Prisoner without a Crime

written by Albert Mukong

Disciplining Dissent in Ahidjo’s Cameroon

Doughty human rights crusader, Albert Mukong was incarcerated for six years in some of Cameroon’s worst detention centres under the despotic regime of late President Amadou Ahidjo. This book details his personal account of the discipline and punishment that the Cameroonian state has systematically dished out to dissidents who have dared to stand their ground. Until his death in 2004, Albert Mukong was without doubt, Anglophone Cameroon’s most conspicuous political prisoner, spokesperson and champion human rights advocate. The particular detention he recounts in this book is evidence of how nationalists such as Ruben Um Nyobe, Ernest Ouandie, Bishop Ndongmo and others, have in their struggles sacrificed enormously so that freedom and democracy might see the light of day in their reluctant Cameroon.

Albert Mukong

Albert Mukong was born in Babanki Tungo in 1933 and attended St. Joseph’s College Sasse, Buea. Apart from being a direct election opponent in the 1950s and1960s of the late John Ngu Foncha – former Prime Minister and Vice-President of Cameroon –, Mukong participated in talks leading to Cameroon’s independence at the United Nations in New York. As Secretary General of the One Kamerun party led by Nde Ntumanzah, Mukong was in direct alliance with the Francophone Cameroon’s UPC of Un Nyobe and Ouandie – President Ahidjo’s main opposition. He may have died of indignity, but he never relented seeking human dignity for all and sundry.