Mokoko sacked for the second time while on assignment

A good number of Ministers who fell off favour with President Biya October 2 government reshuffle might have felt humiliated; but the Minister most humiliated was Pierre Moukoko Mbonjo who was the Minister of External Relations.

Mokoko was being sacked for a second time by presidential decree while on anofficial mission.

The first time he got fired while on mission was June 30, 2009. Then, he was Minister of Communications. While on a mission on CRTV where he also served as Board Chair, he was booted out of the Ministry of Communication while he was holding a meeting at the TV Corporation.

Sources have alleged that this incident was also so humiliating that even his driver and bodyguard abandoned him at the mercy of Gervais Mendo Ze who was CRTV General Manager at the time. Mendo Ze, it was reported, had to come to his rescue by providing him with a car that took him home from the meeting.

This time around, he was fired while representing President Biya and Cameroon at the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA.

Political pundits have attributed his sacking to a political scandal that caused the defeat of the ruling CPDM in his fief, Yabassi, Douala. He was accused of being the source of all controversies in the CPDM of that community. Mokoko’s infamy is said to have reached a highpoint when, as leader of the investiture committee in his area, he defied popular opinion and picked his brother to run for municipal elections.

Besides these, some 2,250 CPDM members recently forwarded a petition to President Biya, alleging that the party’s defeat in Yabassi during the 2013 municipal and legislative elections was as a result of a protest vote they deliberately failed to cast. They pointed out that their protest vote was a protest against the Minister’s six-year tenure of intimidation, exclusion and humiliation of members of the basic organs of the party.

Other observers had suggested that it is possible Mokoko was fired because of inconsistencies in his management of the once reputable International Relations Institute (IRIC) of Cameroon. The school is said to have never suffered as many scandals as it did during his tenure as Minister of External Relations and Board Chairman of the institution since December 9, 2011.

Besides repeated entrance examination scandals rocked with influence peddling, observers criticized him for running the school without financial accountability. The Minister organized delayed ordinary and extraordinary board meetings on the school campus on August 5 this year for examination and adoption of the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 administrative accounts and budget execution reports.

He turned down questions from reporters eager to know how the institution’s finances were being managed since becoming board chair.