Cameroons' Spiritual Leader is no More

Come to think of when great people, who have sacrificed their lives in the fight for the spiritual salvation of their nations and humanity in general, pass away. I want to think of the passing away of people like Mahatma K. Gandhi, Bernard Fonlon, Steven Biko, Patrice Lumumba, Socrates, Martin Luther King Jr. John F. Kennedy, Kwame Nkrumah, Bob Marley and ... the list is long.

I am thinking particularly of the in excitable atmosphere that sweeps across the nations of these great minds, and the rest of the world upon their death. Mukong has at last gone to join this line of freedom fighters in the great beyond, and I am very positive that even there he will still fight for the salvation of the soul of this great triangle we call Cameroon.

Yes! Albert Mukong has gone, and torrents or pockets of voices are churning from all corners of the nation expressing varied experiences and or views about the great freedom fighter. Some of these views are very myopic, some as vendetta for some personal or other disagreements the postulants had with Pa Mukong, while some are born of good faith and cautious estimation of the resilience of the diminutive man and the one thing he was always consistent about through out his days on this cruel earth.

(From right to left)
GCI CEO, Clovis Atatah & Ntebo Ebenezer at Burial of
Albert Womah Mukong in Kedjum Ketinguh

The life of Albert Mukong to me, for the short time I have been closely enough to him, is reminiscent of the lives of the great names mentioned above and many others' we continue to read about today. I compare Mukong to this line of greats because of what he believed in and sacrificed his life for.

Martin Luther Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Biko and others are outstanding in my mind not only because of what they fought to achieve for their respective nations and peoples, but also because, I think, they had at the fore of their minds the salvation of all human kinds in all the corners of the earth from the bondage of cynics.

Martin Luther's dream was not of an American society where blacks would acquire more power as to enable them trample over the white majority population that had enslaved them for decades and even centuries. He had a dream of an America where blacks and whites can live together and enjoy equal human rights and dignities in peace and fraternity.

Mahatma k. Gandhi, on his part, didn't ask for more than what was due to his nation or to any human people. He did not seek dominion or revenge over the British for their bloody exploits in India, but simply told the British when your country and mine shall get together on the teachings lead down by Christ in this sermon on the mountain [Mathew, chapter 5-7], we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries but those of   the of whole world”.

This must have been very challenging to British Christian nation, coming from a Hindu it is more like saying let us get together according to the teachings of our own religion, and will make the world a better place than you (the British) and fashion it. This is clear to my mind that the British who claim to be the followers of Christ could not themselves keep to Christ's teachings.

I could go on and on about great people who sacrificed their lives for the salvation of their nations and humanity as a whole, and how they died under weird circumstance as Socrates. Socrates was given a glass of hemlock because he could make a weaker argument such as 'justice pays more than injustice' win a stronger one as ''injustice pays more than justice'' he was therefore accused of corrupting and poisoning the minds of youths and inciting them to rebel against the statuesque, and thus deserved death.

Yes such was the fate of many great figures of the yesteryears: a bad name and then the guillotine. After all, did the savior of man himself not suffer the same fate? 'Down with subversive elements against the fabrics of our society',' to borrow from Ayi Kwei Amar ( The Beautiful ones are not yet born).

Albert Mukong has not died under any weird circumstances. I think his death has, or should bring this nation to crossroads and provide a time for the leadership of this triangle and all of us Cameroonians to reflect deeply into the recess of our minds and the abyss of our hearts about how the live of Albert Mukong has affected and continue to affect our daily lives, and even that of our future generation.

Born of low or humble birth, like most great persons, in the Hamlet of Babanki Tungo, on 23 October 1933; denied the benefit of decent university education forced into politics; betrayed and forced into exile; repatriated a destitute Cameroonian and later into captivity; tortured, tormented and subjected to dejected despondency, salaried across the worst detention centers or centre for producing desired declarations; in the country, and then bastardized, was what characterized the life of this prisoner without a crime.

I have read in papers that Mukong was a very controversial political figure dabbling into politics here and there, joining one political group today and leaving that one for yet another, and trying to impose his views on any political group he could lay his hands on. To me this is ridiculous because I do not see how the above characteristics make him controversial. I think Mukong was, in the words of Gerald Ndikum of the herald newspaper (No. 1526 of 14-15, 2004)"consistent to the end.”

The first thing, we should identify what course Mukong fought for, and then can we determine whether he was consistent or controversial. Was he fighting for the liberation of the Anglophones, Southern Cameroons or Cameroon as a whole? Was Mukong a politician? Did he nurture some selfish ambitions? I will prefer to go on to discuss Mukong, as I know him, hoping that I can in a way help others to form their opinions about who Mukong really was.

Controversialists to me would mean those who stand for one thing or a cause today, and then against the same the very next moment. If this description of controversialists is apt, then Mukong did not fall under the class of controversialists. I think politicians are people who get in to politics with the ambition of occupying political positions. Man is a political animal; we must not loose sight of this truism. Therefore no man can afford not to be interested in the politics of his country. It is good that we first understand what a politician is before deciding whether Mukong was one, and a controversial one for that matter.

In the first half of his life, Mukong was much rested in the politics of his country. I can say he was dragged in to it by circumstances beyond his control, especially after being denied support by the southern Cameroons and the CDC scholarship boards to study abroad in India, America or Britain where he had tuition scholarships After the unification of the two Cameroons, with Mukong failing to secure a place in the political frontline due to cheating and betrayal, he escaped to China following reports that the new government of Cameroon was planning to arrest the leaders of the One Kamerun (OK) party. In Ghana he worked with the EVENING NEWS DR Nkwame Nkrumah's party newspaper.

With the beginning of the political uproar that finally saw the brutal killing of DR Nkwame Nkrumah, Mukong after 14 months detention in Ghana, moved to Togo (1964) where he picked up a teaching job at the Lycee Bonnecaire. He was in Togo only until November of the same year, 1964 and then moved to Nigeria.

The Cameroonian authorities at the embassy in Nigeria placated Mukong with promises of no reprisals to return to Cameroon but failed. They then conspired with the Nigerian immigration authorities and Mukong "s Nigerian passport was confiscated. In the end, Mukong made up his mind to return to Cameroon and face the consequence, and was repatriated "a destitute Cameroonian”.

He was detained on his return to Cameroon but very briefly. Suffice to say that Mukong, at this juncture, resolved his cultural and political ambitions and to take care of his wife and three kids. He sought and obtained a job with the then power cam nurtured ambition to further his education to PhD level in electrical engineering and physics, and to pick up a teaching job in any African university.

These ambitions were thwarted on 6 october1970 when at 5.00 am, "BMM chaps” knock him for the ride that was to take him to the land of the Godless in BMM Yaounde, Mantoum and Tchollire, and   six exact years. Many people, even of heart and stones, have reported shedding tears going over Albert Mekong's recount in "The Prisoner Without A Crime”.

I still shed tears when I read the last pages of his book about how he was relished and sent back to his native Bamenda, a kind of disillusioned and dejected Meka in Ferdinand Oyono's THE OLD MAN AND THE MEDAL. This six years of a kind of torture therapy, intended to make him listless and lethargic, were the most excruciating and revealing in the life of Albert Mukong, as he lived the realities of what only a few of us can barely conjecture, while many others dread even to contemplate. Yes! It's often said that what good people fear to dream, evil people actually do it. It is no doubt, therefore that the six years greatly impacted on the life of my mentor.

The six years however enabled Mukong to search into the depth of his soul and finally redirect his thought to the silent inner voices of him that has all the powers on all creation. It is that Him that gave Mukong the resilience of the six years. It is that Him that gave him the courage to overcome all fears. It is that same Him that gave him the humility to accept that which he (Mukong) could not change. It is that God that gave Mukong through his words in the bible, the wisdom to forgive all those who trampled upon him for NO reason.

It is that God who has directed the course of his life, and Mukong from hence lived a selfless life for the betterment of the plight of the individual in society be they in LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN , in the Southern Cameroons, in Iraq, in South Africa or in any other part of the world.

Had Mukong reserved his energy to fight for his personal greatness, he would have reduced himself to the depredations of our political Lilliputians, especially those who have rubbed shoulders with him and imagined for a second that they could eat with their stinking blood dripping fingers from the same bowls with the god's .Yes! These are those who are quick to cry "controversialist” when Mukong disagrees with them on a political approach. Who told them Mukong wanted to be the president of Cameroon, or a Governor, or a Mayor, or a political figurehead?

Our politicians of today, be they of the ruling party or of the opposition parties, have selfish ambitions, which they pitch above the general good or the common weal of the nation and its millions of people. They lack the cardinal virtues of the quest for community and wisdom, striving in their obscurity to archive the privileges of ruling without an eye for the responsibilities they owe the masses. Very few of our political leaders today are ready to sacrifice time, money and energy, or even one of the above for something that does not generate some direct or indirect benefit to them.

Albert Mukong stood out, and tall too, because he was a politician without selfish political ambitions, because he had been wizened beyond personal vanities, and looked upon the things of the earth as only earthly things for all peoples irrespective of their religious, cultural, political, racial or economic background. Yes this is the Mukong I know; a man who will give out to the extend of starving himself (as Peterkings Manyong of THE POST news paper put it "he was generous to a fault").

Pa Mukong was a man who believed strongly in prayers and fasting; a man who reasoned far above vengeance; a man who will do anything and used any means to bring justice and peace to the commoners. What I am saying here is that Mukong could have dabbled in the multiparty politics starting from the nineties, and even in the SCNC or other pressure groups or movement. But this was just a means to the ends he envisaged for the people .He believed strongly that through this various movements, Cameroon could build a very strong civil society that could enable the participation of all in the determination of a common destiny for all.

He believed that this movements or parties provide a platform for open dialogue where every ones voice can be heard and listened to irrespective of their backgrounds, and such that is the basis of any true democracy. Mukong believed that informed decisions can only be the product of honesty open dialogue where all are given equal participatory opportunities, and not where a few are allowed to take wholly the decision that will shape the lives of the rest of the people.

Mukong's dream and life therefore was NOT of independent Southern Cameroons without justice and respect for human rights and dignities, nor for a LA REPUBLIQUE, without Southern Cameroons where the Francophone are denied justice and freedoms.

It wasn't of a change in the government of Cameroon that would not guarantee justice for the ordinary Cameroonian. Mukong, therefore, would have been satisfied with the present regime if the latter were to introduce and implement reforms that would guarantee equality and justice for all, equal participation in the political life of the nation, the free development of technical abilities, accountability on the part of the government, free and fair elections the rights of a self determination, and above all a playground where all can speak and have their opinions taken into good consideration.

Let us understand Mukong‘s view of the Social Democratic Front party. Mukong was a founding member of the SDF party. He said the SDF was conceived to liberate the marginalized people of the Southern Cameroons. Anywhere, political events in the very early nineties did not permit his active participation in establishing the mission of the SDF, as he was on self-exile following the Yondo Black trail.

All went on well in the SDF after his return from self-exile until when he thought the party was eating up its own children, when some individuals tried to use the party to achieve their vested interests to the detriment of common good. These individuals used very undemocratic means to archive their goals and even used torture on those that stood on their ways. Mukong cried foul and called for the correction of the situation stating that the SDF could not seek to change the system by emulating the undemocratic ways of the CPDM.

This went unheeded by the party hierarchy, and forced Mukong to call for the sanction vote against thee SDF party in the areas where the party perpetrated the abuses Mukong told the press, vehemently, he would go on exile if the SDF were to take over power from the CPDM under the circumstance. "if the SDF, with only vanguards, can afford to torture it's own militants including elected members of parliament, What will happen if they take control of the national gendarmerie,” Mukong wondered aloud.  .

Mukong also frowned at the party's decision to impose candidates on the electorate and not let the electorate elect their own candidates on the level terrain. Note should bee taken that Mukong reminded a committed member (financially too) of the SDF party.

I cannot stop the Mukong-SDF saga without talking about his reaction to an SDF parliamentarian he contacted to intervene in the arrest, jettison to Bafoussam, and detention, of SDF\SCNC militants in Ndop. Mukong sought the intervention of the parliamentarian to ensure that due process of law observed and their human rights respected, and also that the victims are charged with an offence and tried according to the law.

The MP rebuffed Mukong that the victims were arrested in connection to the SCNC, which the SDF had nothing to do with. Mukong said he letter tabled this matter at the NEC meting and at a founding fathers meeting, but that the parliamentarian, who was very close to the party chairman – Mukong himself privy  – reiterated that he could not do anything for the SCNC activists.

Mukong was very perturbed when one of the detainees, Titiahonjo Mathew, also a top member of the SDF Ngohketunjia Electoral District, died in the Bafoussam prison. Mukong later established that, there was a political rivalry between Titiahonjo Mathew and the MP in the electoral district. Mukong, until his death held the parliamentarian, Hon. Yoyo Emmanuel, responsible for the killing of Titiahonjo in prison, and faulted the SDF Chairman for irresponsibility on not pressing on Yoyo to intervene in the Titiahonjo case.

About the SCNC, the factions didn't matter at all to Mukong. He was rather interested in the positive ideas of any faction and would support them in any effort he deemed could bring hope to the lives of the oppressed Southern Cameroonian people.

Thus even though he stood for outright secession as the only solution to the problem of Southern Cameroons marginalization. Indeed, Mukong was a federalist and believed that if Cameroon was to return to a federal system determined by grassroots populations, rather than one imposed on the people, they would have adequate opportunities to direct their destiny and to call their governments to order.

Mukong believed that a structure that offers adequate and genuine opportunities for sharing power between the centre and the localities make good rooms for political accommodation. Accommodation that involves not the elimination of all conflicts, but rather the elimination of all forms of violent conflict, and the lessening of the conditions that might spark violence in the future. Yes! Such was Mukong's philosophy.

I will like to add that federal systems provide more layers of government and thus more settings for peaceful bargaining. I want to pray all to judge Mukong from this point of view. Against the foregone, I see Mukong a selfless humanist from start to finish, rather than a hungry bellicose politician, and urge all Cameroonians to follow in the glow of his candle.

BY SAMBA CHURCHILL CHIFU
(First published in the Herald Newspaper)