CI-NEWS

Unsavoury comments on Anglophone crisis: Hon. Awudu Mbaya takes Momo to task!

2019-07-09

No: 435

Unsavoury comments on Anglophone crisis:

Hon. Awudu Mbaya takes Momo to task!

But controversial minister remains unrepentant; insists by taking up arms, Anglophones have become “enemies of the Republic”

The intervention of Hon. Audu Mbaya Cyprien at the National Assembly last Wednesday after his colleagues of the SDF had walked out in protest against non-debate on the Anglophone crisis appeared an anti-climax. But the ping-pong that ensued between the National Assembly quaestor and H.E. Jean De Dieu Momo, Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Justice, in the course of the debate before adoption of bill, was something to write home about.

The two politicians nearly came to blows over what was seen as disrespect by Momo of the office of Senior Deputy Speaker and his outrageous comments on the Anglophone crisis during strategic media outings.

Responding to one of the questions posed by Hon. Enwe Francis on the minister’s unsavoury comments on the Anglophone crisis, Momo created more controversies and blunders. First, he addressed Hilarion Etong who chaired the deliberations as deputy speaker and then began talking about his past defence of the cause of common law lawyers when the Anglophone crisis broke out.

Calling for a point of order, Hon. Awudu Mbaya moved to the rostrum and first reminded Momo that he erred in addressing Hon.Hilarion Etong as Deputy President. Momo demanded an apology for this which was accepted. As he started addressing the Anglophone question to which he was quizzed, he rambled about his past history as a human rights activist and how his former friends of the opposition were setting traps for him and wanted him to fail.

Hon. Awudu Mbaya again moved to the rostrum to remind the minister that he had gone off topic and wasted time passing judgment on the people’s representatives when he had never been one.

In reply, the controversial Momo accused his Friends of yesterday of deliberately distorting his comments on the Anglophone crisis.

“Today, my friends of yesterday cut part of words in a video. In it I was portrayed as member of government drinking palm wine from my village and eating greedily,” he complained.

He then insisted that by taking up arms against the state, Anglophones had become “enemies of the republic”and must be treated as such. He said what was happening in the North West made him recall what happened to the Bamileke when they went into the maquis and it was the population that paid the price

While acknowledging that he was ashamed of some positions he had taken in the past, Momo who is president of PADDEC party said he had now decided to place himself above his past. He said if Ambazonians (not Anglophones) take up arms to enter the forest does that prevent me from drinking my palmwine in Yaounde?”

It should be reacalled that unruffled by criticisms that he was making statements unbecoming of a member of government, the president of PADDEC has multiplied outings on the private media on burning issues in the country.

The most recent controversial stance taken by the junior minister was on the Anglophone crisis.

Speaking on the program « Entretien avec… on STV -9 : 00 to 11 :00pm Thursday June 20th 2019, Jean De Dieu Momo recommended that rather than dialogue with bandits, government should equip vigilante groups in the North West and South West regions to assist the military to fight against Ambazonia boys. The system, he said, worked in the 1960s.

Talking about dialogue, he said he was not for inclusive dialogue recommended by the international community.

On the holding of Anglophone General Conference, Momo said he was skeptical it could work against the state because Catholic priests are more of politicians. He questioned why Cardinal Tumi was more interested in the process of peace today when he turned down a call from the people to stand for presidential elections.

On how to develop Cameroon, Momo said the country could develop just from the commercial motorcycle sector. He proposed “Benskin Insurance SA” which could grow to a bank and later construct a cement factory called “Benskin Cement Factory”.

Momo sounded even more controversial when he said Cameroon is too young as a nation to embrace democracy. For him democracy cannot triumph in an unstable country.

While in the opposition, he is known to have fought for a reform of the electoral code, but now he thinks it is very good and matches with the political life in Cameroon.

In what was seen as an act of ingratitude, the minister delegate who is known to have sprung to prominence while serving as counsel in an international court urged Cameroonians to see the horror in Libya and other African countries and understand that the international community does not help.

Momo had shortly after his appointment angered the Israelis and the Cameroonian political class when he warned his Bamileke brothers against supporting Prof. Maurice Kamto’s MRC and its revolutionary antics on pain of having a pogrom revisited on them like the powerful Jews had suffered under Nazi Germany. The utterances created a diplomatic incident with the Israeli government, constraining the government to distance itself from Momo, saying he was speaking as a political party leader and not as a member of government.

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Unsavoury comments on Anglophone crisis: Hon. Awudu Mbaya takes Momo to task!