Lifanda tells Christians he never embezzled funds

The former Government Delegate to the defunct Limbe Urban Council, Samuel Ebiama Lifanda, finally returned to Limbe only on June 3; one week after he was released from the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison.

But contrary to the charges of mismanagement of State funds that were leveled against him by the Special Criminal Court charged with investigating State officials who have fidgeted with tax payers’ money, Lifanda, while addressing Christians of his Church, denied the charges that were pressed against him.

Rev. Samuel Ebiama Lifanda founded the Christian Missionary Fellowship International Church while he was still Government Delegate of the defunct LUC. His followers came out in their numbers on Friday, June 3, where they accorded him a ‘praise and thank you God’ reception.

From Yaounde, Lifanda was escorted straight to the CMFI Church house downtown where a thanksgiving service to God was said for him. It was in the event of the service, The Post gathered, that Lifanda narrated the story of the closed-to-one-year ordeal that finally landed him in Kondengui.

The Post gathered that he said the Court summoned him to Yaounde on the claims of FCFA 2.5 million which they said he had mismanaged of which he expressed his innocence.

He said he was also accused of having sold off Council land at Mile 4, which he told his Christians he did not. Lastly, he said the Yaounde Court also accused him of having hired private security guards to keep guard at his Down Beach residence and that they were paid with Council funds when he served as Government Delegate.

He shields his guilt by stating that the said guards were inherited from the late Henry Njalla Quan who, at the time, was already on the Council’s pay roll. The late Njalla Quan was appointed Government Delegate to the LUC in 1997 and served just for a year and was appointed to the CDC as GM in March 1998. Lifanda took over and ran the Council till February 6, 2009.

After reasserting his claims of innocence, Lifanda went on to thank God and admonished his fellow Christians that “to everything thing, give thanks to God”.

Meantime, the thanksgiving and reception service for Lifanda was attended, almost exclusively by his close family members and relations. The only high profile personality around was the former SDO of Fako, Francois Bona Ebengue, who is an in-law to the Lifanda family. None of the CPDM top shots in Limbe came forth to say welcome to comrade Lifanda.

Many pundits hold that Rev. Pastor Lifanda’s prayers and those of his Christians and other well-wishers were, indeed, answered by the Almighty. There are pretty few cases of persons who have been yanked and banged at Kondengui and then released within a year.

Professor Titus Edzoa, Biya’s former physician spent over 15 years at Kondengui before he was set free.