and Development Forum in Buea, continues to swirl in public debates.

The forum, as propagated, was organised by the South West Regional Assembly, with the objectives being peace and development of the Region. 

These are two issues that are relevant not only to South Westerners, but to Cameroonians as a whole whose country is still groping to emerge from the pangs of multiple dire challenges.

It was on that background, we hope, that the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute, accepted to be patron and sent his Director of Cabinet, Confiance Ebune, who is also Chair of the Steering Committee of the Presidential Plan for Reconstruction and Development of the North West and South West Regions, to represent him at the forum.

“The Prime Minister has asked me to reassure you beforehand that the ears and eyes of government are particularly attentive to the deliberations and conclusions that will come up from this forum,” he said in his opening speech.

Unfortunately, what the ears and eyes of patriotic and nationalistic Cameroonians heard and saw have been revolting, provocative and impinge on peace and development of the Region and the entire country.

The meeting, attended by some 600 delegates from all six Divisions of the Region, was smeared with hate and xenophobic speeches from resource persons. And instead of boos, they were given standing ovations.

Mbella Moki Charles, ‘elected’ Senator for a third term, exhibiting the exact traits of a village champion, in a commanding and angry tone said: “In my village, there is no household without at least one person coming from among those people we don’t like...If that home does not have a houseboy, it has a tenant or has given a room for rents and that room accommodates at least ten people, while the landlord or owner of that house has just two or one family member”.

Mbela Moki, a native of Buea, added that: “The demographic imbalance in the South West Region is taking us to nowhere. My sisters, let’s give birth to more children...you may take it like a joke. All of us who have been able to attend this meeting were able to do so because we have jobs. We have money to pay the transport to come here. With all of that money you have, how many children do you have? The demographic imbalance in the South West Region is taking us nowhere".

Curiously, Senator Mbella Moki, who is now advocating more births in the South West Region, did not tell his audience the number of children he has. 

No matter from what lenses one looks at Senator Mbella Moki’s outing at the South West Peace and Development Forum, the take home message remains that his crude insulting campaign is diametrically at variance with the national and global policy of birth control.

More crude in his own presentation was Prof Enow Orock George, retired medic and former Secretary General of the South West Elite Association, SWELA, an indigene of remote Manyu Division. 

He said: “South Westerners are becoming endangered species in their Region of origin...people we do not like are taking over our land and the daily management of towns and villages in the South West Region”. 

Like Senator Mbella Moki, he was not jeered but cheered.

The key phrase that emerged from the forum was “Those people we don’t like”. 

Who are the “Those people we don’t like,” promoters of xenophobia were referring to? 

To begin with, who delegated them to utter derogatory and xenophobic remarks about “Those people we don’t like,” on behalf of South Westerners at the forum? How were delegates to the forum selected? Were they not just government employees and CPDM lackeys, handpicked by political and administrative elite in Buea and Yaounde?

Even if it was a CPDM rally masqueraded as a forum of South Westerners, their diatribe of “disliking” other compatriots, presumably from the North West Region, meant they had crossed the red line already. 

At The Guardian Post, we go with the feeling that the time has come for the Head of State and Chairman of the ruling party, CPDM; President Biya, should be told what his acolytes are saying to discredit his regime.

Apart from the constitution protecting the rights of Cameroonians and even foreigners wherever they are in Cameroon, it also extends the same equity to indigenes who may be in the minority, not only in the South West Region but in other Regions of the country.

It is shameful and unacceptable that at a time the country is still grabbling with the crisis in the North West and South West Regions, and the Boko Haram insurgents in the Far North Region; that threaten national unity, some little-minded, egoistic and cheap publicity-seeking individuals, masquerading as spokespersons of the South West Region, should spew hate campaign against their fellow compatriots; irrespective of their Regions of origin. 

It is a serious offence!

That is why Cameroonians and the world are watching with keen interest, how President Biya, known to be a legalist, would set an example on those championing the campaign for Cameroonians to dislike each other. 

That should illustrate that the policy of living together and national unity are not fanciful rantings, especially given that such hate speeches are known to have sparked the Rwandan genocide and the Nigerian Biafra war where millions were killed.