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The Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atangana Nji has weighed in on the ongoing teachers’ protest in the country threatening to unleash what he calls a “ snake” against those who want to use the grievances to cause disorder.
Teachers have since last week been protesting against unpaid wages and government’s failure to pay them salary advancements.
Crashing into Canal 2’s Canal Presse talk show hosted at the Yaounde Conference Center over the weekend, the Minister said government was handling the protest.
He urged the teachers to be more patient.
Quizzed about intimidation of teachers, he said nothing of the sort was happening.
Despite promising a peaceful approach, the Minister did not fail to send a subtle threat to the teachers, reminding them that government has “many ways” of resolving such issues.
Asked about his “snake”, Minister Atangana Nji was categorical that he would not fail to unleash it, when the time is right. The snake he said, is for the “stubborn, but before that, they have to be warned and told that they can’t cause disorder here in Cameroon”.
Cameroon, he said, “is following the instructions of the Head of State, His Excellency Paul Biya and we don’t intimidate people. We don’t need to intimidate anyone. You know the Minister of Territorial Administration is in charge of maintaining order but what we first of all do is to educate the citizenry. We remind them of their rights and responsibilities”.
Cameroon under its president, he said, “… is a democratic country … and everyone has the right to express themselves freely. They have to respect institutions because there are rights and responsibilities and if they understand this, everything has to go on normally”.
He however told the striking teachers that: “They should trust the government because we have instructions from the Head of State. These instructions have been handed down to the Prime Minister, Head of Government who is putting them into action”.
To Atanga Nji, President Paul Biya has a way of handling internal problems so people have to trust him to handle the issue through the Prime Minister. “The PM has put in place a committee handling the grievances and all would be in order soon,” he revealed. He also did not fail to sing endless praises for 98-year-old President Paul Biya.
It should be recalled that one of such ways used in 2016 to address teachers’ and lawyers’ grievances was water canons and teargas. The situation later degenerated into the raging armed conflict in the North West and South West regions.
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