The “Ahidjoness” in Prime Minister Philemon Yang is gone ¹

Prime Minister Philemon Yang and President Paul Biya are both militants of the ruling CPDM party. The similarities end there. Yang was appointed into the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo government after spending only six months in Buea as a Magistrate. The late Ahidjo saw in the young Yang a dynamic, hard working and patriotic lad whose mastery of the French language remains a mystery to many at the CNU leadership.

A story was often told of how the late President Ahidjo summoned Philemon Yang to Yaoundé for a one-and-one. Yang arrived from Buea on that fateful day that Ahidjo had to meet with a visiting head of state.  Yang did the unthinkable!! He drove to the Prime Minister’s office and informed Biya that he was given just a day by his boss in Buea to be out of station.  Biya as prime minister laughed hard and asked Yang if his patron in Buea had legitimate authority more than Ahidjo. Yang insisted and traveled back to Buea. Ahidjo and Biya reportedly shared a conversation on the matter and history had it that the late president was so proud of the young Magistrate who had so much respect for constituted authority. Philemon Yang was appointed as the youngest minister ever in the Ahidjo government.

The office of the president of the republic changed hands on November 6^th 1982 and the moderate Ahidjo men were all sent abroad as ambassadors after the controversial April 6^th coup. Yang was appointed Cameroon ambassador to Canada where he spent more than two decades before he was moved back home as Assistant Secretary at the presidency of the republic. Prime Minister Philemon Yang is a celebrated CPDM militant and head of government but everywhere he has been, this native of Oku in the North West region has demonstrated so much love for fatherland which is the main brand of the Ahidjo men and women. His time as a politician and a statesman is drawing to a close and so too is the “Ahidjoness” in him.

He is heading a consortium of crime syndicates known as the CPDM led government metamorphosing from one scandal to another. Recently, his administration has issued a terse statement that it will not keep the promise made to the Cameroonian people to restore urban public transport by bus, before the African Cup of Nations women’s football, which begins in Yaoundé on November the 19th. On the 30^th of August 2016, a partnership agreement was signed in Yaoundé between the Minister of Transport and a Portuguese Group known as Eximtrans / Irmaos Mota to set up a mass urban transport system in Yaoundé and Limbé.

The agreement provided for 150 air-conditioned buses with a capacity of 91 seats including 39 seats and 52 standing for mass transport in Yaoundé and Limbé. 135 of the buses had to be reserved to serve 13 lines from Yaoundé. While 5 others were assigned to Limbé. 10 “VIP” buses were reserved for transportation during the female Africa Cup of Nations.  One of Philemon Yang’s numerous cabinet ministers; Edgard Alain Mebo Ngo’o told the world that 40 of the new buses have been reserved exclusively for the participation teams for the AFCON which he revealed were to be delivered before October 31, 2016.

The Philemon Yang administration told the Cameroonian people that our nation had invested 17 billion FCFA for a 10-year operating period, of which 10% are held by the State represented by the urban community of Yaoundé. Faced with a hostile public opinion due to the absence of the buses, the Yang government has announced that the contract will not be executed before the tournament. The buses, they say will arrive after the competition.  By not allowing Transport Minister Edgard Alain Mebo Ngo’o to face the media over this prominent and successful failure, Prime Minister Philemon Yang has acted like an ordinary politician from Oku. We can now tell the world that the “Ahidjoness” in him is gone and he has embrace Chantalistes Biyayistes.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai (Cameroon Concord News Group)