Jeannette Marafa defends husband against Pigeaud’s accusation

The wife of the ex-Minister wrote a reply to Mediapart where she denies her husband’s involvement in an uprising army in Cameroon.

Three days after the publication of an article by Fanny Pigeaud, the name of a French journalist on Mediapart, accusing Marafa Hamidou Yaya of being involved in a rebellion to destabilize Cameroon, the wife of the ex-Minatd, in France reacted. She wrote on August 29, a reply to the online media.

She spoke directly to the author of the article extensively relayed by the Cameroonian press at the end of last week. 'Madam, I wish to convey to you my worry regarding the extremely serious accusations you levied against my husband Marafa Hamidou Yaya in your article of August 26 published on mediapart.fr.

"You explicitly accuse him of "orchestrating" a rebellion against the regime of Paul Biya by supporting and providing instruments for Boko Haram in northern part of Cameroon, and incidentally of embezzling public funds to serve this purpose" she stated.

For her, Fanny Pigeaud is evidence of the "lack of journalistic honesty and is intellectually not qualified’. In essence, the reality is as follows: since his arrest, Marafa publishes regularly in the Cameroonian press open letters calling for a change without violence and disorders, in respect to the registered institutional mechanisms in the constitution; in those same letters, he discouraged divisions and to stir up discontent, he argues for the creation of a trust company, which is not dominated by tribalism and paranoia".

Regarding Boko Haram precisely, she explained that Marafa condemned these abuses: "he has, in the national and international press and most recently in a forum published by Le Monde, denounced in the strongest terms extremism and Boko Haram in particular and proposed a strategy to curb their actions".

Jeannette Marafa took advantage of this rostrum to tell Fanny Pigeaud that in writing this article with such lightness, by designating Marafa as being in support of a rebellion, the journalist has placed her husband’s head as the price.

She also recalled that the murder of Ms. Soppo, the former Secretary of her husband in January returned as part of a desire to permanently silence Marafa. But the biggest fear of Jeannette Marafa, is that this article can contribute to discredit her husband before the public.