A Diplomatic Incident: The Ambassodorgate Affair

 

Louis Egbe Mbua (originally published in Living Lights)

A diplomatic incident in Washington DC has taken an unexpectedly dramatic turn. Civil war erupted in the CPDM Party civil community in America as the Ambassadorgate affair degenerated into a political fist fight. There have been claims and counter claims, denunciations and counter denunciations, renouncement and counter-renouncement; proclamations and counter-proclamations, incantations and counter-incantations; coups and counter-coups, thunder and lightning that concluded with an alleged live punch and counter punch. It has all the trappings of a classic Hollywood movie drama cast complete with characters in a tragic-comedy of Shakespearean proportions.

As each opposing camp after another attempts, albeit pitifully, to extricate themselves from the unexpected and sudden quagmire, Cameroonians, and indeed, the entire civil community, the world over, watch the unfolding spectacle from the sidelines with undisguised glee and amusement as the antics, of what looks like comedians-turned-politicians or the converse, are fed to the public needle-drip by needle- drip; and drop after drop.

The entire Junta, in Cameroon, and its dependencies in the Diaspora have been thrown into complete disarray equal to an irreversible political melt-down.

It is unclear how it all began but it seems there are reliable reports, by the local news agency NBCWashington.com, of a fracas that seemingly came to blows between the Cameroon ambassador in Washington and a group of demonstrators allegedly protesting against embezzlement within or for their payments by the Cameroon Embassy in Washington.

In the ensuing confusion, others within the Cameroon community in America allege that the leader of the protest, Mr. Mpeck, received a powerfully blinding punch from the ambassador while an innocent female on-looker, not involved in the troubles, was allegedly pushed and then rugby-tackled onto the ground by the Ambassador or his minders as the story goes: depending on who you believe.

To add more confusion to the story, a Cameroonian living in America claimed in the Cameroonian discussion e-group, camnetwork, that he booked an appointment with the Ambassador so as to get a gist of his own side of the story. Accordingly, the source claimed, the Ambassador claimed that he was not involved in a fight; and that he was attacked by the protesters as he left his car to enter the Cameroon Embassy grounds.

Another Cameroonian, of source samely named, claims that the Cameroon Ambassador left his office to discuss with the protesters as to assuage their grievances but was greeted with a barrage of well aimed stunning blows. Whoever is right or wrong in this instance is beyond one’s contemplation,  but the whole incident looks like a diplomatic upper-cut against the Cameroon regime and the CPDM party in the USA. How a high-ranking diplomat could have allowed himself to be dragged into a petty street fight is beyond comprehension.

Others proclaim that the Cameroon Ambassador, H.E. Foe Atangana, is a good man with impeccable diplomatic credentials and track record while a Cameroon Consul in Calabar, Nigeria. They cited the Bakassi crisis: saying that he was instrumental in this “success”; but then added with a bitter touch of irony and fierce humour that perhaps he honed his “fighting” skills while negotiating the “peaceful” settlement of the Bakassi confrontation between Nigeria and the Republic of Cameroon.

Whatever view is true or false in this unfortunate incident, the fact of the matter is that the Cameroon Consulates the world over have been hijacked by the ruling CPDM party who appear to believe in a strange kind of out-dated philosophy rather reminiscent of the old totalitarian Soviet Union Communist’s dictatorship of the proletariat: that the CPDM party is supreme, and that the Cameroon nation is second -- a normal diplomatic procedure according to this questionable ideology. The Cameroonian people, on the other hand, see it differently: that the embassy is to serve, with equity and fairness, all Cameroonians including those with dual nationality; and that the Foreign Service should not be politicised – a right judgment. So, when the ensuing "imbroglio" took a scandalous turn, it rapidly transformed into an acrimoniously reverting partisan quarrel; and later, a means by which the purported CPDM leaders  the world over, could defend the Ambassador or the “fatherland” from this imminent disgrace from “outsiders”; as well as to save their own skin from the wrath of the concerned and angry Cameroon people.

First, there was Mrs Patience Tamfu, President of the women’s wing of the ruling CPDM party in the USA, who threw the first political punch in a series of classic tactical political blunders. She came out fighting; claiming that the CPDM party is “behind” the Ambassador; thus, reinforcing the long held belief that the embassy is an appendage of the ruling CPDM junta in Cameroon; and as though to say that if a person is a member of the CPDM, he or she has the right to engage in a boxing or rugby-tackling match in the streets – a flawed mentality. To make matters worse, she went on air and evolved a faceless video with a blushingly ungrammatically ineloquent semi-marathon rant, the incantation of which could easily be identified as that of an all assuming old-guard soviet party apparatchik; and then displaying the kind of tyranny that exists in Cameroon: “warning” her imagined “liar, traitor, thief” not to be “messing around with the wrong person”; and that she is not into the “foolish nonsense”.

Then, enters Lady Kate Atabong Njeuma, also a “Big Hitter” of the CPDM-USA, who gave a rather eloquent and well-crafted “political” statement in camnetwork insinuating that the Ambassador has put in place a “strong team of lawyers”, almost certainly referring to the fighting incident. Again, her conclusions are that the Ambassador must be defended since he is of the CPDM party. In doing so, she unwittingly admits that the Ambassador was involved in the alleged altercation as reported by the local news agency NBCWashington.com. While the writer believes this to be a wise move, it again enters the mind that; had the Ambassador been an independent Cameroonian or an opposition member or a SCNC-SCAPO activist, he would have been left to hang out to dry as the CPDM has been doing to the Cameroon people for almost three decades.

And there is Dr. Emmanuel Konde, a CPDM “strategist”, who appears to be confused, and almost certainly overtaken by the events, and who went on air in camnetwork blaming Cameroonians of the North West region, denouncing them as “unpatriotic” to the “fatherland”. Nobody quite understands why he did this; as no one could find a relation between the people of this part of Cameroon and the fighting incident. How he reached this unenviable misguided conclusion is any one’s guess but he appeared to claim to be a “social philosopher” in which case he had “seen” (probably by some kind of magical incantation which we do not "understand") that the North west region people want to “dominate” Cameroon, and that this, clearly, was the reason they are blaming the Ambassador for involving himself in the daylight unranked boxing match in the open. However, seeing that the tide was turning against the party, he quickly had the good sense to back-track, contradicted or disowned or renounced his former stance, repositioned himself, and then gave another oration blaming the CPDM party for the "imbroglio". Meanwhile, he never mentioned the Ambassadorial boxing-cum-wrestling match as though he knows not why he writes.

Enter Mr. Jackson Nanje, The Publicity and Education Secretary of the CPDM USA. Interestingly, at first glance, he denounced all who condemned the incident with all kinds of words; apparently, denying that nothing happened at the Cameroon Embassy grounds in Washington, and asking readers, with unbridled confidence that: “Where you there?” When he later got the itch that he was fighting a losing uphill battle, he, also, went the same way as his partisan colleagues. He back-pedalled, contradicted his former pronouncements, apparently renounced his former position, and then made a dramatic U-turn to score a spectacular own-goal: penning a long-winding irrelevant and unsubstantiated expose about corruption in the CPDM, and then blaming the Chairman of CPDM USA, Mr. Joe Mbu, for this confusion and corruption; and that there is tribalism within the leaders of the CPDM. Which brings us to the ultimate question: Did Mr. Joe Mbu request of  the Ambassador or the protesters to exchange blows? Reading from the unfolding drama, the answer is a resounding No:

Round and around,
The doubters deep
Into the round
And swirling pond

So, let justice take its natural course in this unfortunate and shameful affair because it is unfair to judge a man without due process.

It should be recalled that, over the years, the two gentlemen mentioned [Dr. Konde Emmanuel and Mr. Jackson Nanje] have been the main chief protagonists of the oppressive regime in Cameroon; a junta that has tormented and tortured Cameroonians in this day and age. In their sayings, they have always defended the atrocities of the regime against Cameroonians – more specifically the killings of young people in the country during the February 2008 general strike; and the extra-judicial shootings of unarmed students at the Buea University demonstrations in 2005 and 2006.

More importantly, they have always called for the elimination of the SCNC, SCAPO exponents, and others who oppose the subjugation of Southern Cameroonians and the open discrimination; human rights violation and theft of their lands and resources by the Republic of Cameroon. One is pleased that they have, at least, acknowledged the deficiencies of the present system of government in Cameroon; and that they should join hands in making a success of the forth coming negotiations between the Republic of Cameroon and the Southern Cameroons for constitutional changes and freedom in Cameroon; and the freedom of Southern Cameroonians from the vice-grip of corrupt leadership and tyranny. Progress can only be attained when those in the dark begin to see the light at the end of the bottomless dungeon. Within light we are all free; and in darkness we are all lost.

Comments

[yes]

Sir

Your article appears to be pretty balanced . Keep it up

Njoh

[Kene]

I am just wondering if the CPDM-USA has become a "nyongo" group. Even those at the scene are not able to give the same account of the event?
Any fighting in public is disgraceful. Hope one honest person will nuke out the truth.

[TAGRO]

Louis, I always enjoy reading you!

The Camerounese junta, like most French-African regimes set-up and managed from Paris, operates like the mafia, largely for the benefit of the Dons in Paris who let loose the street Capos or thugs in capitals like Yaounde, Bangui, Brazzaville, Libreville etc., do their dirty work in francophonic Africa.

Their essence is primitive thuggery. The CPDM brain thrust, always adorned, it seems, in Capo Biya's CICAM-inspired garb with Biya's grining puff-puff face, have revealed that essence.

Son Exellence Foe-Atangana along with the assorted CPDM-USA agents, CPDM-USA philosphers, CPDM-USA strategists, CPDM-USA PR experts, have just simply exposed the 'politics of the bush', the 'politics of monkeys' and its primitive thuggery that is at its core, to a wider audience.

Watch the CPDM primitivos squirm! Watch them threaten each other! Watch them foam at the mouth! Watch them criminally (potentially) implicate each other such as the unsolicited revelation by Mr. CPDM-USA Publicist/Educator of the diplomat who is defrauding a local government by registering his children vehicles as diplomatic property.

Oh boy, its going to be a spectacle: "Republique du Cameroun on the Potomac".

[Danny Boy]

Dr. Louis Mbua Egbe,
I need not read all of your posting to add my two cents to what you are saying. You have always been forthright even when we disagree on certain issues. In this case you are bang on.
As a fellow Diasporan, the question is why are our Embassies and Consulates all over the world being treated as CPDM fiefdoms? When these very nincompoops keep talking to one about demo-crazy in Cameroon?
How odd. Konde has a febrile mind! His gymnastics should not fool any one.

As for Tyson-cum-ambassador, I only wish this savage could have bitten Joe Mbu or the Lady's ear off!

Jokes apart, the CPDM can do the honourable thing. Renounce their tenous hold on our institutions, national or foreign, in the true sense of democracy. Until this happens, Cameroon will always be a joke in the eyes of this simple "Joe SpeaK" and the international community, perhaps!!
There is a hall in Abakwa referred to as the CPDM Congress Hall!!! Now that smacks of insult, Fru Ndi and your advicers where are you? Ostriches!!
SDF--No Manifesto!

[Ma Mary]

When the evil ones are destroying themselves, just stand by and watch.

How any self-respecting person in America can join the dirty CPDM and then beat his chest or her chest beggars the imagination. A bunch of self-serving sycophants.

[Adolf A Agbormbai]

Excellent!

[felix]

Alain Dipoko,
when will you ever regain your senses??
You are always out of topic.I have once said that you bears the image and superscription of the present regime which you are fighting every day to keep in place.
Long ago we know the Regime center could no longer hold, its little wonders that it still survives.Today we see how this weakness is manifesting itself.From Biya's own tribe men to majority of the fang clan now in Kondengui to the exports of the CPDM in USA.
This is just the tip of an ICE Berg.We shall see more of this as time unfold, while the town-crier(Alain Dipoko) of the CPDM will be having a busy work trying to scare away passersby and spectators.

[Kumbaboy]

Felix,

The list has no end. When the curtain closes, there shall also be investigations of killings and witchcraft at the Presidency. The sword of justice is sharp and shall uncover the nasty practices of VIPs from the eastern dark forest.

Alain Dipoko aka Yabassi boy is delibrately provocative but shall jump ship before the cock crows twice. Even Judas had the courge to wait for the third!

[Ma Mary]

Alain Dipoko. If you keep up this crap, I will track your ass down, expose you and get you deported. Nyamfuka. This is a threat. Fair warning.