This came after the Minister of Labour, Grégoire Owona, reacted to Professor Maurice Kamto’s statement calling for respect for the truth of the ballot box. In his post, Owona attempted to link the unrest in Dschang to the former CRM president. Read below 👇
“RESPONSE FROM Dr. Appollinaire Legrand OKO to Mr. Grégoire OWONA
Mr. Grégoire OWONA,
I have read the text you published yesterday on your Facebook page. It purports to be a response to the position expressed by Maurice KAMTO regarding the recent presidential election in Cameroon. Crude and bland, it’s hard to believe such a text was written by someone holding an important position in the State apparatus and within his party. But, to each his style… Let’s move on.
I had to ask myself one question first: why is it that you, Mr. OWONA, have not reacted all this time while public opinion has been demanding the truth of the ballot box? Several well-known political figures have already spoken on the matter. Many presidential candidates have called for respect for the truth of the ballot box. You, however, have been silent for days. It took Professor Maurice KAMTO speaking out for you to suddenly react the very same day. Maurice KAMTO is clearly your nightmare. The moment he coughs, the CPDM official that you are feels compelled to respond.
The most insidious idea in your text is the far-fetched connection you attempt to draw between the events in Dschang and the village of Professor Maurice KAMTO. What misery! The towns of Dschang and Baham are not nearly as close as you imply. To go from the former to the latter, one must leave the Menoua Division, cross the Mifi Division, then the Koung-Khi Division, and finally reach the Hauts-Plateaux Division to get to Baham. By car, that’s over an hour and a half’s drive. Baham is indeed the birthplace of Professor Maurice KAMTO and his ancestors. His father and mother are buried there. So, what connection are you, the Minister of Mr. BIYA, trying to make between these two places? Are you suggesting that Maurice KAMTO is responsible for the protest events in Dschang? What link are you attempting to fabricate and spread between him and the citizens of Dschang who, in your eyes, seem to have scandalized you?
You speak of Maurice KAMTO, who is from faraway Baham, yet you conveniently forget a much closer personality — the Deputy Prime Minister, Jean NKUETE, your fellow CPDM member and official superior. Let me remind you that his native village is in the Penka Michel Subdivision, just minutes from Dschang, within the same Menoua Division. One must have a retrograde soul darkened by hatred, as yours is, to reduce serious political issues like electoral fraud to village origins. Like myself, Maurice KAMTO lives in Yaoundé, not in his native village. You yourself don’t live in yours — and you certainly have one. So why try to confine Professor KAMTO to Baham? What is this deeply tribal conception of citizenship that you’ve clung to, year after year, decade after decade? After all these decades beside Mr. Paul BIYA, is that truly all you’ve learned from him?
From now on, citizens from Douala, Garoua, or elsewhere who contest the presidential results in their own ways should know that Mr. OWONA, our very useless Minister of Labour and Social Security, will surely try to fabricate an imaginary link between them and Maurice KAMTO. This dangerous habit of spreading hate and stigmatizing fellow citizens is unworthy of a public official.
Political leaders should foster harmony among citizens, build bridges, not destroy them. In this case, it must be noted that Professor Maurice KAMTO was not a candidate in this election — the full brutality of the CPDM regime having been deployed to eliminate him, paving the way for the world’s oldest dictator. Yet, despite his non-participation, Mr. OWONA has gone out of his way to drag Maurice KAMTO into the Dschang events.
Mr. OWONA, you asked Maurice KAMTO to be pedagogical. Cameroonians have seen that he has been so for years — long before your request. He has played a decisive role in awakening the political and patriotic consciousness of Cameroonians. In the last presidential election, he filed several legal motions before the Constitutional Council, ELECAM’s Electoral Council, and administrative courts. As National President of the MRC, he petitioned the Constitutional Council to ensure ELECAM respected Article 80 of the Electoral Code. All these proceedings ended the same way — favoring the CPDM’s electoral fraud. Even after the electoral corps was convened, Maurice KAMTO, as a declared candidate, pursued the same cause. He also denounced the obscure agreement signed between the UN and ELECAM, whose ultimate goal appears to be the so-called “code of good conduct” binding presidential candidates to accept the “game” and its “results.”
You claim that Cameroonians have seen through Maurice KAMTO’s deception. Which Cameroonians are you referring to? The same ones who inflicted on your candidate the humiliating defeat we all witnessed? It’s rare to see a man so massively rejected by his fellow citizens as Mr. BIYA is today. He and his followers like you have become an illegitimate caste that imposes itself on Cameroonians through force and arbitrariness.
After reading your text, I realized you missed a good opportunity to stay silent. You should never have left the CPDM’s post-election fraud laboratory that has absorbed you since October 12. I saw a photo of you sitting in what appeared to be your campaign headquarters. You had the face of defeat — the expression one wears when all predictions collapse, when one realizes that Mr. Paul BIYA is rejected in Maroua, Ebolowa, Ngaoundéré, Bafang, and elsewhere. Your mentor is no longer marketable. He’s a political product that no longer sells — worn out by time, incompetence, and a catastrophic record.
Now, go back to the Lab and let’s see what will come out of it next week.
Dr. Appollinaire Legrand OKO”