Mbengwi Council Mayor Election; And It Happened Again

Mbengwi Council Mayor Election; And It Happened Again

Threats, intimidations, phone calls and dissenting voices challenging party discipline were some of the characteristics of the exercise to elect a new Mayor for the Mbengwi Council following the February 9th 2020 twin elections in which the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) party swept the Mbengwi council in the municipals through a one man show as the party had no challenger.

On Tuesday February 25th 2020, 25 newly elected CPDM councillors met in the Mbengwi council hall to elect a new mayor and it happened again, that no mayor rules the Mbengwi council for more than a mandate. The incumbent, Tebe Beatrice after fighting a losing battle with the last kicks of a dying horse to break the record ended up being shown the exit door. That's how Ndangsa Kennedy Akam appeared out of the blue to stamp himself as the new mayor.

Ndangsa Kennedy (New Mayor) and Tebe Beatrice (Out Gone Mayor) 

Testing the Water

During part one of the program, the councillors first held an in-house consultation meeting in search of common grounds to veto just a single candidate that shall be presented to the administration for endorsement during part two. This motion met very stiff resistance. The dramatic session conducted by Mr. Asongwed Emmanuel (Chargé des Missions) and Mr. Chick Marcus, (Central Committee) exposed the cracks within the party.

Mbengwi Online saw two camps in the hall; those who challenged the status quo of sheepishly allowing a hot potato to be forced down their throats in the name of party discipline and those who were strict respecters of party discipline. The former, in the minority, knew they were fighting a losing battle yet they overcame all threats, pressure and intimidations and fought so hard for things to be done rightly following the bottom-top approach of councillors voting their desired mayor not the hierarchy imposing a candidate on them. 

The later were the silent majority. While "the challengers" kept making 'noise', they, "the followers" maintained sealed lips from start to finish and spoke just once, through the ballot box and the message was clear; once in Rome, do as the Romans do - by following party discipline. The interest of the common man in Mbengwi, the municipality and the people they're representing in the council is seemingly not their concern. Obviously, within their five years mandate, they'll be representing the party's interest not the people's interest. After all, he who pays the piper detects the tune. The people didn't vote them, rather, the party imposed them. Who bites the finger that feeds him?

The Rigging Machinery

If there was anything "the challengers" succeeded to do, they forced voting to take place not acclamation. After sensing that the only way to break the deadlock was to grant their wish, the two visiting party officials yielded to the demand. Real politics thus started. It was time to do it the CPDM way.

First, room was given for nominations and that was how the execution of the master plan started. Nobody nominated Fomundam Eric popularly known as "Vandam" yet prior to the election, he was tipped to be a candidate. Mr. Foncham Elias was nominated and surprisingly he declined yet he was tipped to be a candidate. Tebe Beatrice, the incumbent was nominated and she accepted. Her case was very obvious because in an interview with Mbengwi Online after the last council session before the elections, she asked for a second mandate. And then the joker of the day, Ndangsa Kennedy Akam, the surprise candidate that appeared from nowhere just at the nip of time to "shock" all. He was nominated and he accepted. 

Mbengwi Council Building 

Prior to the exercise, three candidates were in the race and the name Ndangsa wasn't among. So where did he come from? Who is he? How did he find his way to the top? Well, these questions and more will be answered later but for now, we stay with the rigging machinery. 

When it was now fully established that just two candidates were in the race, the game began. A transparent ballot box was brought and ballot papers shared to the 25 councillors present to vote. When all had dropped their papers in the box, it was opened and the first counting done was to ensure they were 25 ballot papers but hell no, miracles do seemingly happen even in politics - 26 ballot papers were counted. Where did one extra ballot paper suddenly appear from? With this, the election was nullified and the mounting of pressure resumed for all to unanimously acclaim the party's candidate, Ndangsa Kennedy Akam.

In broad day light, within themselves it happened, the elections were rigged. At this point in time, "the challengers" switched their course by requesting for the presence of the Momo Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) for proceedings to continue. Agreeing on this, the session was suspended and for over an hour, there was no SDO. Instead phone calls were being made and answered probably to give or take high instructions while others were being hand pulled away to private corners and talked to. 

Threats & Intimidations

Still in the absence of the much expected SDO, activities resumed and continued with the mounting of pressure for those challenging party hierarchy to compromise yet they stood their grounds. Councillor Tezi Sera Fri and Councillor Nemabelli Epse Fombad Loui championed the opposition camp within the party and maintained their conviction for things to be done rightly. The duo became a thorn in the flesh of the visiting party officials that thought it was going to be an easy ride for them to sail through with the agenda they came to execute. 

Councillors in Session

Mbengwi Online captured some of the threats and intimidations meted on "the challengers" by Chick Marcus and Asongwed Emmanuel. Hear them:

"What I've come here to do is to implement the decision of the hierarchy." "The central committee has a candidate and that candidate must be followed." "You people have been disturbing the election. Now we have to take party measures and discipline. No elections again." "Here, there's already a candidate that has won." "The two of you are running towards expulsion, we will remove you people from the party for indiscipline." "There's no other option, no talking again. If you go against party rules, your name will be taken up. We don't want the name of any other candidate, it's party rule." "The CPDM has invested just one candidate. Anybody who's standing should be from another party not the CPDM."

Unfortunately all these threats didn't yield the expected results. To then cut a long story short, for time constraints, the councillors were given ballot papers to write "Yes" or "No" on them depending on one's choice with Yes being in support of the party's candidate and No being not in support of the party's candidate. When the papers were collected and counted, 15 councillors answered "Yes" while 10 said "No." With these results, it became evidently clear that finally, the party's candidate was going to carry the day. It should be recalled that all of these were in-house politicking void of the presence of any administrative official. 

Sooner, the Momo Senior Divisional Officer, Fouda Etaba Bernoit Nicaise then walked into the hall together with his entourage that was made up of the Divisional Officer for Mbengwi, Sakwe Jarvis Esapa and the heads of the various security units. With their arrival, the real business of the day then began, this time around, according to the law. After roll call during which all 25 councillors answered present, the oldest councillor, Anapa Isaac was then appointed to chair the elective session and Councillor Foncham Elias was appointed to be the minutes secretary. Room was then given for nomination of candidates for the post of mayor to be done before voting and again another drama started.  

Fouda Etaba Nicaise, Momo's SDO flanked by Chick Marcus (Central Committee) on the right and Sakwe Jarvis (Mbengwi's D.O) on the left

All attempts were made to dissuade the S.D.O from giving room for any voting to take place on the basis that the councillors as members of one party had consulted and came out with just a single candidate that should simply be endorsed by acclamation and not voted since there's no challenger. Again, the Tebe Beatrice camp insisted to the S.D.O that there are two aspirants and voting must be done to elect the better of the two. At this point, Tebe's black file was then unleashed and the accusations levied against her given as reason to disqualify her candidacy. 

She was accused of having gone against party discipline and found wanting for disgracing the party through the hidden camera mafia that was uncovered in the poling station of Government Nursery School Mbengwi  during the 2018 senatorial elections. To Asongwed Emmanuel, this malpractice Tebe Beatrice singlehandedly masterminded without the consent of the party ended up dirtying the party's image. 

In response, Tebe denied the accusations, saying that she's never been served any query letter by the party and that it should've been the security forces and legal department to indict her not the party if at all she was guilty of any criminal act. The fact that she has no court case means these were cooked up charges to disqualify her candidacy despite the fact that she stood her grounds in Mbengwi as mayor, saving the image of the party when almost all other top notches and militants escaped to other towns because of the Anglophone crisis abandoning her almost to herself. Her defense was strong but was more of throwing water on a duck's back because the deal had been sealed from the top to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it, Tebe must go. 

Fouda Etaba scored points to his credit as a reputable seasoned administrator by standing his grounds that the process to elect a new mayor must be done according to the law, contrary to fears many had that he was coming in to side with party discipline. "Don't implicate me in something that is against the law" he insisted to Asongwed and Chick who kept trying hard to dissuade him to dance according to their tune. Unable to challenge an administrator of such magnitude who masters the law, "the followers" bowed to pressure and that's how voting was finally done.

Mayor Ndangsa Kennedy Akam

The Results

In the preliminary results when the final task imposed on the councillors was to answer "Yes" or "No" in support of the  party's candidate, the incumbent was beaten. One would've expected "the followers" to then be confident of any voting, reason why it surprised many to see that they rather still kept insisting that no voting will take place until the no nonsense S.D.O imposed what the law says not what the party says. 

In their campaign speeches, Ndangsa Kennedy began by outlining his leadership profile. He said as the development president of the Mbengwi Elements Development Association (MEDA) plus being one time Head Teacher of Government School (G.S) Dom, Wumnemburg and Bessi Fomukong and current Chief of Administration and Finance in the Momo Divisional Delegation of Basic Education, he stands a better candidate to be mayor. "A vote for me is a vote for the return of peace and school resumption in Mbengwi" he ended. 

The incumbent, Tebe Beatrice on her part outlined some of the success stories of her mandate during which she won several awards of recognition for the council most especially a 50 millions contract for solar electrification from PNDP and several developmental projects she successfully executed during her mandate. 

Having heard from both candidates, the councillors then went to the polls and at the end of the counting exercise, the results remained same like before; 15 votes for Ndangsa Kennedy, the party's candidate and 10 votes for Tebe Beatrice. That was how little known Ndangsa unexpectedly surfaced from no where at the dying minute to be crowned the new mayor of the Mbengwi council. 

In his acceptance speech, he thanked all for the confidence bestowed on him and affirmed it wasn't an easy race. "You are going to remain our resource person in the council" he told Ma Tebe. At the end of his acceptance speech, both winner and loser embraced each other, shook hands and posed for pictures, this to the acclamation of all. The strong message was thus pass across, that the party won not an individual and that at the end of the day, it was just politics which is now over as work starts.

Being a planned act, Councillor Chunga Patrick Dara's self nomination to maintain his initial position as  deputy mayor was rejected. Instead it was Councillor Doreen Fonjong that was put in as first deputy mayor while Councillor Khadiri Amadu was put in as second deputy. Ndangsa, Fonjong and Khadiri are the three candidates the party had prepared to implant at the helm of the council and they did. 

L-R: Ndangsa Kennedy (Mayor), Doreen Fonjong (1st Deputy), Kadiri Amadu (2nd Deputy)

Talking to Mbengwi Online after his victory the newly elected Mbengwi Council's mayor  said he's had the interest of Mbengwi since from time immemorial. On priority projects, he disclosed that the major roads in Mbengwi are not the best and so primary focus will be on improving the state of farm to market roads. As regards education, the new municipal authority   said "Looking at our educational institutions, they are dwindling backwards so it'll be my primary objective to see that these educational institutions regain normalcy." Considering that his ascension to power met stiff opposition meaning obviously there'll now be disgruntled councillors, Ndangsa Kennedy preached reconciliation. "The first thing is that I'll reconcile the councillors so that we work as a team because without unity, they'll be no progress." he ended. 

The Councillors

For over 20 years, the Mbengwi council had been in the hands of the opposition party, the Social Democratic Front SDF) not until 2013 that it became a tripartite council with CPDM having 19 seats, SDF 5 and Alliance of Progressive Forces (APF) 1. In 2020, the CPDM finally succeeded to completely take over the council. The rise of the CPDM is said to have been thanks to the enormous sacrifices of Fomundam Eric, noted for his philanthropy and Sanji Joseph Achu, the current CPDM Momo 1 Section President, noted for his Meta Solidarity Cross Country Race. Unfortunately till date, non of them has ever smelled mayorship.

It should be noted that since the inception of multipartism, no mayor has ruled the Mbengwi council for more than a mandate. With this unbroken order, the newly elected mayor will likely also leave in 2025. Outgoing mayor Tebe Beatrice is said to have risen to the top thanks to the then Minister of Arts and Culture, Ama Tutu Muna. Incoming  Mayor Ndangsa Kennedy is said to have gained this position thanks to the current Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Supreme State Control, Mbah Acha née Fomundam Rose.

Selfie Mode

Here thus are the councillors in whose hands the development of the Mbengwi municipality has been entrusted for the next five years.
1. Mbamuku Nduku Beatrice
2. Doreen Anwi Fonjong
3. Fomundam Eric Awandeh
4. Foncham Elias Kimbeng
5. Tezi Sera Fri
6. Anapa Isaac Ngwa
7. Chunga Patrick Dara
8. Njee Ngwa Jacob
9. Nemabelli Epse Fomumbad Loui
10. Chum Idadi Achick
11. Fombi Sylvester Fokam
12. Ngoh Calvin
13. Kadiri Amadu
14. Aji Frankline
15. Ndangsa Kennedy Akam
16. Kimbeng Joel Fomunyoh
17. HRH Fonguh Henry Tata
18. HRH Mbabit Humphrey Tangwan
19. Ndojuo Rose Chuh
20. Tembe Daniel Asanga
21. Umaru Adamuh
22. Gwan Anas
23. Tebug Appolo Nji
24. Nangah David Tata
25. Beatrice Annih Tekwe