Paul Ayah talks tough on Cameroon reunification

The Chairman of the Popular Action Party, PAP, Justice Ayah Paul Abine, has stated that there is no legal document on reunification between the British Southern Cameroons and French Cameroon.

Justice Hon Ayah was speaking at a press conference in Muea Buea organised by his PAP on June 11 as part of the party’s activities for 2016.

The 4th (highest) grade magistrate and Attorney General at the Supreme Court of Cameroon stated: “There is no legal document between Southern Cameroons and La Republique on reunification.

The Plebiscite of February 11, 1961, was an intent of “yes we want to join,” but there is no document on reunification. President Biya appointed a Committee of wise men before the [50th anniversary] reunification celebration (2014) and they did not find any document anywhere on reunification.”

The 2011 Presidential election candidate was answering questions pertaining to whether he still believes in the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, where he was at one time made Chairman, after accepting the appointment to the Supreme Court.

“The SCNC is doing a marvellous job; that of fighting illegality,” Ayah stated. “The only thing is all the factions of the SCNC should come together and we go to the villages and educate the people,” Ayah added.

PAP Is Waxing Strong

Narrating the history of PAP, Hon Ayah said: “People’s Action Party saw the light of day by expediency. The idea materialised on the heels of the arrest and remand in Prison custody of Barrister Yondo Black and others for wanting to launch a political party in defiance of the one-party system President Ahidjo had imposed.

The international community did cry foul against President Paul Biya’s New Deal government! In their characteristic falsehood, the New Deal denied that Mr. Yondo Black and others were being held in prison custody for wanting to launch a political party. They asserted that the Cameroonian law allowed for multi-party system.

“Availing himself of the New Deal nervous entanglement, Mr. John Fru Ndi quickly issued a communiqué that (since the Cameroonian allowed multi-partism) he had formed a political party – the Social Democratic Front (SDF) and that he would be launching it on May 26, 1990.

“Ayah Paul Abine,” he continued, “immediately met Mr. John Ndahne of Radio Buea and the duo reviewed the prevailing situation and its repercussion on the Southwest Province as it then was.

They agreed that the Southwest Province was most vulnerable from its disunity and cosmopolitan composition, with the consequence that it was going to be fertile ground for political hawks.

Its protection, therefore, lay in the province belonging to a political party that would speak in the name of the province so as to forestall alien political hawks catching the Southwestern people as weak, defenceless individuals… A few more meetings led to the founding of People’s Action Party, PAP.”

He continued the narrative how they met Professor Victor Mukwelle Ngoh, who registered the party in 1991, through when he (Ayah) resigned from the CPDM in 2010, to when he “could find no better refuge than the political umbrella that was his brainchild,” going in for the 2011 Presidential election and the change of the name of the party from People’s Action Party to Popular Action Party.

In his closing remarks during the press conference, Justice Ayah stated: “It is like we are re-launching PAP today. Whatever the CPDM does to my salary, PAP will not die. I will continue to fight!” he declared amid applause from militants.