One-on-One with Chief Barrister Charles A. Taku

Chief Barrister A.Taku is a product of Seat of Wisdom College Fontem, Government Bilingual High School Buea, the University of Yaounde, Cameroon and the University of London. He started his legal career with the late BTB Foretia and set up the Taku Chambers thereafter.

Cameroon Concord understands he was an ardent supporter of Mola Litumbe’s LDP party and the Union for Change headed by Ni John Fru Ndi. Chief Barrister Taku is a distinguished member of the Cameroon Bar Association and was for over a decade a member of Cameroon Bar Council.

In the words of the late Lord Justice Benson Bawak he is “a lawyer who has attended many international law conferences and developed a good network of contacts”.

His joining the defence as lead counsel in the International Criminal Court in Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court is no surprise. Cameroon Concord is not sure of any Cameroon Anglophone barrister lead counsel in all these courts. Chief Barrister Charles A.

Taku works mainly in Africa but domicile in the United States of America. In his early days in Cameroon, he loved socialising at the Buea Mountain Club. It is hard to say when this legal frame work for academic reference will return to Cameroon and contribute to the development of the legal practice in the country while upholding his traditional title fully. Cameroon Concord‘s Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai shared this interesting conversation with the Barrister and traditional ruler.

Cameroon Concord: Your Highness thank you very much for accepting to talk to us. Do you agree with my presentation of your person at the introduction of this conversation?

Thanks so much Soter. Yes indeed, in all modesty and humility, I accept the main components of the introduction.

Cameroon Concord: Your Highness kindly talk us through your legal career including your time with the great BT Foretia.

I will begin by paying homage to my mother, who was a distinguished princess of Fontem and His Majesty the Fon of Fontem Defang who raised and inspired me so much in many regards. Their influence endures and will inspire generations unborn. Thanks to them, I was brought up in an environment where social justice, respect for human values, hard work and community service were encouraged and celebrated.

Thanks to these values, I was an early rebel against the oppressive policies of the Ahidjo regime. My first contact with the press was when as a secondary school student, I wrote a letter to the press questioning the rationale for obtaining laisser passers to enable people move about and it was published in Cameroon Times.

I returned to work briefly in Cameroon Times under the supervision of Zac Angafor and Chief Jerome Gwellem while I was a student in the University of Yaounde. Zac Angafor paid me my first salary of 2,500 Frs and for this, I remain grateful to him and the late Chief Gwellem. This short stints in Cameroon Times helped shape my ambition to become a lawyer to defend freedom of the press which was under assault and champion the defence of human rights generally.

The late Hon. Justice Ngalame who was the Chief Magistrate of the Tiko Magistrate Court identified me early during a contentious conference at the Grammar School Molyko Buea in which I vigorously challenged one Hongla Monha a Secretary-General at the South West Governor’s office who came to talk to the students about the Green Revolution. One Sarulla a French Corsican who was the principal of the school intimidated me in the presence of the attendees who included Justice Ngalame.

Back in his residence, Justice Ngalame invited me and encouraged me to study law when I get to the University. I registered and wrote the GCE A’levels in lower six in Mamfe and passed in all the three papers and with the support and advice of Justice Ngalame, I enrolled to study Law in the University of Yaounde.

On graduating from the faculty of law, I took the unprecedented step of applying to undergo pupillage in the law Chamber of Hon. B.T.B Foretia becoming the first student from the University of Yaounde to opt to go into private law practice.

B.T.B Foretia was one of the greatest lawyers, I ever knew. He was a great tactician and strategist. His level of civility and knowledge of the law were outstanding. He had great respect for his adversaries and told me to choose my adversaries wisely and never to acknowledge the status of enemy or adversary from self-seeking individuals in search of relevance. He never ever abandoned his friends because of their political orientation. For example, he was a very close friend of Albert Mukong whom he acknowledged was their student president in the University of Ibadan. I knew Mukong through him and adopted Mukong as my own friend until the Lord called him home.

The development of a successful law career cannot be attributed to the law and the courts alone. My family background, my cultural environment, my primary school environment in Fontem and in the CDC Camp in Laduma Mukonge Estate, my secondary education in Fontem and Buea and in Yaounde greatly influenced my world outlook and prepared my law career path.. I can state with humility that there is absolutely no education that is better than that the values gained from our home family environments and early education life. Our early inspirations can make or mar our future in many ways.

I surely had a wide world view and a clear understanding of societal problems that have shaped my life and career pursuits through interactions with people from all professions and disciplines. As a student in Molyko, I spent some of my time visiting and discussing with the Late Tataw Obenson and my lifelong friends Chief Besong Etah Oben and Bate Greg who worked as journalists in the Cameroon Outlook.

I developed an early admiration for Fon Dinka then. In Yaoundé. I spent my time wisely, developing close relations from persons, young and old with whom I discussed critical problems afflicting our society and the direction it was moving. These included, Professor Kisob, Professor Tatah Mentam, Gideon Tarkah, Professor Carlson Ayangwe, Professor Benard Fonlon, Dr Chem Langee, Dr. EML Endeley, Professor Joseph Owona, Professor Kontchou Koemeni, Professor Marcien Towa, Sam Nuvella Fonkem, Akwanka Joe Ndifor, Jot Tambi and Chief E.T Egbe and many others.

I surely maintained and sustained an enduring relationship with Charly Ndichia, Chief Paul Nkemanyang, Bate Besong, George Ngwane Puis Njawe, Jean Baptist Sipa, Dr Asheri Kilo and a host of academicians and journalists. Then and now, most of my friends and interests laid outside legal circles. We discussed literature, journalism, the law, politics, and every subject under the son but not the law. They provided in my career development a balance and world view which cannot found in any law book.

When I commenced private practice, I was aware that my people the Southern Cameroonians, whom we defined then as Anglophones though on bondage, were indeed on their own as far their individual and collective survival was concerned. Carlson Ayangwe, Gorgi Dinka, Professor Kisob and Tatah Mentam gave us a lifeline of an ideological perspective and risked their own careers and lives in defending these positions. B.T.B Foretia was a politician in the ruling party but never ever interfered with my professional choices.

For example, when I brought civil suits against one Chief Warrant Officer Obama who was the commander of the Tiko Brigade of the Gendarmerie and One Fomankundi a Provincial Chief of Service for National Security for egregious human rights abuses, Foretia declined to intervene at the urging of the governor of the province and some cowardly politicians for me to drop the cases.

When the prodemocracy wind was blowing across the polity, Celestine Monga and Pius Njawe were charged for publishing articles alleging corruption by the Presidential couple. I had known Pius Njawe, Jean Baptist Sipa and Abodel karimou through Achid Ndifang (RIP) and found them to be very impressive agents of change and credible journalism. Ben Muna reached out to me and brought along colleagues from the common law tradition to join in their defence.

Thereafter, it was the turn of my journalist friends, Charly Ndichia, Chief Paul Nkemanyang, Paddy Mbawa and my soul mate and departed brother and friend Bate Besong who were victims of abduction by the dreaded Sedoc, BMM and thereafter Cener. I was their lawyer and fought so hard with tremendous risks to secure their release.

The abduction of Chairman Ebenezar Akwanga and more than 82 persons from the North West to the Military Tribunal in Yaounde was the hallmark of provocation. Before the Military Tribunal in Yaounde, I listed a long list of witnesses that included Albert Mukong, Dr J.N Foncha, Ambassador Henry Fossung and others who accepted to come and testify. I filed a subpoena which the Military Judge refused to issue and proceeded to convict the victims in a mockery of a trial.

The United Nations Committee for Human Rights in Geneva finally in Akwanga Vs Cameroon found that the trial failed to meet the standards established by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and quashed the convictions. Thereafter I took the case of Mr Pierre Desire Engo to the UN in Geneva and prevailed.

My reasons for taking over this case were to underscore the fact that justice has no ethnicity, tribe or religion and that justice, true justice must belong to all without any ethnic or discriminatory considerations.It was at the conclusion of this trial that I left for the United Nations International Tribunal for Rwanda where I put in fourteen years, concurrently with the Special Court for Sierra Leone where I put five years and the ICC one year.

Cameroon Concord: The late Lord Justice Benson Bawak had described you as an intelligent and smart lawyer. What makes you different from the others of your generation?

Whenever the name of Hon. Justice Bawak is mentioned, I asked myself why extraordinarily brilliant good people die early. I feel honoured and humbled to have been so considered and described by this great man of the law and the people’s justice. When I left the country, Hon. Justice Bawak called me and entrusted a case of an indigent person who was deprived of his rights and entitlements in Yaounde.

Because of the honour I had for him and my commitment towards defending the poor, the weak and the oppressed I returned to assist the individual. This is the legacy my late mother and Fon of Fontem Defang, bequeathed to me and I will for- ever defend it religiously.

That said, I have but the upmost respect for my colleagues and appreciate their services to the law and humanity through their commitment to justice. We all share this commitment. The difference between us may not lie in the law which we all master but in the values that define and give meaning to the law. We must never ever forget to place God ahead of our endeavours.

I have on my mind that lawyers and the law could be instruments by which God intends to make the world safe and better for His as opposed to our glory. Values determine the amount of wisdom with which we can make a difference. Money and power cannot buy wisdom. Lest we forget, it was wisdom that distinguished King Solomon from all humans and not power, money, the number of wives and women in his life or his riches.

Cameroon Concord: We understand you were a prominent member of the LDP party of Mola Litumbe and by extrapolation, the SDF!! Tell me in some few words why the LDP failed to win the support of the South West people?

Late Professor Obenson, Mola Njoh Litumbe, B.T.B Foretia and Ray Koge, found this political party. The National Democratic Party of Ambassador Henry Fossung later merged with the party and Mola Njoh Litumbe was elected its chairman. We founded this party because of our frustration with the fact that the SDF failed to address constitutional issues, in particular, the Southern Cameroons Problem which we called then the Anglophone problem.

Circumstances that informed the forming of the coalition of opposition parties brought us together. I remember that Isa Tchiroma and me were ad hoc secretaries of the coalition meeting that took place in the residence of Professor Gabriel Obenson in Buea. Shortly after that Professor Obenson died in an accident and things began to fall apart.

However Mola Njoh Litumbe kept and continues to keep the ideological perspective and the motivation for which the party was formed. He has kept the Southern Cameroons perspective and motivation for forming the party alive. The visionary decision by Hon. Paul Ayah to provide further leadership on this matter which concerns our collective and individual survival as a people must be praised. They are on the right side of history and the judgment of history is always correct.

I do not know from which indicators you have drawn the conclusion that the LDP does not enjoy the support of the South West. I am sure you are by extension making the same argument about the PAP. If you are basing this conclusion from the so-called elections that were conducted in the past, then I will defer to the wisdom of Albert Mukong on the subject, that no elections in the true sense have ever been organized in Cameroon. The so-called elections in the South West have been the pantomime of fraud.

There can never ever been a credible poll without a credible population census. The use of the so-called special constituency in Buea and Victoria targeted the LDP, the PAP and the SDF.

The power elite in Manyu, Lebialem, Kupe Manenguba and Indian over the years organized campaigns of intimidation, blackmail, corruption, fraud and terror unprecedented in the history of neo-colonial Cameroon prior to and during each election to obtain predetermined results. I sincerely believe that the LDP, PAP and all political parties that have articulated and provided a solution to the Southern Cameroons Case hold the future of the territory in their hands.

The evolving political trends set in motion by President Paul Biya himself that are destroying his foot soldiers, agents and agenda of fraud in the territory and changing the politics and future of the country in ways unimagined may have irredeemably consigned this corrupt power elite to irrelevance and a future in prison or oblivion.

Finally, the organization of democratic elections has never been on Paul Biya’s power agenda. Through fraud and rigging the power elite in the South West tend more than anything to prove their political relevance and indispensability. Regrettably they are today the guinea pigs on which Paul Biya is experimenting “balloon politics” which he might have copied from the Kenyan Professor of bigman politics, Arap Moi. Moi sacked his erstwhile Vice President Josephat Karanja after rubberstamping his blackmail by Parliament.

In explaining his sack, Moi called him and others his political balloons which he inflated and deflated at will. To ensure his survival after the sack, Karanja thank the President for providing him and opportunity to serve and virtually endorsed and praised his own sack.

The balloon politics moment for agents of electoral fraud and offenses against popular sovereignty for personal gain is finally here and the results are there for all to see. The future and future alone will determine the people’s preferences and their future.

Cameroon Concord: We of Cameroon Concord think by chasing all its best brains such as Barrister Ben Muna and the late Siga Asanga the Union for Change under Fru Ndi eventually became a big union with a very small brain!! Your Highness do you agree with us?

I will decline to pass judgment on the political choices of Ni John Fru Ndi and those of his erstwhile political associates. Politics is a brutal game in which some unwarranted building and destroying may occur with profound consequences. What I can say is that the SDF was founded on an ideology to which its members including Ni John Fru Ndi subscribed.

The disagreement that led to key members leaving has nothing to do with a “small brain” mentality. It is an ideological struggle in whereby the party is fighting for its soul. The question is about the ideological direction towards which the party is moving. If the party is moved towards a direction which negates its founding principles and ideology, then something is significantly wrong and must be identified and rectified.

Due to the human rights agenda of the SDF, I was coopted as a national legal adviser and I gladly accepted. At that time, the SDF was the soul of the nation fighting for freedom. The organization of party structures from the grassroots in which the grassroots chose its leaders assured SDF a nationwide constituency with a potential to secure victory when and if free and fair elections are organized by a genuinely independent election commission.

Tinkering with the party constitution to imposed leaders or even candidates on the electorate is the greatest mistake the SDF leadership and a coterie of ever self-serving advisers committed.

The change of the constitution from the “power to the people” structure to one in which the Chairman decides in the place of the people, thus usurping popular sovereignty which was the strongest and wining ideology of the party was a critical misjudgment with profound consequences.

Although intolerance for opposing opinions, critical thinking and the struggle for political space within the party mirrors the national democratic trend, and thus harmful to the party, the denting of the ideological orientation of the party is the greatest political blunder which this frontline party must admit and rectify to sustain its relevance and claims to lead the country.

The departure of acclaimed intellectuals from the party deprives the party of agents of critical thinking with the ability to formulate policies and ideas capable of making the party attractive nationally and internationally. These individuals who left the SDF should continue to articulate the ideology they worked hard to establish even from outside the party. Professor Tajoacha Asonganyi, the erstwhile Secretary-General of the SDF has on leaving the party attracted unprecedented national and international legitimacy and recognition that far outweighs his time within the SDF.

He has continued to prove that he did not subscribe to the social democratic ideology and its liberating principles because of Fru Ndi or the SDF. For this, he is today an acclaimed critical social thought guru. For this reason, do not be surprised that on popular demand within a very polarized polity he becomes one of the consensus agents of change that may emerge to rebuild a ruined polity under the weight of neo-colonialism and its willing and unwilling puppets.

Cameroon Concord: From 1990-2014, the same miracle men and miracle years coming from the SDF and its allies and also the same fake promises regularly being dished out via New Year messages from President Biya. If you were to meet Fru Mdi and President Biya, what will you tell both men?

Lest we forget, neither NI John Fru Ndi nor the SDF are in power and so I will advise him to rescind the so-called reforms of his party statutes which took away the power making mechanism from the people and placed in his hands. I will advise him that power to the people should no longer be an empty slogan. If this was done, all the cases of intolerance and abuses of the party disciplinary process will be kept in check, so also the inordinate will to remain in power eternally.

For Mr Paul Biya, he is the President. He has abused and violated the constitution, and bears individual and superior command responsibility for the crimes perpetrated him and by his subordinates. Paul Biya should honorably step down now. He knows that all indicators show that power must elude him very soon. In this limited time frame, he has the option to step down or stay on and be swept away by natural and other factors.

It will be unwise for him to seek another mandate when he knows the said elections will provide a platform and a voice for forces of change and even the comatose opposition, and this includes those interned in Kondengui and others who no longer trust him to mobilize and remove him. I will advise Paul Biya that even a docile people have its moment and that moment is fast coming.

I advise him to urgently follow through on his commitment to execute the judgment of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Right and that of the UN and dialogue with the people of the Southern Cameroons and that even their will and agenda can never ever be swept under the carpet.

Cameroon Concord: Our readers would love to know how work is being done at the International Criminal Court precisely at the defence team.

I was appointed lead counsel early when I arrived at the International Criminal for Rwanda. I am the only counsel in any international court who was appointed lead counsel in three international courts supervising the defence of three major cases.

In Sierra Leone I was lead counsel for Morris kallon the deputy commander of the Revolutionary United Front for Sierra Leone. I was thereafter assigned to the defence of Mr Samuel Kargbo a member of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council of Sierra Leone. At the UNICTR, I was lead counsel of Laurent Semanza and then Major Nzuwonemeye, the commander of the reconnaissance battalion of the Rwandan army. In the ICC I was counsel in the continuing investigation in the Republic of Kenya.

In all the cases, I was assigned a team of lawyers, legal assistants, investigators, experts and other confidential resources to enable each the teams under may supervision to access a territory of UN State Parties and with requests for state cooperation, collect evidence which may help the court or tribunal to do justice. As a lead counsel I am solely responsible for the strategy of the case and its presentation at trial. I assess the security needs of witnesses at risk and seek protective measures from a trial chamber and also guarantee the integrity, confidentiality of protected information and the security and protection of team members.

Cameroon Concord: Cameroon Concord did a Vox Popoli on the credibility of the International Criminal Court and most of our readers who participated hinted that the court is now a political weapon in the hands of the West. What is your take on that?

I have answered this question many times in the past. The decision to create the courts received wide popular support. That main motivation for creating the courts has not changed. The courts have succeeded in many respects. New jurisprudence has been established and impunity has been confronted and checked in some respects.

The crime of rape as a crime against humanity and genocide has been widely established; so also attack against peace keepers. The proposed statute of the African Court has included starvation as a war crime and many international criminals are on the run and their capacity to kill and armless civilians on a massive scale have been greatly limited. International criminal courts are a deterrent to international criminality.

However, popular opinion is frustrated with the degree of political considerations in the formulating and implementation of some prosecutorial decisions. In the UNICTR, only the Hutu were prosecuted as if the war and crimes perpetrated did not involve Rwanda Patriotic Front and its Tusti supporters. This, like Nuremberg and the Tokyo trials after WWII is victor’s justice. The ICC has only prosecuted Africans.

Even when it intervenes in African conflicts, it carries out shallow investigations relying on NGO and Special Interest Civil Society reports. It failed to carryout independent investigations and in some cases it has intervened only on the side of the victors and ignored crimes perpetrated against the vanquished.

The result of these selective processes has been very slow, poor legal outcomes which have made many victims to lose faith in processes. Selective justice on discriminatory basis is a violation of the founding statutes of these courts, the UN Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Also, the international courts are not the only actors in conflict zones in Africa. There are several other actors, each exercising a specific mandate for the attainment of peace and security.

I am a leading advocate of what I call institutional dialogue between these international actors that are out to resolve complicated conflicts with the objective of bringing peace, justice and security to afflicted communities. No one mandate is superior to another.

Although international courts through its justice and fight against impunity mandate may establish a template for accountability, peace is indeed the ultimate objective of international mandates individually or in aggregate. There is therefore need for all mandate holders to respect each other’s mandate to ensure the harmony needed to avoid the type of disruptions and acts of reckless impunity we are witnessing so far.

Cameroon Concord: The International Criminal Court seems to be moving like a train with no brakes!! To be sure, indicting President Uhuru Kenyatta before looking for evidence against him!! Where do you think the court got it wrong?

Everyone is asking this question. The ICC Kenya Prosecutorial policy of seeking a confirmation of charges and looking for evidence as it is the case establishes a wrong precedent for national jurisdictions. The Prosecutor has a continuing investigation mandate but this mandate is not a justification to indict before looking for evidence to prosecute.

This example may regrettably strengthen the hand of tyranny in dictatorial regimes and provide a template from which they may draw to arrest political opponents first and then look for evidence to prosecute them. If this occurs and it may well be the case, it will be a negation of the international rule of law that the world hope to build through the ICC procedures and cases.

What will the ICC Prosecutor do if one of the forms of perpetration of the crimes punishable by the statute of the court are perpetrated through a process that involves the use of this prosecutorial process? And indeed, this pattern of using the court to legitimize serious crimes and egregious violations exist and is on the rise in African dictatorships.

Cameroon Concord: The South West Chiefs Conference appears to be a very important institution. Ever since the arrest of one of its founding members Chief Inoni Ephraim, we have not heard any strong condemnation from the Chiefs!! Is their silence deliberate or accidental?

If the institution cannot advocate or defend its own members then it cannot protect its own people. There is need for the institution to make a critical introspection and redefine its goals and relevance within the context of a changing political environment. The South West Chief’s Conference must check the excesses of its members in selling communal land and mortgaging the collective interests of their subjects.

The Chiefs as custodians of our culture and traditions deserve respect that is earned. When chiefs and traditional rulers join the club of political sycophants and beggars they lose the respect due to them. Our chiefs would have made a great impression and asserted their relevance by making strong representations and mobilizing the province to support and request the release of Chief Inoni. This did not happen. Mark my word, the President may be encouraged to dismiss them and an ineffective group of people and come after many more people from the region.

Significantly, he has no reason to bring development to the province since the chiefs and elite of the region are accustomed to sending motions thanking him for providing development projects which never existed and deifying him even where he seeks just to be considered as another human being.

Cameroon Concord: Can I ask you a very personal question?

(Laughs) Soter Tarh!!!Go ahead and ask whatever question you have for me

Cameroon Concord: You are now resident in the US. Would I be right to say you are like those CNU Manyu Chiefs who were governing their people by correspondence because they were living in Yaounde and Douala and going home once in a blue moon?

I am not living abroad. I have a residence abroad but that is not my home. My home is the home of my ancestors whose influence in my life is enduring. I inherited an impressive land holding estate in Bangwa and I am always very close to my people. I have initiated a number of projects in Lebialem and have established a functional and vibrant foundation for my mother serving the needs of the population.

I am an active farmer and I am very proud to be conducting my farming activities with my people and on the land of my ancestors. I am on an international professional assignment abroad and have my home and farms at home. My law firm with 8 lawyers is functional and my presence in Bangwa is felt. I have been home four times with six months for several reasons that include the interment of my late brother the Fon of Fontem and the enthronement of the new Fon.

Cameroon Concord: Our nation is going through very difficult times. Many political arrests, an ageing president, failed economic policies and the absence of any meaningful political dialogue. Your Highness, what do you think should be the way forward?

We need to dispassionately conduct a debate about the inevitable consequences of a failed leadership that is piloting the polity towards disaster. You have initiated the debate; let all the actors join the Concord in this debate. If nothing is done now, tomorrow may be too late. For now, everyone is apprehensive of an uncertain future but no one is surmising the potential cost in terms of human lives and property due to inaction when a solution through dialogue is possible. Paul Biya is a prisoner of his own policies and appetite for eternal power. He is unable to free himself and the nation from himself. Some people must help him to do so. Those persons need to stand up and be counted.

Cameroon Concord: Any last word.

My last word is that in it is in moments like these that our faith in the Lord is tested. That faith enjoins us to pray and pray hard for our this “Macedonian call” which is elusive, yet inevitable to be made for our liberation and freedom.