This
reflection is inspired by the fact that although power structures in Cameroon
had historically excluded youth from decision making processes on grounds they
were leaders of tomorrow, Barrister Honore Ajuo Ngam took the bull by the horns
and challenged the status quo to the contrary.
The
views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
necessarily reflect HillTop Voices Bamenda's editorial stance.
It is the more informed by the
fact that since the reintroduction of multiparty democracy in Cameroon in 1990,
many a leading political party reduced the role of the women and the youth
wings to cooking food and decorating event venues, for the other wing, and
carrying chairs to and fro the event venue, for the other wing. It is also
informed by the fact that although many a Cameroonian had become frustrated,
disenfranchised, and irked by the fact that a small minority of octogenarians
have confiscated political space, to the exclusion of the youth, Barrister
Honore Ngam refused to see that as an insurmountable challenge. He dared to
dream and succeeded.
Point
is, Barrister Honore Ngam, now Senator, has by his political trajectory, become
a veritable source of inspiration for the many Cameroonian youth who had since
given up on politics on grounds the environment was not enabling enough for
youth to strife. In realizing such a feat in less than six years of his joining
active politics, Honore Ngam has demonstrated in triumphant detail that the
only best way to predict the future is to create it. A walk down memory lane
would help young Cameroonians understand how he
did not only predict but created the future.
Political
Life:
Coming
to the realization like Nkwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first President, that 'seek ye
first the political kingdom and everything else would be added unto you',
Honore Ngam decided to move past the idea of just being a simple militant of a
political party to taking active part in decision making. In 2012, he fought
and was elected legal adviser to the Fundong Electoral District of the SDF. The
following year, that is, 2013, he decided, even to the surprise
of family members and close friends who were worried about the political
terrain in Fundong then, to contest the council seat on his SDF ticket.
Although intestinal quarrels and internal dead threats had almost turned his
SDF party then in Fundong into pieces, Honore Ngam refused to be intimidated by
the mounting CPDM influence. The elections resulted in the SDF picking up only
six council seats with Honore as one of the SDF councillors as the CPDM won a
relative majority. This was the first reintroduction of multiplayer elections
that the CPDM was winning the Fundong Council. Rather than being discouraged,
the reverse SDF gains in Fundong emboldened the young uprising local SDF star.
By 2014, the District Executive of the SDF in Fundong was in shambles. The
deadlock had reached a level where the SDF Region had to intervene. After
attempts at reconciling the warring factions within the Fundong District had
proven futile, Honore was called in as neutral arbiter to head a caretaker
committee for a six month period,renewable.
During his tenure as Caretaker Committee Chairman, Honore put in the extra
energy and the extra hour to rebuild the party that was once the pride of
Fundong. In the process, he endeared himself to the women and youth of the
party who had simply been bored with the old and confrontational management
style of the old guard that when time came for District elections to be
organized, Barrister Honore's candidature was plebiscited. It is the work he
has been doing as SDF District Chairman in Fundong from 2014 through 2016 to
2018 that the National Investiture Committee of the SDF found very little
difficulty investing him as candidate for the senate elections of April 24,
2018. That is also the reason why fellow councillors from both the SDF and CPDM
across the Region did not hesitate to vote his SDF list. Through the 2018
senatorial elections results in the politically-minded Northwest Region, the
youth overwhelmingly decided to vote out octogenarian CPDM senatorial
candidates. Not that
youthfulness
was the only factor that militated in favour of Senator Honore Ngam. He had
cultured himself to this day through a sound and profound education.
Educational
Background:
 |
| Senator Barister Honore Ajuo Ngam |
There
is no gainsaying the fact that Honore Ajuo Ngam's soundness and profoundness in
education inevitably makes him one of the finest brains in Boyoland. This is
justified by the fact that there was thoroughness in his primary and secondary
education that took him through some of the best schools like Sacred Heart
College, Mankon. Animated by his personal belief, even at that young age, that
education was an instrument of liberation from the manacles of ignorance,
disease, malnutrition and injustice, which plaques Cameroon, Honore defied even
suggestions from his father to study journalism and went forth to do Law at the
University of Buea. After years of tutelage and after gaining admission in the
Cameroon Bar, he did not seem settled with a B. A in Law. Cumulatively with his
impressive work of defending
the
defenseless in courts across Cameroon, Honore went on to successfully complete
a maitrise course in the University of Dchang and a Masters Degree course on
International Human Rights Law and Humanitarian Action from the Yaoundé based
Catholic University of Central Africa. Coupled with a dozen lot of professional
courses and training facilitations in various areas of litigation, human rights
and above all, elections monitoring, all of Honore Ngam's actions seemed to
have had a providential link to a political future. From the Cosmic Chambers of
Barrister Paddy Yong where he brilliantly did tutelage to the crowning glory of
the Commercial Avenue Crown Law Firm where he is senior founding partner,
Honore had never settled for anything less. It could be said that his years of
tutelage at Paddy Yong's Cosmic Chambers did not only sharpen him legally but
also politically as although he went into practice with the understanding that
a successful professional life was all what was needed
in
life, he saw in Senior Barrister Paddy Yong's political ambitions the
translation of the ideology of Harold
Laswell, the repute American Scientist, who at first thought it was enough to
be a successful scientist, that '
politics decides who gets what, where, when, why and how'. Not that before
getting to tutelage at Cosmic Chambers Honore Ajuo Ngam was stranger to
politics. He might have been dormant to politics but politics had historically
run through the family blood.
Family
Background:
That
Barrister Honore Ngam decided to contest for Council Elections in 2013, of all
elections, was like revisiting the family roots or reconciling with history. It
was his grandfather, the very towering late Honorable Chia Ngam that was very
first Chairman of Fundong Local Council area from the 70s through the 80s. The
former Customs Officer and senior prince of Kom palace only abandoned that
mayoral position when time came for him to represent Kom in Parliament in the
late 80s and early 90
where
he was eldest member of Parliament and consequently had to address Parliament.
By becoming Boyo's first ever elected Senator, young Barrister Honore Ajuo Ngam
has just reedited history as his maternal uncle, Hon Ngam Chia, son of late Hon
Chia Ngam, was Sdf's first ever elected Boyo MP from 1996-2001. Like Senator
Honore's grandfather, Hon Chia Ngam, who for his old age, handled the affairs
of Parliament until a new bureau was elected, Honore Ngam, by virtue of the
fact that he is likely to be the youngest Senator, would join Senator Mukete to
pilot the affairs of the House until a new bureau is put in place after the
April 24, 2018 inaugural and immersion session.
Honore
as an Inspiring Role Model:
From
the foregoing, there is no gainsaying that Senator Honore Ngam as a blaze
trailer not just a trail blazer, has inspired and will continue to inspire hope
in an otherwise Cameroonian youth that had since given up hope of ever taking
part in the decision making process in Cameroon. He
unquestionably,
is a source of inspiration for many more youths who are taking the last minute
decision not only to register but to take active part as councillors and MPs at
the upcoming general elections. His victory and phenomenal ascendency is testimony
to the fact that with commitment, dogged
determination and consistency, the new generation youth and elite that have
been fashioned out by the new momentum ignited by the 2016 Common Law Lawyers
and All Anglophone Teachers Trade Unions strike actions, could upset the
Cameroon political apple cart and send the old guard that has crumbled our
economy, parking. Honore's victory is an invitation to Cameroonian youth to
seize the moment, as if it were, to explore the 'carpe diem theme'. In seizing
the moment, youths whom the Cameroon political system has for years try to
disenfranchise, should remind themselves and like Senator Honore did, that the
penalty one pays for not doing politics is that one ends up being ruled by his/
her inferiors.
The
Muteff Boy's take
By Colbert Gwain
Author
(most recent book; Bamenda source of inspiration for Modern Cameroon),
Columnist for The Voices Weekly Newspaper, Radio Host, Rights (internet,
girls, women and minority) Activist and Communication Consultant.