This write up is inspired by Honourable Mr. Justice Ayah Paul Abine’s recent outing by way of press conference to tell the world about some miscreants who had elected to sully his image through the same medium but in a different setting.
While his antagonists stayed in their dingy Kumba home base, for their press conference, Hon. Ayah preferred the cosy King David Hotel in Muea, Buea as locale for his rendezvous with the pen pushing fraternity.
Having said that, politics, they say is a game of numbers and interest. In the course of meddling into it there can be either instantaneous gains or colossal losses depending on the pendulum swings of providence.
In the case of Honourable Mr. Justice Ayah, Advocate General at the Supreme Court of Cameroon and incumbent Chair of Popular Action Party, PAP, his fortune has been very different. Having served for more than two decades as magistrate in many jurisdictions of the South-west region, it occurred to him to try his hands in politics.
What informed his decision to run for parliament under the banner of the Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement, CPDM, still remains a moot point but there is reason to believe that given his status and stature as senior magistrate, his chances were higher within the CPDM that is permanently in dire need of credible individuals with proven integrity to stand as candidates during elections.
Another possibility is that even as he had seen the ship of state being driven to wreckage by the CPDM, he might all the same, have succumbed to the illusion of effecting change from within, a thesis that seems more plausible given his impenitent opposition to the elongation of presidential mandate from five years renewable once to seven years without restriction in the wake of the 2011 presidential.
After five years in parliament, he felt it was time for him to prove to the world that not everybody within the CPDM is a hand clapper. In the event, he carved a niche for himself by being the lone voice crying in the wilderness against CPDM buffoonery.
His opposition to mutilation of the constitution in order to take on board Mr. Biya’s wish to die in office became a cris-de-guerre that raised him to the pedestal of national hero. It also, facilitated his decision to run for the 2011 presidential whereupon, he emerged fifth among no fewer than 18 candidates.
With the feel-good effect of his ground-breaking performance at the presidential during which he garnered votes from all over the country still lingering, he decided to test his popularity in his home base, Akwaya, during the twin parliamentary and municipal elections of 2013.
Ironically, our national hero had seemingly underestimated the resolve of his classmate in Federal Biligual Grammer School, Man o War Bay, the phenomenal Peter Agbor Tabi, of blessed memory, to ensure that he does not steal the limelight of political headship in Manyu division. As a corollary, running under the banner of PAP, Ayah did not return to parliament.
He predicates his poor showing on massive rigging but, that is no excuse because he knows the system under which he was operating and ought to have primed his campaign machinery with the necessary precaution.
Shortly after that he was appointed Advocate General at the Supreme Court. Many are those who rushed to criticise him for accepting the appointment.
To his defense is the plethora of CPDM ministers and other highly placed government functionaries who parade the corridors of power, thereby creating precedents.
Apart from this, there is no law barring political leaders from accepting appointments from government, be it the very government they are fighting to replace.
Having said that, the thorny issue relating to possession and stewardship of PAP that has gained currency in the last month leaves every discerning being with the impression that Hon. Ayah is gunning for an over-kill. To begin with, nobody doubts his erudition that has always been show-cased in alluring write ups couched in terse rendition, whenever occasion arises.
One reads and feels the learned colleague, as lawyers are wont to ingratiate among themselves, in everything he writes. Little wonder therefore, that he was able to render invalid claims by sons and relatives of late Professor Ngoh, to ownership of PAP in less than 1000 words.
?Any theory that PAP is the property of late Prof. Ngoh that can be hired pledged and redeemed: or sold absolutely on terms is fantastic and based on mis-information or uninformed miscalculations.”
While agreeing with Hon. Ayah that what happened within PAP was an unfortunate inci-dent brought to bear on the party by ig-norance and implacable greed, I will beg to differ with the Hon. Gentleman when he addresses some journalists as quacks..
