Satanic Verses: Why Loudest Voices Against Marafa; What Became Of Cavaye’s Sentencing Of Iya Mohamed In Parliament?

Hon Cavaye Yeguie

Rt. Hon Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, House Speaker of the Cameroon National Assembly took the rostrum of the Glass house on Tuesday May 5, 2012 to preside over the opening of the second session of parliament for the 2012 legislative year. The House speaker in his opener did not end at citing the activities of members of the Glass house during the inter-session but hurriedly took a greater part of his opening speech to fire serious verbal bullets on those he described as enemies of Cameroon’s economic progress. Hon Cavaye said this category of people were responsible for the demise of Cameroon through corruption and embezzlement of public funds. What was exceptional in Cavaye’s opener was the fact that he spent a greater part of his speech talking about what is currently being referred to in Cameroon media landscape as the “Marafa Affair’, without mentioning the name of Marafa Hamidou Yaya. Although Cavaye called no names, he left nobody in doubt that he was referring to the former Secretary General at the Presidency, former Minister of State, Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, Marafa Hamidou Yaya who was arrested on April 16, 2012 and is presently incarcerated in SED. This became more apparent when Cavaye said culprits of embezzlement instead of defending themselves in court have decided to manipulate public opinion which they now hold hostage through the publication of public letters.

However, Hon Cavaye’s diatribe and loud sounding warning about embezzlers did not found total favour amongst all the MPs from the Northern part of Cameroon as many of them shuffled their feet in disapproval each time they sensed the House speaker was talking about Marafa. But these visible signs of disapproval did not stop Hon Cavaye in his attempt to chastise embezzlers of public funds. He said government has taken a giant step in the fight against corruption, adding that the legislature was fully behind the Head of State in his unbending drive towards cleaning Cameroon of the corruption gangrene. Rt. Hon Cavaye called on the people’s representatives to be vigilant and act as precursors to the fight against corruption and embezzlement of public funds.

Hon Cavaye’s loud cry was coming on the heels of a public outcry by the CPDM in national seminars recently organised across the national territory to douse the ‘Marafa affair’ fire that is threatening to consume the CPDM regime. Just as Cavaye received disapproval from a cross-section of MPS from the Northern Region, so were the CPDM delegations dispatched to the three Northern Regions that had a herculean task convincing CPDM militants on the raison d’être of Marafa’s arrest. In Garoua, the fief of Marafa, a fight broke out between pro-Marafas and pro-government and many people sustained injuries.

Many CPDM bulwarks like Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo and Joseph Anderson Le ,have also come out loudly trying to defend President Paul Biya why deriding the open letters written by Marafa from his prison cell. Even the Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary has been upbeat in quelling the fire lit by Marafa’s letters. He held a press conference with Radio and TV stations cautioning them to refrain from giving more vent to discussions about Marafa. Issa Tchiroma’s apparent censorship came on the heels of serious debates on private radio and TV stations on the open letters of Marafa to the Head of State, debates that were considered by the government as provocative and inciting tribal hatred.

The issue by barons of the regime to defend the Head of State is legendary in Cameroon. When Cameroon was classified as the most corrupt nation, barons of the regime immediately swung into action defending the indefensible. Equally when an international NGO, Catholic Coalition against Poverty and Hunger published a report that accused the Presidential family of having illicit wealth, and accused President Paul Biya of financial extravaganza in the Island Resort of Baule in France, barons of the regime immediately constituted multitudes of defense to clear President Paul Biya who surprisingly remained very mute as he is in the Marafa’s letters. Barons of the regime are again shouting on roof tops to defend the Head of State of the accusations levied on him by Marafa in his open letters. Of what importance and of what consequences are their loudest voices that are inundating air waves and occupying space in newspapers?    

 Hon Cavaye can be considered as a barking dog that does not bite. Thus his entire diatribe on Marafa could not go beyond the distance that the loudspeakers in the National Assembly could echo.  This is because he can only end at making speeches with no follow-up. Under his tenure as House Speaker, the National Assembly has engaged only two parliamentary commissions of inquiries, and only the results of one of these two commissions bore fruits as the Mounchipou Gate was uncovered.

 During the session of June 2011, Cavaye Yeguie Djibril came out very loud and alarmist about SODECOTON. He told the government and MPs that SODECOTON’s production had dropped from 300,000 tons to a meager 114,000 tons and had only 170,000 producers from an initial figure of 370,000 producers. Hon Cavaye went forward to add that SODECOTON’s profit margin had fallen by 30% as the few producers that remained were selling their produce in the black market. The House Speaker said all this was happening because of Iya Mohamed, the Director General of SODECOTON who was inept and was spending most of his time in planes travelling instead of managing SODECOTON that catered for the livelihoods of the population of the three Northern Regions.  Hon Cavaye called on government to rescue SODECOTON by sacking Iya Mohamed from the helm of the structure. He passed judgment on Iya Mohamed and sentenced him in parliament without listening to him. After sentencing Iya Mohamed in the Glass house, everybody thought that the Head of State was going to sack Iya Mohamed the next day. It did not come to pass. Instead the Minister of Agriculture visited SODECOTON and congratulated Iya Mohamed for a tremendous job at the helm of SODECOTON.

Nevertheless, many thought that Iya Mohamed would be sacked during the Board meeting of SODECOTON. It did not still come to pass as the Board meeting of SODECOTON instead congratulated Iya Mohamed and voted another budget for him to control. So of what use is Cavaye’s loud noise about Marafa? Can parliament do anything about the open letters Marafa is writing to the Head of State and how? Why all the loudest noise about Marafa when nothing can stop his letters or force him to cooperate with the judiciary that he is despising? Has Marafa who has served the regime for close to 17 years and was picked up and incarcerated suddenly metamorphosed into an enigma or a cross-word puzzle that the judiciary, legislative and executive are putting all hands on deck to resolve? Time will tell.