Constitutional amendment sparks tension within CBC.

Since the adoption of the amended constitution, tongues have since been wagging with some Christians expressing discontent at a clause in the amended constitution which will permit the mandate of the Executive President and the entire executive to move from four to five years.

It is important to note that the current Executive President of the CBC, Rev Dr Nditemeh Charlemagne, though is being accused of engineering the constitutional change, has repeatedly vowed that he has no intention to extend his term of office from four to five years. 

Speaking to The Guardian Post, a reliable source within the CBC, who did not want to be named, said, “the truth about the whole issue is that the current Chairman and current Executive President initiated a constitutional review, but did not follow the right procedure”. 

“What is usually done is that the constitution specifies the people who are supposed to take the initiative in any constitutional review and the church’s association or CBC institutions. But they took it from a top-bottom approach, contrary to CBC spirit, which is a congregational system of church governance,” the source said.

Our source added that: “We do not have the hierarchical structure of church governance where leaders impose on the churches. It is instead the churches that work in collaboration with the leaders to effect change. So, they initiated the constitutional review at the level of Bamenda and wrote circular letters to the fields on constitutional revision. In the letters that were written, it was specified that they were going to have a Special General Session to debate and adopt a new constitution”. 

Finding faults with this action, our source said: “That does not exist in the constitution of the CBC. What the constitution specifies is Ordinary and Extraordinary General Sessions. And they went further to prescribe who was supposed to attend the Special General Session; that is the pastor and an elected official. This is a violation of the constitution itself because the constitution specifies who is supposed to attend and the level of representation at the level of the different churches that go for Ordinary and Extraordinary General Sessions”. 

Churches allegedly not given free hand to choose delegates

Our source also went further to decry the fact that contrary to the by-laws of the CBC, the various churches were not given the free hand to choose delegates to attend the Special General Session. 

“Secondly, they imposed an agenda. They also asked the churches to send contributions to the proposed constitutional review. In that said constitutional review, they did not specify which articles were supposed to be reviewed. In an accompanying letter, normally they were supposed to have an accompanying letter that specifies which articles were supposed to be reviewed and why,” the source disclosed. 

“That was not done. They simply sent the document and asked churches, those who cared to verify, to just review anything they wanted touched on the constitution,” our source lamented. 

“So, when they got to the Special Extra-Ordinary General Session in Bamenda, they admitted that they made a mistake by violating Article 33 of the constitution and Article 23 of the by-laws. But they insisted that they prefer that the General Council should vote to push through the idea of constitutional revision,” the source said. 

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