This is excerpted from Professor Emmanuel Konde's forthcoming monograph titled Political Transition in Cameroon: From Ahidjo's Old Order, Biya's New Deal, to Fru Ndi's Multipartyism? Vincent Feko and Albert Mukong were political allies in the struggle for multipartyism in Cameroon. No narrative of the work of Feko in this regard would be complete without mention of Mukong.
By Emmanuel Konde, 2013
Vincent Feko and Albert Mukong were friends for 34 years and he, above all else, probably knew Mukong best. His revelations about Mukong’s struggles to create the Social Democratic Front (SDF) have not only debunked the testimonies hitherto presented by others but also shed some light on how that political party was founded. At the time of his meeting with Mukong in 1989, Feko was a contract worker with the Customs Service at the Douala Port. Vincent Feko, a rare political figure who never sought the limelight, was a graduate of Sasse College and studied economics at Cuttington College in Liberia on a USAID scholarship.
Toward a Multiparty System
Two major political forces altered the face of Cameroon politics in the 1990s. One emerged from English-speaking Cameroon and the other from French-speaking Cameroon. Neither of these forces could have succeeded without the assistance of the other. Although these forces failed to converge into a combustible political mixture, each nonetheless, influenced the transition of Cameroon from a one-party to a multiparty system. The catalyst for multiparty politics in Cameroon, as Dibussi Tande accurately posited was the Yondo Black Affair that suddenly erupted like a whirlwind in Francophone Cameroon. What has been in dispute for some time, however, is the originator of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) whose roots are deeply embedded in Anglophone Cameroon.
Of the founding fathers of the SDF we know. That these founding fathers can be reduced to just one founder is a question whose answer I do not propose to offer. What I propose to offer here is a partial catalog of the men whose efforts made the SDF possible. That a group of individuals had met on November 11, 1989 in the Bamenda Presbyterian Church Center to organize the SDF is not in dispute. That the members of this group, including Justice Nyo Wakai, Clement Ngwasiri, Siga Assagna, John Fru Ndi, and Albert Mukong can be called “founding father” is neither at issue here. At issue is who originated the idea. Below are three versions of varying lengths that purport to illuminate the question of originator. The three names often mentioned are Ndeh Ntumazah, Albert Mukong, and John Fru Ndi. From my reading of what transpired, however, I came to the conclusion that the three men were somehow linked to one another. Whether this controversy is a matter of mere semantics or actual substance is not made any clearer here; but it goes deep into explaining some of the insignificant issues that can bog down a sublime political endeavor.
Ndeh Ntumazah, the last of the original UPC leaders (see Chapter 2: The Turning Point) is on record as saying that he was the originator of the SDF. Ntumazah is noted to have asserted that: “I say this without feeling that I have betrayed Fru Ndi, that the SDF was my brainchild….” Although Barrister Luke Sendze, a principal player in the founding of the SDF and contributor of case documents for the publication of Ntumazah’s autobiography dismisses this assertion, he admits of a declaration Ntumazah made to him one evening:
"I told Fru Ndi that he would be a great hero for this country fighting the French than trying to outwit them. I told him that so long as the French are in control… he has no chance of becoming president of this country. It is the French who decide who governs this Cameroon, not the ballot box. Until you chase away the French, no amount of protest will change anything."
A more detailed account comes from Vincent Feko, who accompanied the late Albert Mukong to two meetings they held with their Francophone counterparts in Douala in December 1989 and January 1990. These meetings would result in their being arrested by the Cameroon authorities and also the demise of the one-party system in Cameroon. What follow is Feko’s recollection of those meetings, which I have documented at the end.
Vincent Feko recollects that “the idea to create this political party was brought up by Albert Mukong, and it was him who after his release from prison took the initiative to contact us individually to join him to create the party. I am talking about the real founding fathers of the SDF.” The main objective of the SDF at its conception was to work for a return to the two-state federation. Thus, it became necessary to identify some serious French-speaking Cameroonians to join in this mission. Again, it was Mukong who initiated the search for Francophones. The Francophone whom Mukong first contacted was Professor Jean Michel Tekam, who was based in Paris. Given the fact that Professor Tekam was abroad and thus felt that he could not contribute effectively to the project at hand from long distance, he directed Mukong to make contact with a friend of his in Douala named Yondo Black.
Vincent Feko, 1937-2013
In December 1989 Albert Mukong went to Douala to meet with Yondo Black. Vincent Feko attended the meeting at which Mukong briefed Yondo Black on the project he was working on. His goal was to persuade the latter to join him in founding a new political party. According to Feko, at the end of Mukong’s presentation Yondo Black paused for a moment to reflect on what Mukong had divulged. Then, “embarrassingly, [Yondo Black] turned around and tried to sell us the same commodity which we had proposed to him a moment earlier.” Yondo Black told Mukong and Feko that he was heading a group that was working on a similar project as theirs and called on Mukong and Feko to join them.
Two Cameroonians, it seems, had been thinking about and working toward forming a political party at about the same time. Both, it seems again, had been responding to what they perceived as oppressive political conditions that prevailed in their country under the monolithic single party system. From all apparent indications Albert Mukong and Yondo Black were searching for ways to alleviate the political domination of the CPDM and to open up Cameroon to political pluralism. This development was a good thing. It reflected something positive about the political future of Cameroon. But the suspicion that has divided Anglophones and Francophones since the unilateral transformation of the United Republic of Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon in 1985 by President Paul Biya seems to have intruded itself deep into the noble cause espoused by Yondo Black and Albert Mukong. This suspicion, which was clearly manifested in Vincent Feko’s analysis of what was happening before his very own eyes, no doubt contributed to preventing the coalescing of two potentially formidable democratic forces to symbiosis. Rather than seize that auspicious moment to bring the democratic Anglophone and Francophone forces together, Feko instead smelled a rat and allowed his distrust of Francophones to overwhelm his judgment. As Feko himself tells it, he felt that Yondo Black was being dishonest. Feko reasoned that had Yondo been working on such a project his close friend, Professor Tekam, would definitely have not only been privy to it but would most likely have hinted Mukong. A great opportunity for crafting a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship linking Francophone and Anglophone political operatives was thus squandered.
Mukong and Feko left Yondo Black. On their way out, Feko, who admits of being bitter and disappointed by Yondo Black’s performance, told Mukong that they should not go to Yondo again and suggested that they should seek some other Francophone collaborators but not Yondo Black, Vincent Feko was obviously convinced that Yondo Black had just learned of the idea about floating a political party from them and was trying to pull a fast one. This narrative by Vincent Feko was revealed during an interview with a local newspaper in 2006, more than 16 years since the 1989 meeting with Yondo Black, and nearly five years after the death of Albert Mukong.
Despite the disappointing first meeting, Mukong, who had an uncanny instinct for political action, and Feko, met again with Yondo Black on January 23, 1990. This was a chance meeting, since the circumstances that led to the second meeting were accidental. Albert Mukong had learned that Professor Jean Michel Tekam was visiting Cameroon and that the latter was lodging at Hotel Beausejour in Akwa, Douala. He left Bamenda for Douala to meet with Tekam. Upon arriving Douala, Vincent Feko accompanied Mukong to Hotel Beausejour where they were supposed to meet Professor Tekam. Unfortunately, the professor was absent when the two men arrived. They were told that Tekam was out. It would appear that the planning of this meeting was executed haphazardly, perhaps to circumvent the security police from tracing Mukong’s movements. Otherwise, it is not clear why Mukong and Feko to have had a rendezvous with Tekam only to be disappointed by his absence.
After waiting for sometime and Tekam did not show up, Mukong suggested that they should visit Yondo Black, whose residence was not far away from Hotel Beausejour. The pair drove to Yondo Black’s place. Soon after they entered Yondo Black’s home, Professor Tekam and Gabriel Hameni, the Principal of Lycée Jos in Douala, joined them. In all, there were about nine or ten people in the room where the group met. Excepting Mukong and Feko who were Anglophones, the other seven or eight there gathered were Francophones. Mukong and Feko once again tried to persuade them to join the Anglophone project of founding a political party; but the Francophones were adamant. Feko reported that he had “the impression that they saw the situation as one of rivalry between a Francophone and an Anglophone group. To them, it was a matter of seeing which group’s planning to float a political party would do it first.”
Nevertheless, the group of Francophones and Anglophones discussed two important documents presented to them by Yondo Black, host and leader of the Francophone group (Yondo Black Group). The first of these documents was a sort of state of the nation address, the other a manifesto of the projected political party. Although the political party was not named, after discussing the two documents the group decided to merge them into one and have it translated into English.[3] Obviously, the Francophone Yondo Black Group was probably far advanced with its planning for lunching an opposition party against the hegemony of the ruling CPDM than the Anglophone Mukong Group. What is not clear is whether the idea of launching a political party was being developed at the same time by a Francophone (Yondo Black) and an Anglophone (Albert Mukong), or whether as Vincent Feko suggests, the idea was developed by the Mukong and stolen by Yondo Black. Timelines notwithstanding, the opposition forces suddenly coalesced and burst forth into the Cameroon political scene in the first half of 1990. Yet the inability of Francophone and Anglophone political operatives to form a united front at the propitious moment was symptomatic of the problems that have plagued Anglophone-Francophone relations in general and opposition collaboration in particular. The last contender for the position of founder of the SDF is John Fru Ndi, chairman of that party since its inception in 1990. A more detailed treatment of Fru Ndi is presented below, but a synoptic appraisal of the life of Albert Mukong would be apropos.
Albert Womah Mukong, 1933-2004
Albert Womah Mukong was the last of Cameroon’s authentic nationalists, all of whom never compromised principle for political expediency; none held political office or exercised political power. Many of these—Ruben Um Nyobe (1958), Felix Roland Moumie (1960), Ernest Ouandie (1971)—were assassinated by those whose hold on power they threatened. Only two lived to old age: Albert Mukong and Ndeh Ntumazah. Like Ntumazah, Mukong’s political life encompassed all the significant events of the nationalist and postcolonial phases of Cameroon’s political history. Unlike Ndeh Ntumazah who has held true to the original course for which he subscribed in the late 1940s, however, Albert Mukong vacillated from nationalist (One Kamerun - OK) to sectionalist (Social Democratic Front - SDF) to separatist (Southern Cameroons national Council – SCNC) and adhered to almost every political tendency in Cameroon. The one position from which Mukong never wavered was that of freedom for all Cameroonians. In a republic where rights and liberties were conspicuously in short supply, Mukong suffered enormously for his stance.
Mukong belongs to a pantheon of Cameroonian political heroes. He was hewn from a special fabric, intricately interwoven in spirit with a select group of Cameroonians that included the likes of Ruben Um Nyobe, Felix Roland Moumié, Ernest Ouandie, and Abel Kingue. His struggle for political freedom spanned nearly half a century (1959-2004), and constituted the longest in Cameroon’s history in terms of consistency and adherence to principle. Like fellow nationalists who fell before him, Mukong’s was uncompromising to all forms of colonialism, where foreign or domestic. The man was not born a political revolutionary but the political forces of his times transformed him into one. Once convinced of his calling, Mukong never deviated from doing that which was right and proper for his people and country. He willingly gave of himself unselfishly to the good course and never wavered until his last breath on the morning of July 14, 2004.
Born on October 23, 1933 at Bananki Tungo, Mukong received his primary education from St. Anthony’s Primary School in Njinikom, and his secondary education from St. Joseph’s College (Sasse) in Buea. A short stint as an employee of the Cameroon’s Development Corporation (CDC) was followed by studies for a degree in physics at the University of Ibadan in 1957. These were the momentous days of African resurgence after a century of slumbering under European colonialism. In Egypt Colonel Abdel Gamal Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal; in Kenya the Mau Mau was forcing the British to retreat from occupying the most arable of Kikuyu ancestral lands; in French Cameroon the UPC was demanding independence and immediate unification of both Cameroons, while in the English zone of the country Endeley, Foncha and other politicians were agitating for autonomy in British Southern Cameroons. These events captured the imagination of a physicist-to-be and forced him to abandon his professional dreams for the political realities of the moment.
Mukong was a rare and exceptional Anglophone. Only Augustine Ngom Jua even comes close to an approximation of this man. Perhaps because of his long and varied political experiences—having had extensive contacts with the Upecistes Ernest Ouandie in prison in Cameroon, and Moumié, Ntumazah, and Abel Kingue in Accra, Ghana—Albert Mukong’s world view was a complex admixture of the radical nationalism of the UPC and the English rule of law that he learned in the British Southern Cameroons and Nigeria. These two traditions would become devastating weapons in his arsenal of organizational skills and protest activism.
Caught in the political wave of the late 1950s, Mukong’s first endeavor as a political man was his work with KNDP’s “The Cameroon Voice”. In 1959 Mukong attended a Special Session of the United Nations that met from February 20 – March 13. Upon his return from the United Nations Mukong joined the One Kamerun party, the British Southern Cameroon’s branch of the nationalist UPC, founded by Ndeh Ntumazah in 1957. He first served as head of the student organ of the party and later as Secretary General of One Kamerun. It was in this capacity that Mukong participated in various constitutional conferences, including the July 1961 Foumban Conference. Mukong’s affiliation with One Kamerun placed him at loggerheads with the Ahidjo regime. This affiliation ultimately resulted in his exile to Accra, Ghana in 1962 by President Ahidjo. In Accra, Mukong joined Ndeh Ntumazah, Felix Moumié, Ernest Ouandie, and Abel Kingue.
Albert Mukong
Mukong left Accra in 1964, moved to Togo, and eventually returned to Cameroon in November 1966 following successful interventions of intermediaries through the Cameroon Ambassador in Nigeria. Four years later on Tuesday, October 6, 1970, at precisely five o’clock in the morning, members of Cameroon’s paramilitary Brigade Mixte Mobile (BMM) visited and arrested Mukong at his residence in Kumba. Mukong spent six years in various prisons and internment camps in the 1970s, during which he encountered other prisoners who opposed the Ahidjo regime, including Ernest Ouandie, alias camarade Emile. Ouandie would later be executed publicly in 1971 in front of his family and tribesmen by the authorities.
When in 1988 Mukong aspired to severely criticize the New Deal government of President Biya for corruption, he was sent back to prison for nearly two years. Soon after his release from prison, Mukong was at it again discussing the prospects of launching a new political party. His reemerged once again on the national political stage in early 1990. This time he was arrested for consorting with the Yondo Black Group—Ekane Anicet, Charles Djon Djon, Kwa Moutomé, Yondo Black, Henriette Ekwe and others—for plotting to launch multipartism in Cameroon. For their participation in this constitutionally legal activity, Mukong and his collaborators were imprisoned by the authorities. Henriette Ekwe, the only female member of the group that met in Yondo Black’s residence on January 23, 1990 averred that when Mukong was brought in prison at BMM de Mboppi in Douala, he did not hesitate to tell prison commissioner Batchanji to “free all of them. I am solely responsible for the affair.”[4] Characteristic of the famous prisoner of Tcholliré, Mukong had refused to escape abroad when he learned of the arrest of his colleagues, despite the entreaties of Yondo Black sent to him through Vincent Feko. He would later explain his decision not to run away as stemming from the fact that “he could not reconcile such a decision with his conscience.”[5]
Upon his release from prison in 1990, Mukong left the country on self exile and sought asylum in the United Kingdom. During his absence from the country a new Anglophone movement was organized under the leadership of Dr. Enonchong. Mukong returned to Cameroon in early 1992 and was met at the Douala airport by members of the newly formed Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM), who guided him to the home of Dr. Enonchong in Douala and persuaded the warrior to enlist. According to Christmas Ebini, this is how Albert Mukong was brought into the Anglophone Movement and eventually made Secretary General during the organization’s extraordinary congress in Buea.[6]
While in the United Kingdom where he had applied for asylum, Albert Mukong submitted his case against the Cameroon government to the United Nations Human Rights Committee on February 26, 1991. On July 21, 1994, the committee ruled in favor of Mukong. It found that Mukong had been subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and that the Cameroon government had violated Article 19, the right to freedom of expression set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The committee further ruled that although the restrictions on Albert Mukong were provided for by Cameroonian law, they were not necessary to safeguard national security or public order. In 2001, seven years after the United Nations ruling of 1994, the Cameroon government compensated Mukong in the amount of $137,000 (72,000.000 cfa franc) for the abuses he had suffered at the hands of the authorities during several editions of imprisonment spanning almost two decades (See Appendix A).
Mukong who had begun his career in politics as a one who sought a united country in which liberties would be extended equally to all citizens, ended up as a separatist when his every effort to make that dream become reality was frustrated by the regimes of Ahmadou Ahidjo (1961-1982) and Paul Biya (since 1982). By 1993 Mukong was convinced of the impossibility of democracy under the New Deal regime of President Biya. Attributing the stagnation to a difference in cultures, Mukong concluded:
The Francophones have demonstrated that they are incapable of change. They have also effectively established that we are two separate peoples that cannot live together. Hey have established in fact that the union of two Cameroons is badly conceived and badly executed, full stop.
Finally, Mukong joined the separatist Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) after the Cameroon government failed to satisfactorily address and redress the complaints of the All Anglophone Conference (AAC) I and II that met in Buea and Bamenda. The AAC had called for a return to the federal option concluded at Foumban in 1961.
By the time of his death Mukong was perhaps the most influential English-Speaking Cameroonian in the country. When, for example, the SCNC entered a period of fractious leadership between Justice Fred Alobwede Ebong who was on exile in Nigeria and Dr. Martin Luma, Mukong lent his support to Dr. Luma. He justified his action by saying that: “I recognize only the faction of Dr. Martin Luma, which is involved with the field work. One cannot direct a country from the outside.” The traction that separatism garnered since the early 1990s was largely drawn from the stature of Albert Mukong. He stands alone as the only Cameroonian who played an active in the entire political spectrum of Cameroon. Mukong began as an advocate for the unification of the two Cameroons and ended as a separatist convinced of the unwillingness of the dominant Francophone leadership to negotiate a satisfactory political system with the marginalized Anglophone minority. He died a member of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) that was founded in 1995 to represent the sectional interests of Anglophone Cameroon, while advocating secession. Even so, as one of his young political collaborators who eulogized Mukong noted, “Mr. Mukong has fought his whole life and some periods of his fighting life are difficult to comprehend… it is certain that he never completely left the main objective of his OK party that had as its main objective ‘One Kamerun’ in a strong unification.”
***Professor Emmanuel Konde, a former Fulbright, teaches History and Political Science at Albany State University in Albany, Georgia.* For further inquiries on this write-up, you can reach the good professor via e-mail at ekonde07@yahoo.com***
