A SPEECH BY AYAH PAUL ABINE, THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF PEOPLE'S ACTION
PARTY, AT THE PARTY'S NATIONAL STRATEGIC MEETING AT MAMFE ON SATURDAY,
FEBRUARY 2, 2013
Distinguished Guests,
My dear brothers and sisters.
The good Lord in His wisdom has made it impossible to see the heart,
much less to feel it! You therefore are bereft of the ability to gauge
the joy in my heart right now. It is simply overwhelming! Let me
hasten to tell you in naked and direct terms that at Mamfe I feel at
home! Not because Manyu is my division of birth! Not at all! For that
is wholly natural! No! At Mamfe I feel at home for reasons far
surpassing parochialism!
I repeat that at Mamfe I feel at home; and at home I feel at Mamfe for
historical reminiscences. Oh yes! I feel at home as I do recollect how
the age-old Reading Room so proximate to where we are right now hosted
international conferences on the independence of Southern Cameroons.
Vividly do I recollect the inauguration by the then President, Ahmadou
Ahidjo, of the only monument in the land on the Independence of West
Cameroon and the Reunification of Cameroon! Even as I am talking I
feel and live the vestiges left behind by the Germans in this historic
town. Mamfe is the incarnation of our past; the evidence of the
present, and the hope of continuity! Mamfe and the people of Mamfe: I
love you all!
Believe me! Our meeting in Mamfe is like the rebirth of People's
Action Party! Born again and born into modernity! A rebirth clad with
hope! A rebirth promising of revitalization! A new party stooped to
conquer!
Do permit me at this point to depart from emotion awhile in order to
thank PAP Mamfe first for their warm reception, and then for their
heart-fondling expression of welcome. Their kind and tender words will
remain ever green in our memory! We never shall forget Mamfe as the
springboard of our party! Mamfe: the place where PAP took the sprint
to victory!
Rebirth means our sloughing off the old being and the taking on of
novel characteristics. It means our abhorring the unhealthy past and
our cherishing manners that inspire new impetus – manners productive
of love for one another: love that knows no bounds. It means not any
less that, as a group, we have to fuse our individual interests into
the general good: the offspring of it all being our being transfigured
through self-abnegation, each self being lost into the general. In
other words, we must all end up being not anymore than mere parts of
the whole – the whole that is invariably affected by the malaise of
any single part. That whole is the party, People's Action Party of
course, and by extension the fatherland we project to govern in the
near future: the crowning of our common purpose!
The litmus test is just by the corner: it stares us all in the face.
Its name is registration on the electoral rolls! True it is of course
that PAP was the first party to decry illegal registration between
September 1 and December 31, 2012. PAP it was that long before any
other party condemned as illegal the stopping of registration on
February 28, 2013. But PAP has missed not one opportunity to call on
Cameroonians in general and particularly its own members to register
in big numbers on the electoral rolls even in the face of all the
illegality.
Make no illusion about it! Nothing can be truer than that it is
incumbent on us to catch ELECAM and CPDM in their own game. Their
resorting to illegality is perfectly calculated to serve as a
repellant dose of trickery. Their intention has been designed to add
to the prevailing electoral apathy of Cameroonians, particularly the
youth. Verily I say unto you that ELECAM and CPDM are well aware that
our elders are settled in hopeless expectation. Very conscious are
they that our elders know they have nothing to lose in their waning
years. No tale I tell you that our elders have nothing to hope for.
The fatherland to them is now and now only! Not worth any more than a
crate of beer of one by twenty!
By contrast the youth do know that the Cameroon of tomorrow is theirs
– indeed, the future as a whole. They must invest today in order to
reap tomorrow. They have every interest to build the Cameroon of
tomorrow to their taste. That Cameroon of tomorrow must be built
today! Is not it a matter of common knowledge that no tree bears
fruits on the day of planting? Of course yes! Naturally then must we
sow and wait for the day of harvest. Truly, few are like Christ who
invested in this world not to reap the fruits here but hereafter.
Therefore must the youth exorcise themselves of the illusion that
those on the homeward descent of life will ever invest for them. No,
not at all! The responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the
youth! And that responsibility the youth must discharge today rather
than tomorrow. Tomorrow is full of uncertainties!
Why must we register absolutely? I know you all know the answer! But
let me just add that no change ever happens by abstention. Aware of
course am I of the Cameroonian escapist resignation in the popular
coinage of "divine intervention". But the risk here is that if you are
not registered now, you automatically exclude yourself from
participating in the shaping of the destiny of your country upon the
occurrence of the "divine intervention". This is indisputably so
because upon the President of the Republic dying in office, the
electorate is called to the poll without more and registration stops
upon the demise of the President. Your waiting for "divine
intervention" through surrender is very like hoping to sell after the
market! No youth should so unpatriotic be as to abstain from building
a better Cameroon!
My dear brothers and sisters!
The English tell us that actions speak louder than words. Permit me to
add that the Bible cautions that whoever holds out till the end shall
be saved. No-one need tell us that we are in a race. We must run it
till we cross the winning line! None of us should fall by the wayside
for waste! No such energy we have! And no reasonable person makes a
start without intending to reach the end!
We all know that reaching the end entails making sacrifices:
individual and collective. The collective is the aggregate of the
individual. It is of absolute importance then that individual
endeavours should sum up to the collective achievement. Yours may be
just that very last little push up to the pedestal. How frustrating if
unavailable when most needed!
I beg to say that I mean no harm in opining that many we are who
appear to be still languishing in the CPDM syndrome of the party doing
it for the members. I do strongly urge that we cleanse ourselves here
and now of such mentalities: mentalities inimical to progress. If it
were otherwise, no reason would we have to leave CPDM for PAP! I do
see CPDM and PAP like fire and water that never mix! Therefore must we
of PAP live in fulfillment of the scriptures: living on the sweat of
our labour!
But how can it be otherwise? I have told you before and am repeating
here loud and clear that CPDM are the main embezzlers of public funds
in our country. No gratuitous assertion that is; least defamatory. You
would remember that shortly after the 2011 presidential election, I
wrote an open letter to CONAC on the fraudulent conversion of the 20
billions allocated for "Elections" in that year's budget of the
Republic of Cameroon. My contention was that, whereas the other 22
candidates were given 660 million, the CPDM candidate alone was
spoiled with 19 billions 340 million francs. From every indication
CONAC has since sanctioned the misappropriation.
As if that was not enough, 20 billions were similarly appropriated for
"Elections" in the 2012 budget. We all know that no single election
held in 2012. An identical sum is again set aside for the same purpose
in the 2013 budget. That means CPDM has at its disposal 40 billions
(40 thousand millions) francs in total for the 2013 elections. This
astronomical sum is only additional to the total of 23.7 billions
allocated to ELECAM for the same purpose and period (namely 11.5
billions for 2012 and 12.2 billions for 2013).
PAP by contrast has not a single franc from the state budget for those
two years. Fully consistent with the level ground of the advanced
democracy Mr. President of Cameroon prides himself with putting in our
just society, isn't it? But no bleak future shall PAP know! All it
takes is that every franc for the cause of PAP must come from you and
me! Just a thousand francs from each of us and a million PAP members
will have raised one billion! That is a task that must be done! Our
motivation is self-reliance; patriotism our strength; and our weapon
the thirst for change in the Cameroonian!
That thirst PAP must quench! That thirst only PAP can quench! The
Cameroon of tomorrow only PAP has seen from the Cameroon of today!
From the Cameroon of today where nothing grows anywhere in Africa
without growing here! A country too rich to be poor; too provided to
lack roads; too spoiled to envy! Yet so wretched!
Posterity shall recount that there was PAP where dwelt patriotic
Cameroonians of integrity! It shall be recounted that without PAP the
national boat loaded with corruption, inertia, lawlessness and
nepotism would have sunk! And to you shall they owe their liberation!
You the ones anointed with integrity! You the courageous! Even the
sacrificial lambs! Therefore must today be the beginning of the
clearing for the cultivation of the garden of state – the new state of
a new Cameroon. A born again Cameroon! Only a cutlass and a hoe!
Long live PAP!
Long live Cameroon! Kamerun too!
--
Communications & Public Relations,
People's Action Party, PAP
National Working Secretariat,
Buea, South West Region,
Cameroon.
Motto: Work - Peace - Justice
Tel: (00237) 78 35 80 29 / 94 99 87 43
*E-mail: papcameroon@yahoo.com,
presidentayah@gmail.com<presidentayah@gmail.com>
*Official Website: www.paprc2011.com OR www.ayahpaul.net
*Facebook Page:
*www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100001912645245<http://www.facebook.com/#%21/profile.php?id=100001912645245>
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"I profoundly believe all Cameroonians will some day speak the same
language, sing the same songs, dance to the same rhythm, dine and wine at
the same table. When the rich shall cater for the poor and the strong shall
help the weak, the law shall be supreme, justice and peace shall forever
reign, if we are honest and believe we can get there. God bless
Cameroon."Hon. AYAH Paul ABINE, Cameroon 2011 Presidential Candidate and
PAP National Secretary General.
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