Tit-bits on the arrests of Inoni and Marafa

By Innocent Chia

There is no one out there - amidst all the prolific, compassionate and educated opinion leaders - that has provided evidence that could possibly acquit Inoni or Maraft in any court of Law. The strongest of arguments has highlighted a Wikileaks quote of President Biya stating that “Inoni has not stolen a lot…and that he was a little fish caught up with sharks in a tank” (my paraphrase). In the dog-eat-dog world of Cameroon, one can readily understand why there can be a claim that a woman is a little pregnant, not pregnant. A woman is either pregnant or they are not. Sympathizers are arguing that Inoni is a little pregnant, the perfect script that works in favor of the prosecution.

If it is the best defense that admirers have of Inoni, they are fortunately not the legal team that must certainly find no solace in Biya’s disguised indictment of their client. In the privileged conversations between President Biya and the US ambassador that Wikileaks has since made public, Biya had some choices regarding Inoni, purportedly said to have sired a child with a close relative of the President.

As it stands, the world knows that Biya elected to pursue a course least hoped for by the Inonites, a camp hardly oblivious to Operation Sparrow Hawk ("Epervier" in French), an initiative to root out some corrupt, high and mighty, political liabilities while appearing to comply to requests for action by Bretton Woods institutions. The degree of involvement of Inoni in the Albatross affair, the reason for which he has been incarcerated since mid-April 2012, is a matter for the courts to ultimately thread out.

But there was a second choice. The closest to the dream of Inoni sympathizers was the choice of absolving Inoni completely. It would have been as simple as not mentioning his name or taking a pass if pressed specifically on it by the Ambassaor. It is definitely not the route that the President took. And it is important to attempt an understanding of why Biya decided that although a small fish in the middle of sharks, there was reason for good riddance and the time was right to dispose of Inoni.

Political Calendar

He ordered the plucking of Inoni, like Marafa Yaya – former Prime Minister and Secretary General at the Presidency respectively - only after the November 2011 Presidential Elections at which he was the victor. There is a general tendency by friend and foe of Biya alike to discount his political acumen and knowledge of the landscape. But here is the genius behind the mad calculus of President Biya:

By a process of elimination, Biya knew he was not going to win the Northwest Region, in spite raising over CFA 400 million francs for the campaign by its business and political elite. He also eliminated the Littoral and West Regions from his win column, leaving him with seven of ten Regions to seek victory in.

Of the seven Regions, he knew he was without contest in the Center, South and East. Basically, four regions were in play - The Big North with three Regions (Adamawa, Extreme North and North) and the Southwest Region. It would be naïve to think that any political actor, even Biya, would want to infuriate and consequently alienate the very people and Regions on which his political future depended.

Biya was not about to commit political hara-kiri by issuing arrest warrants for Inoni and Marafat. While it is debatable how much influence or leverage Inoni or any English speaking Prime Minister (Achidi Achu, Mafany Musonge, Ephraim Inoni and Philemon Yang) has ever had on election results, Biya was not about to put the Southwest Region on the outright loss column. Short of a victory in the Southwest, he could settle for a split.

Up North, however, the political calculus is different. Although not a homogenous group, the perception is generally that the three Northern Regions are a monolith. Nothing could be further from the truth. But perception is often engineered to become reality. And in Cameroon, the political class has fought mightily to largely paint the North such that it reflects the persuasions of the omnipotent Lamidos – religious and traditional authority.

Marafa Yaya, the nemesis of Issa Tchiroma - local griot who became a national griot as Minister of Communication - comes from one of the heavy weight families of the North – like Sadou Hayatou (Prime Minister 91-92), Bello Bouba Maigari, etc. Insiders know that with the exception of Issa Tchiroma, Northern Ministers have a Caucus that mostly stays united and meets ever so often, regardless of party affiliation, to defend their interests.

All of this to say Biya had to have been thinking of how to lose the elections if he had made the decision to arrest Marafa before the polls. The Grand Nord caucus would have come together to cause mayhem for Biya. It was a political risk that Biya was not willing to take. He was aware the consequences were going to be dire and the prospects of winning an indefinite term in office would go up in flames. He was not going to take the risk, not after expending capital for the handclapping parliament to scrap the provision of term limits to allow Biya to become life President.

Yes, Marafa already had a hunch that he was going to be arrested. The many epistles that he has been publishing from jail are testament to how prepared he was for the moment. Yet, if he was a gambler he was ready to bet that Biya would not arrest him immediately before the Presidential elections. Besides, by his own admission, he had advised President Biya to respect the constitution and not run for another term. If anything political observers and the public agree on about Biya, he does not take opposition from within lightly. Look at his jail house, beginning with Titus Edzoa, to see the fate that awaits any vaulting ambition. All these point to the fact that Biya had already decided that these two were going to be arrested. There is hardly any argument that can be made to show that more evidence was gathered between elections in November and when they were arrested in April. Instead, the President wanted to give it some distance so that it would not be so obvious that they had outlived their usefulness.

Political Orphans

Anglophone Ministers are probably some of the most lost souls on the face of the earth. They mostly work as if they are there in spite their cultural identity and linguistic lineage. The fact is they are there in the first place because they happen to be English speaking (Anglophone) Cameroonians. Leaders do not generally form governments from the air. They generally turn to their friends – from school, the old neighborhood, the village, from the old work place…etc.

In the instance of Biya, I will go out on a limb to say he had no exposure to Anglophones when he was growing up. There were none in his formative years at the seminary, up to and including at University level in France. It is safe to say that his first contact with Anglophones was in the Ahidjo government, working with the likes of Philemon Yang and Achidi Achu. Little surprise then, that these are very much the same people that he has kept at close distance over the years, recycling them as need be.

And what about Peter Mafany Musonge, Francis Nchom Nkwain, Dion Nguti, Ephraim Inoni and the rest? These are recommendations for the most part. They are not people that can look you in the eye and say they have ever sat for a cup of coffee with Biya. At best, they are acquaintances and friends of Biya’s henchmen. There is absolutely no one of them that can claim to be an insider in the true meaning of the word.

Which brings us to another major problem that Anglophone Ministers have: They have little to no clout and little to no network in the political capital, Yaounde. The reason is the first thing that they do is alienate themselves from their Anglophone base by becoming the best versions of their Francophone counterparts. It is difficult to say whether the reason is, to use the old expression, to become holier than the Pope. But we know that Anglophone Ministers are often the ones that worry themselves about making speeches in French, mindless the degree of difficulty from both the speaker and the native French listener who has to undergo a linguistic assault on the language. In effect, these public displays of overzealousness and servitude are distractions with little communication impact.

What it means is Anglophones have paper tiger Ministers with no power and no base to fall back on when they come tumbling. That explains why they hang around Yaounde long after they have been booted from government. For the few that are courageous enough to go back to their respective Regions/provinces, they generally live in seclusion because there is little to show the public as projects they initiated or pushed through for the region during their tenure in power… Of course, the little to show for are pieces of land that they grab here and there, commercial real estate investments, and the retirement mansion that is tucked away somewhere in the village, away from the public eye.

It is really difficult to sympathize with these barons when they are jailed like Inoni has been. You can cite the fact that this is a system that he defended tooth and nail, sometimes insulting those who dared question it.

You could say he is reaping what he sowed. It is also true that Anglophones who are appointed need to know who they are representing and stop the naiveté that they are there for all of Cameroon. Look around you. You are there to represent and fight for the annexed people of Southern Cameroons.