By Ntumfoyn Boh Herbert (Yindo Toh)

Washington, 14 January 2017: The charismatic Member of Parliament (MP) for Bui-South, Hon. Joseph Wirba, crossed yet another line in the sand Saturday when he royally ignored a ban by the colonial administrators of Bui Division to preside a heavily-attended rally at Squares, Kumbo.

His convoy, preceded by over-excited, self-assigned Okada escorts, arrived Squares to chants of “Papa ehleee! Yaya-Yooo” and “Dem Go Kill We Tire”.

“This is what I can do,” Hon. Wirba said from the podium, referring to the huge turnout at the rally. His statement mocks Cameroon’s Higher Education Minister, Prof. Jacques Fame Ndongo, who had tried to let the MP know that there is nothing Southern Cameroonians can do about their domination by Yaounde. After flagging discontent to the Minister, the MP says Fame Ndongo mockingly replied: “Vous allez faire quoi”? (What will you do?)

From Squares on Saturday, the MP spoke of verbal threats on his life, including reportedly from official quarters. This descendant from a long line of Nso warriors challenged his to-be assassins to proceed if such is their desire, pledging that more Wirbas will be born through his killing.

“A strong person does not threaten,”Hon. Wirba told the crowd, letting it be known that he considers the Biya regime to be just talking, instead of acting when confronted with game.

His use of the analogy of a hunter got rally attendees dizzy with laughter. ‘No hunter sees an antelope and, instead of shooting, starts threatening “I will kill you”‘.

Spotting jeans and a brown velvet traveling jacket over a blood red T-shirt bearing the inscriptions “I Am Wirba”. “The 55 Years the Sugar Has Refused to Melt”, the MP reminded the regime that the uprising in Southern Cameroons is the fault of the colonial government refusing to pay heed to the alarm bells she rang while in Yaounde.

He reiterated an earlier statement that the army of the annexationist government of La Republique is already so overwhelmed they would be better served right now calling up the French army in backup role.

“Call wuna (your) big papa for Europe, because your army will not stop us,” said the MP, adding that even grandmothers across Southern Cameroons have now signed up to the cause.

Hon. Wirba’s speech was the main course at the rally and it closed with an announcement urging the towns of Kumbo and Kumba, Buea and Bamenda to assume the role of Soweto in South Africa during the liberation of blacks in that country. He pledged to hold rallies in the three other towns over the coming days/weeks.

The appetizer for the rally had been served in the form of speeches from, among others, the Right Rev. Dora and the initiator of the Coffin Revolution, Mancho Bibixy. Calling himself air, and tnerefore impossible to be stopped by the Biya security forces that tried but failed to prevent him from attending the rally, Mancho worked the crowd up with roars of “No” in response to several questions about whether they want to remain a part of colonial Cameroun.

REFERENDUM CALLS GROW; SO, TOO, THE MOCKERY

Speakers made reference to recent calls for a return to federalism – but it, almost inevitably, turned out to dismiss federalism as a joke, along with the call for the organization of a referendum in Southern Cameroons to determine the form of government.

“No slave who organizes an uprising returns to beg from the castle of the slave master,” said one rally attendee on WhatsApp.

Once dearly loved, federalism is in bad taste on social media platforms. On Saturday, the Chicago-based journalist, blogger and member of MoRISC, Innocent Chia, splashed rotten eggs all over it by naming it the “F Option”. He went after Common Law Lawyers to explain “the inherent discrepancy and conflict” between two points in a communique in which the lawyers called for a referendum, but – putting the cart before the horse  also set up a federal constitutional drafting committee, as if the outcome of the referendum was a given.

“If Anglophones succumb to federalism, they will live with the murders, tortures, rapes, lootings, wanton arrests and molestations, arsons, exclusion and name it, from generation to generation. Who knows when the French will allow Francophones to become something different from French slaves”? questioned Prof. Tatah Mentan.

Social media was full of praise Saturday for former Bar Council Chair, Barrister Bernard Muna, after excerpts of an interview he granted a local television station were aired in a news report.

“Ni Ben has done the “Muna Political Brand” an immense good,” said one WhatsApp post.

The excerpts showed Barrister Muna urging Southern Cameroonian youths to fight for the freedoms they deserve; admitting that the older generation may be too old to get the job done before they go to their graves; and encouraging students to consent the sacrifice imposed by even a full year or two of missed studies in order to obtain a better education in the future.

END