CMC-SOCAM Imbroglio - Ndedi Eyango Convenes Crisis Meeting

Persons familiar with Cameroon's music landscape will confirm that all is not well. Longstanding unresolved disputes seem to have splintered music artists into factions. Disparities among the singers originate from the way author's rights, piracy and successive music guilds were being managed.

Ace Makossa singer, Prince Ndedi Eyango, vexed by the situation and the unproductiveness of the Cameroon Music Corporation (CMC) and musical art guild SOCAM, convened his colleagues in Douala recently to discuss a way out. Paneled by Joe Mboule, Ben Decca, Prince Ndedi Eyango, Nkotti François and Sam Fan Thomas, the purpose of the concertation was to seek solutions to the imbroglio that exists within the corps as well as ways for a "good transition" from the present SOCAM to a new arrangement.

The consultation which witnessed the participation of several other music artists, including Dinaly and Annie Anzouer, sampled a few plaguing problems: the desire by most, if not all, artists to head the corporation, lack of humility, misappropriation, unqualified managers, ineptitude, and the most severing being artists who peddle insults against colleagues on the media. For Eyango, the most problematic is the current SOCAM Board to which he imputed lack of financial and managerial probity.

"Get ready to make honest choices, choosing only qualified persons and people with integrity to head the corporation when the time comes," the Makossa guru spurred. To this effect, a committee was set up to meet other music artistes in Yaounde and from other regions of the country to come up with proposals to table to the Ministry of Arts and Culture, the Permanent Arbitration and Control Commission (CPMC), SOCAM as well as CMC officials on the issue. The next meeting will be held this month with Cameroonian music artistes in the Diaspora. They pledged that any such move will be constitutional and in line with the administration in force. Concrete proposals for the merging, dissolution of SOCAM and CMC or the constitution of a new corporation will later be made. Eyango, however, called for reconciliation, noting that those found guilty will face the law.