George Ngwane: The Independent Intellectual

Originally published in Post Newsmagazine

Mwalimu George Ngwane is a man of many parts. Writer, poet, peace activist, educationist, political analyst, pan-Africanist, and executive director of AFRICAphonie are all parts of this intellectual machine. Although he could amass easy lucre by simply praise-singing as most Cameroonian “intellectuals” have done, Mwalimu has remained consistent in voicing the peoples’ causes. His uncompromising stance for the people has had dire and sometimes heart-rending professional consequences. Yet, he remains undaunted and his active participation as spokesperson of the Committee for the Participation of Independent Candidates in the Electoral Process in Cameroon stands out as eloquent testimony.

In the following interview, Mwalimu Ngwane elucidates on the raison d’être of the Committee, the stunted evolution of the democratisation process in Cameroon, democracy in Africa, the civil society and more. He was interviewed by Ajong Mbapndah.

Post Newsmagazine: What prompted the idea of a committee to vouch for independent candidates and how will this change the democratic process in Cameroon?

Mwalimu George Ngwane: The committee for the participation of independent candidates is composed of forward-looking Cameroonian patriots who have over the years and at the expense of their political victimisation contributed to what I call the Cameroonian Renaissance. Members of the committee constitute a generation that symbolises a watershed between a waning political class and an emerging leadership; a leadership that sees Cameroon’s future in a new dispensation of democratic development, not the routine folklore of electoral democracy.

Our inspiration to formulate an independent candidature agenda is both internal and external. Internal because of the growing frustrations Cameroonians face in reconciling party sloganeering with social democracy; and also internal because of the lack of intra-party democracy that is blocking avenues of creative criticism and programmatic innovations; but more so external because of the home-grown democratic models that are gaining currency in counties like Benin, Zimbabwe and Mali.

We are convinced that the unconditional participation of independent candidates at all electoral levels in Cameroon will refocus political choices on individual merit, will permit the youth, who are increasingly marginalised in party structures, to assert themselves; and will respond to Cameroon’s constitutional provision which places national sovereignty on the people, not on the parties.

PN: So how has the memo you wrote to the President of the Republic on this independent candidacy been received so far?

MGN: So far our memorandum has not had a response from the President of the Republic, even if we have had verbal acknowledgement of receipt from certain Diplomatic services that were copied. We have also had encouragement from both party members and civil society actors in the country and abroad. I must confess that our committee underestimated the ground swell of opinion that has been in search of other options and alternatives in the face of the inadequacies of party systems. As spokesperson of the committee, I have had interactive radio programmes and e-mail correspondences. The common denominator is that independent candidacy is a political model worth its salt and this has been corroborated by the private bill just released by the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon in which it is clearly stated in Sections 63, 77 and 107 that independent candidates should participate in all elections in Cameroon without let or hindrance.

PN: If the government snubs your request, what other avenues do you intend to use?

MGN: Let me give you the experiences of other countries at least as an indication of the plethora of avenues available to the independent candidacy advocacy. Before 1961, the then Southern Cameroons/West Cameroon and République du Cameroun governments instituted independent candidacy as an electoral law thanks to the lone range voices of people like SE Ncha, Bau Okha, George Etame, AK Ndikum, Fon Angwafor III and Charles Assale. Then, between 1966 – 1983 other lone voices like A.T. Ngunjoh and Abel Eyinga militated for this cause – this is what I call the civil society avenue.

In 1990, countries like Benin and Mali used the National Conference to institute independent candidates in the electoral laws – this is what I call the legislative avenue. In 1983 and 1992, President Paul Biya used his powers as Head of State to introduce independent candidacy only at the presidential elections, albeit with Herculean conditions – this is the executive avenue.

Lastly in Tanzania, in 1993, Reverend Christopher Mtikila filed a petition in the High Court at Dodoma, to seek for private candidates to participate in elections. The High court decided in his favour – this is the judiciary avenue. So there are at least four avenues we can use depending on the circumstances.

PN: Will the predominant Anglophone composition of the committee not put off Francophone Cameroonians?

MGN: When Yondo Black Mandengue, Anicet Ekane, Henriette Ekwe, Charles-Rene Djon Djon, Francis Kwa Moutome, Rodolphe Bwanga, Badje née Julienne Ngo Tang and Gabriel Hamani, all of Francophone stock with only two Anglophones, Vincent Feko and Albert Mukong, were arrested on February 12, 1990 for allegedly being in possession of incriminating documents that “undermined” the authority of the President of the Republic, the Cameroonian people did not see it as an exclusive Francophone-led liberation struggle.

When six Anglophone youths were shot in Bamenda after the 26 May 1990 launching of the SDF party by the Anglophone Ni Fru Ndi, genuine Cameroonians did not consider it as an Anglophone-led democratic struggle. Even when the All Anglophone Conference held in Buea in April 1993, Francophone Cameroonians saw it as a necessary knife to incise the All Cameroonian abscess. In other words, people-oriented democratic struggles neither have tribal nor linguistic colours; they have only one colour – the human colour.
And this is shown by the interest both the Anglophone and Francophone press have manifested in the memo.

PN: What in your opinion accounts for the lacklustre attitude of the civil society in Cameroon?

MGN: We are victims of an imposed neo-liberal democracy that has divided most of Africa into two societies – the state society that is full of greed and the civil society that is boiling with grievance. While the state society reinforces its bonds of graft through smokescreen solidarity and prebendalism, the civil society weakens its stance through the pursuit of individualistic crumbs. But we must be careful because the recent solidarity by more than 700 pauperized labourers of the Cameroon Tea Estate who used their battered bodies as the last defence line of collective survival is testimony that the civil society might be docile but not dull; it might be organisationally weak but not institutionally weakened and it might be ideologically fragile but it is morally firm. Indeed, history has shown on many occasions that just when the civil society is portrayed as being rudderless, a bottom-up emancipatory movement emerges. It is therefore in the interest of state actors to consider the civil society as dormant political and social volcanoes.

PN: What assessment can you make of democracy fifteen years after multiparty politics resurfaced in Cameroon?

MGN: My assessment of 15 years of multiparty democracy in Cameroon is graphically detailed in an earlier treatise I wrote called “Cameroon’s democratic process – Vision 2020"; a treatise for which I suffered intellectual persecution and which has since 2004 earned me an elastic suspension of my duties as Delegate for Culture for the South West Province, just three months after my appointment.

Yet I stand by that constructive treatise and will add that while the one party system emasculated us politically, it saved us economically. In the one party system there was discipline without democracy, but today there is democracy without discipline. We need to review our vision of party politics because the gains of national development in the one party system have today been sacrificed on the altar of futile electoral exercises and sterile political pontifications.

Political parties that were supposed to articulate the social interest of the masses and to provide concrete human and structural development solutions have instead become conduits of immunity for the pornographic personalization of power, the primitive accumulation of wealth and the predatory criminalisation of the state. The two recent Congresses held by the SDF and the CPDM (the main parties in Cameroon) still show how far Cameroonians will have to journey with the party politics of personality cult instead of nationalistic vision.

A vox pop conducted by a local tabloid in the month of July revealed that Cameroonians are losing trust in our political system. The respondents feared Cameroon would be doomed until a trustworthy alternative to power emerges. And this seems to be a world trend because a recent UN Report also reveals that less than 20 percent of Latin Americans have confidence in political parties and only one in three is satisfied with democracy in their countries.

PN: How do you see the future of democracy in Cameroon?

MGN: There is no doubt that we have made strides in democracy as a concept but we have a problem managing, consolidating and sustaining it. Politicians must recognise that what happens to citizens between elections is as important as what happens during elections; indeed, sometimes it is not elections that fail, it is governments that do. We must eliminate this monolithic mentality that sees criticism as subversion and that equates fanaticism with patriotism.

Cameroon has a very bright future simply because the Almighty God is in total control. But we must not allow God to lose his patience. All of us need to make democracy a social contract, an economic glue that binds us. The search for democratic structures like the Independent Election Commission and private candidacy should go beyond the multiplication of elections and the multiplicity of election candidates, for our democracy can only make meaning if it impacts on the quality of life of the Cameroonian people.

As I see it, the 2007 municipal and legislative elections and subsequently senatorial elections should provide us with an opportunity to make informed political choices not on tribal sentiments or sheepish party lines, but on the intrinsic values and philosophies of the candidates, private or party.

In the following interview, Mwalimu Ngwane elucidates on the raison d’être of the Committee, the stunted evolution of the democratisation process in Cameroon, democracy in Africa, the civil society and more. He was interviewed by Ajong Mbapndah.

Post Newsmagazine: What prompted the idea of a committee to vouch for independent candidates and how will this change the democratic process in Cameroon?

Mwalimu George Ngwane: The committee for the participation of independent candidates is composed of forward-looking Cameroonian patriots who have over the years and at the expense of their political victimisation contributed to what I call the Cameroonian Renaissance. Members of the committee constitute a generation that symbolises a watershed between a waning political class and an emerging leadership; a leadership that sees Cameroon’s future in a new dispensation of democratic development, not the routine folklore of electoral democracy.

Our inspiration to formulate an independent candidature agenda is both internal and external. Internal because of the growing frustrations Cameroonians face in reconciling party sloganeering with social democracy; and also internal because of the lack of intra-party democracy that is blocking avenues of creative criticism and programmatic innovations; but more so external because of the home-grown democratic models that are gaining currency in counties like Benin, Zimbabwe and Mali.

We are convinced that the unconditional participation of independent candidates at all electoral levels in Cameroon will refocus political choices on individual merit, will permit the youth, who are increasingly marginalised in party structures, to assert themselves; and will respond to Cameroon’s constitutional provision which places national sovereignty on the people, not on the parties.

PN: So how has the memo you wrote to the President of the Republic on this independent candidacy been received so far?

MGN: So far our memorandum has not had a response from the President of the Republic, even if we have had verbal acknowledgement of receipt from certain Diplomatic services that were copied. We have also had encouragement from both party members and civil society actors in the country and abroad. I must confess that our committee underestimated the ground swell of opinion that has been in search of other options and alternatives in the face of the inadequacies of party systems. As spokesperson of the committee, I have had interactive radio programmes and e-mail correspondences. The common denominator is that independent candidacy is a political model worth its salt and this has been corroborated by the private bill just released by the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon in which it is clearly stated in Sections 63, 77 and 107 that independent candidates should participate in all elections in Cameroon without let or hindrance.

PN: If the government snubs your request, what other avenues do you intend to use?

MGN: Let me give you the experiences of other countries at least as an indication of the plethora of avenues available to the independent candidacy advocacy. Before 1961, the then Southern Cameroons/West Cameroon and République du Cameroun governments instituted independent candidacy as an electoral law thanks to the lone range voices of people like SE Ncha, Bau Okha, George Etame, AK Ndikum, Fon Angwafor III and Charles Assale. Then, between 1966 – 1983 other lone voices like A.T. Ngunjoh and Abel Eyinga militated for this cause – this is what I call the civil society avenue.

In 1990, countries like Benin and Mali used the National Conference to institute independent candidates in the electoral laws – this is what I call the legislative avenue. In 1983 and 1992, President Paul Biya used his powers as Head of State to introduce independent candidacy only at the presidential elections, albeit with Herculean conditions – this is the executive avenue.

Lastly in Tanzania, in 1993, Reverend Christopher Mtikila filed a petition in the High Court at Dodoma, to seek for private candidates to participate in elections. The High court decided in his favour – this is the judiciary avenue. So there are at least four avenues we can use depending on the circumstances.

PN: Will the predominant Anglophone composition of the committee not put off Francophone Cameroonians?

MGN: When Yondo Black Mandengue, Anicet Ekane, Henriette Ekwe, Charles-Rene Djon Djon, Francis Kwa Moutome, Rodolphe Bwanga, Badje née Julienne Ngo Tang and Gabriel Hamani, all of Francophone stock with only two Anglophones, Vincent Feko and Albert Mukong, were arrested on February 12, 1990 for allegedly being in possession of incriminating documents that “undermined” the authority of the President of the Republic, the Cameroonian people did not see it as an exclusive Francophone-led liberation struggle.

When six Anglophone youths were shot in Bamenda after the 26 May 1990 launching of the SDF party by the Anglophone Ni Fru Ndi, genuine Cameroonians did not consider it as an Anglophone-led democratic struggle. Even when the All Anglophone Conference held in Buea in April 1993, Francophone Cameroonians saw it as a necessary knife to incise the All Cameroonian abscess. In other words, people-oriented democratic struggles neither have tribal nor linguistic colours; they have only one colour – the human colour.
And this is shown by the interest both the Anglophone and Francophone press have manifested in the memo.

PN: What in your opinion accounts for the lacklustre attitude of the civil society in Cameroon?

MGN: We are victims of an imposed neo-liberal democracy that has divided most of Africa into two societies – the state society that is full of greed and the civil society that is boiling with grievance. While the state society reinforces its bonds of graft through smokescreen solidarity and prebendalism, the civil society weakens its stance through the pursuit of individualistic crumbs. But we must be careful because the recent solidarity by more than 700 pauperized labourers of the Cameroon Tea Estate who used their battered bodies as the last defence line of collective survival is testimony that the civil society might be docile but not dull; it might be organisationally weak but not institutionally weakened and it might be ideologically fragile but it is morally firm. Indeed, history has shown on many occasions that just when the civil society is portrayed as being rudderless, a bottom-up emancipatory movement emerges. It is therefore in the interest of state actors to consider the civil society as dormant political and social volcanoes.

PN: What assessment can you make of democracy fifteen years after multiparty politics resurfaced in Cameroon?

MGN: My assessment of 15 years of multiparty democracy in Cameroon is graphically detailed in an earlier treatise I wrote called “Cameroon’s democratic process – Vision 2020"; a treatise for which I suffered intellectual persecution and which has since 2004 earned me an elastic suspension of my duties as Delegate for Culture for the South West Province, just three months after my appointment.

Yet I stand by that constructive treatise and will add that while the one party system emasculated us politically, it saved us economically. In the one party system there was discipline without democracy, but today there is democracy without discipline. We need to review our vision of party politics because the gains of national development in the one party system have today been sacrificed on the altar of futile electoral exercises and sterile political pontifications.

Political parties that were supposed to articulate the social interest of the masses and to provide concrete human and structural development solutions have instead become conduits of immunity for the pornographic personalization of power, the primitive accumulation of wealth and the predatory criminalisation of the state. The two recent Congresses held by the SDF and the CPDM (the main parties in Cameroon) still show how far Cameroonians will have to journey with the party politics of personality cult instead of nationalistic vision.

A vox pop conducted by a local tabloid in the month of July revealed that Cameroonians are losing trust in our political system. The respondents feared Cameroon would be doomed until a trustworthy alternative to power emerges. And this seems to be a world trend because a recent UN Report also reveals that less than 20 percent of Latin Americans have confidence in political parties and only one in three is satisfied with democracy in their countries.

PN: How do you see the future of democracy in Cameroon?

MGN: There is no doubt that we have made strides in democracy as a concept but we have a problem managing, consolidating and sustaining it. Politicians must recognise that what happens to citizens between elections is as important as what happens during elections; indeed, sometimes it is not elections that fail, it is governments that do. We must eliminate this monolithic mentality that sees criticism as subversion and that equates fanaticism with patriotism.

Cameroon has a very bright future simply because the Almighty God is in total control. But we must not allow God to lose his patience. All of us need to make democracy a social contract, an economic glue that binds us. The search for democratic structures like the Independent Election Commission and private candidacy should go beyond the multiplication of elections and the multiplicity of election candidates, for our democracy can only make meaning if it impacts on the quality of life of the Cameroonian people.

As I see it, the 2007 municipal and legislative elections and subsequently senatorial elections should provide us with an opportunity to make informed political choices not on tribal sentiments or sheepish party lines, but on the intrinsic values and philosophies of the candidates, private or party.