Fotso’s battle with Cameroon & E. Guinea gov’ts

By Franklin Sone Bayen
If no one is suspecting anything beyond regular procedure in the recent decision by the Central African Banking Commission (COBAC) to place the Commercial Bank of Cameroon (CBC) under watch for possible liquidation, Yves Michel Fotso, proprietor of the bank, is crying foul.

While admitting that CBC is not faultless, Fotso is alleging that COBAC is being manipulated by Equatorial Guinea to settle scores after his bank won a case against the neigbhouring state, obtaining 40 billion FCFA as damages because Malabo illegally prohibited establishment of a CBC branch there. CBC lawyers were in the process of identifying Equatorial Guinea accounts abroad to obtain payment of the penalty when the COBAC sanction fell. Fotso considers the sanction, that discharges him of his functions as board chair of the bank, too severe and hides ulterior motives.

Yet, even those accusations seem to be only part of the story. The paternalistic intervention by the Cameroon government to “bailout” the bank looks like a calculated first step towards embracing a rival to suffocate him – stepping into the Fotso Empire to eventually own it (seize it) or crumble it.

But why?

It has not been said how Yaounde and Malabo would have conspired to suffocate CBC. However, it can be conjectured that, just as it is possible Malabo is pulling its oil weight in COBAC – that little country holds more than 47% of reserves in the Bank of Central Africam States (BEAC) – our government was also in a position to defend CBC if it had the will to. Apparently, it did not. Instead of chasing the hawk before chiding the chicks, our government seems to have let the hawk grab the chick before engaging wings to go to its rescue. All of that to look magnanimous and, while the public applauds, reap from Fotso family sweat.

There are precedents to show that when some persons in authority are uncomfortable with the actions or mere existence of certain individuals, they use the huge state machinery to crush them. They settle personal scores or sometimes do so on behalf of the president.

Henri Sack who ran TV Max, the first private TV in Douala, had a taste of it when former CRTV GM, Gervais Mendo Ze, presented him as an anti-patriot simply because TV Max acquired exclusive rights for a Cameroon international match earlier this decade, and required CRTV to buy the images. Insisting national team matches are a matter of sovereignty, Mendo made CRTV broadcast the match in defiance of TV Max’s exclusive rights, of course, without payment. Somehow, CRTV went on to defeat TV Max in a case in France.

That was only the beginning of trouble for Sack. TV Max was thenceforth always put on the wrong side of the law. Its transmission pylons around Village, a neighbourhood on the Yaounde outlet from Douala were knocked down for “being too close to the Douala International Airport, posing a risk to planes in flight”. Other pylons around were spared. TV Max eventually died slow death. In the early 1990s, Victor Fotso and Kadji Defosso turned coat from early support for the newly-created opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), when government tax agents showed them red.

Fotso since become a pillar of the Biya regime, bankrolling its operations. He is presently mayor of his Bandjoun hometown, near Bafoussam on the ticket of the president’s party. He is also known to have used his influence to position some of his several wives at elective positions. At least one of them is deputy mayor of the Yaounde I district. Another is Member of Parliament. Apparently through the same influence, his son Yves Michel, a private sector personality, became managing director of Cameroon Airlines (Camair), a position hitherto reserved for government cadres.

Yet does it look like some elements of the Biya regime believe Yves Michel was party to a plot to have the president killed in a faulty plane by purchasing the Albatross. He was involved in the deal because the government undertook the purchase, pretending the plane was for Camair use, to avoid scrutiny by the IMF which thought such a purchase just for the president’s comfort, was misplaced priority at a time Cameroon was making its case for HIPC debt cancellation in the middle of this decade.

Now that son of Victor Fotso is swearing he will defend his property even with is life. Such statements are not often heard from people of Fotso’s stature. He believes COBAC is just a subterfuge for people with diabolic motives. “I’m sorry, but if it becomes an institution used to eliminate people, I’m ready to die. I’ll accept to be sacrificed,” said Fotso in a telephone intervention on an talkshow a fortnight ago, on a Douala-based private TV channel, STV.

So why would a “prince” put his life on the line like that?

And that was not Fotso’s first media outing on a burning issue. Late last year he came out strong in an interview broadcast simultaneously by three private TV channels (STV, Equinox TV and Canal 2) telling his side of the story over the Albatross Affair. His approach, maximizing TV audience through the three channels, was so effective everyone was talking about it the next morning. Fotso’s smartness apparently vexed certain people in authority.

The Fotso heir, who has been on a travel ban, might have been saved from prison last year only by his father’s personal intervention when he was summoned to the Judicial Police in Yaounde. To protect him, his aging father accompanied him to Yaounde, spent the night in his hotel room for fear he could be abducted and the next morning, accompanied him for the police interrogation, as if to say “that’s my son, if you will take him, you’ll have to take me too.”

The younger Fotso walked free from there. Hardly anyone implicated in the Albatross Affair walked free after visiting the Judicial Police. But whether he can free the family empire from this suspected onslaught may take more than his father’s watchful eyes.

This posting first featured on my column "STATE OF THE NATION" in Standard Tribune (currently on the market), published in Yaounde Cameroon

Biya ignores Anglophone press (Or has Biya given up on Anglophones?)

By Franklin Sone Bayen


I have cause to wonder if President Paul Biya has given up on Anglophones, seeing his 27th anniversary letter to Cameroonians and CPDM militants published only in French language newspapers. It looks like Biya has given up trying to market himself to Anglophone masses, unsure of finding any sympathetic ear there. Else, why would a head of state, so desperate for every bit of sympathy – if not support – in the face of mounting challenge from within his own ranks, afford to limit, in such blatant manner, his SOS to only a part of his people?

The president’s letter, a well-paid commercial announcement, I’m informed, was published on Thursday, 5 November only in the four French language dailies and two nominal bilingual papers – Cameroon Tribune and L’Action – both of which are read mainly by Francophones, plus a few regime Anglophones who for the most part are already Biya stalwarts. Even the French language papers published both the English and French versions.

English language newspapers that tried to obtain the insertion were rudely turned away and later offered it at ridiculously cheap rate. Some turned down the offer. Most of those now printing it are doing so on “patriotic grounds”.

L’Action (the CPDM paper) No. 688 du 5 Novembre 2009, in a page 11 article titled “INEDIT” (UNPRECEDENTED or first of its kind) explains that Biya’s letter would later be published in other weeklies (obviously including those in English). But, seeing there are no dailies in English yet, won’t they have been the wiser to have placed the president’s letter in the English language weeklies (and bi-weeklies) at the same time as the French language dailies, even if only to show some equity?

Brutus

Now to the substance of the president’s letter.
It all looks like Biya’s manifesto for a third “septenat”. But he comes across more desperate than passionate. Like in the 1992 presidential election when he saw red, Biya is once more resorting to the Lion analogy (“the fighting Lions spirit”, just like Rigobert Song’s “Hemle Nje”), though this time around, the threat seems to be coming more from disgruntled regime men than from the opposition. As if to warn his young friends scheming against him that they won’t have their way without seeing the incisors and claws of a vexed lion.

If any iota of doubt remained whether Biya would seek another term, here is proof that at nearly 90 minutes of fulltime play, exhausted though he may appear, Biya is asking for extra time and demanding a vital pass to net in.

The president’s letter came as La Nouvelle (No. 043 du Lundi 9 Novembre 2009), the French language weekly often proven right in its inside regime stories, reported the emergence of a new group, “Brutus”, supposed to be scheming to knock out Biya (remember Brutus’ fatal trick on Cesar?). After G11 or Generation 2011 who came to light in 2006, this “new group” is supposed to be a click including Marafa, Laurent Esso, Fame Ndongo, Gregoire Owona, Fai Yengo, Suzanne Mbomback, Charles Metouck, etc, some of them former G11.

Football politics

If that were true, the poor man should now find himself in the crossfire of a succession fight within his own walls that shows even his most loyal lieutenants are already in battle gear. Having G11 in his prisons and Brutus in his ministries, plus the Banjul Verdict to grapple with, might have pushed Biya to resort to the masses. His choice of words, evoking peace and unity, is telling.

His own government and CPDM party no longer trustworthy, and knowing how much passion football victories generate in Cameroonian masses, especially with World Cup qualification in view, Biya is, by alluding to the fighting Lions spirit, showing the Indomitable Lions are now his most trusted “political party” and Lions fans, the only “militants” he now counts on; his last resort.

With Cameroon’s World Cup qualification, you can’t deny Biya staked on the Lions and won the bet, can you?

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Didn't Fifa favour Egypt for Algeria playoff?

By Franklin Sone Bayen*


Algeria finally had their way over Egypt to obtain Africa's last World Cup ticket after their playoff in Khartoum Sudan on November 18, but that match should not have been necessary had Fifa followed its own rules to the very last letter.

Because Algeria scored three goals against Egypt in the away leg and Egypt scored only two against Algeria in the return leg in the Africa Group C of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, Algeria had an advantage based on Point 5 of the new FIFA rule for teams even on points at the end of group matches like both countries in Africa Group C.

Nearly a month before the final group games of this 2010 World Cup qualifiers, we presented an exhaustive analysis of the expected outcome for Cameroon based on the possible results from matches on November 14 in Group A: Morocco-Cameroon and Togo-Gabon. It was a two part write-up, one titled “CMR-Morocco: THE LAST IFS”. The second, “Most complicated scenario”, was based on the new FIFA rule to rank teams even on points at the end of group games.

Our emphasis on the second write-up was on a scenario whereby Cameroon and their lone challengers Gabon were tied at 10 points each after the November 14 matches, ie, if Moroco defeated Cameroon and Gabon drew with Togo.

As it turned out, Cameroon’s victory over Morocco rolled them a red carpet to the World Cup. It rendered unnecessary and useless any further calculations (ifs) based on the outcome of the Togo-Gabon match in Lome the same day.

With Cameroon’s 13 points, even a victory for Gabon raising them to 12 points would have been of the no consequence. Worst case scenario for Gabon, they were beaten 1-0 by Togo, to mark time at nine points. Cameroon thus sailed through, with safe four points from Gabon.

The Indomitable Lions thus spared already anxious Cameroonians the trouble of that “Most complicated scenario”. Instead, where it applied, and nearly so perfectly, was between Egypt and Algeria. They ended the qualifiers at par on everything from points to goals scored, goals conceded, goal difference and even more. Plus, they faced each other on the last day of play on November 14, Egypt beating Algeria 2-0 to attain that nearly perfect equality, necessitating their playoff on November 18 in Khartoum, Sudan. Algeria won the playoff 1-0 to grab Africa's last World Cup ticket.

Weeks ahead of their Saturday game, FIFA notified that if Egypt defeated Algeria 2-0 on the last day of play, the two would go for a playoff. That was because ahead of that game, Algeria had 13 points after four matches, Egypt 10; Algeria had scored nine goals, Egypt seven; Algeria had conceded two goals, Egypt four; Algeria had +7 in goal difference, Egypt +3. Algeria had beaten Egypt in the first leg in Algeria 3-1. This meant that if Egypt defeated Algeria 2-0 in Egypt, both teams would be tied at 13 points, they would both have scored nine goals, both would have conceded four goals, both would thus have ended the qualifiers with +5 in goal difference and each would have beaten the other at home by a two-goal difference. (Nearly) perfect equality!

As we explained in our previous write-up, this is what the new FIFA rule says about ranking of teams with equal points sourced from the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia: “If teams are even on points at the end of group play, the tied teams will be ranked by: 1. goal difference in all group matches (Algeria +5, Egypt +5) 2. greater number of goals scored in all group matches (Algeria 9, Egypt 9) 3. greater number of points obtained in matches between the tied teams (Algeria 3, Egypt 3) 4. goal difference in matches between the tied teams (3-3: 1st leg Algeria 3-1 Egypt, 2nd leg Egypt 2-0 Algeria) 5. greater number of goals scored in matches between the tied teams (Algeria 3, Egypt 2, take note of this) 6. drawing of lots, or playoffs (if approved by FIFA).”

Take note that Algeria have an advantage over Egypt on point 5. It may seem complicated but understand it in other words thus: which team scored more goals in either of the matches played between Algeria and Egypt? In the away leg, Algeria won scoring three goals. In the return leg, Egypt won scoring just two. Point 5 disregards goals conceded in matches between tied teams.

Although they were even on particular goal difference, it must be pointed out that FIFA put that as one of the conditions for ranking teams tied on points, and ought to have respected it. Algeria had the advantage, but FIFA seemed to have foreseen and ignored it. Reason they skipped to point 6, ie, the Algeria-Egypt playoff on November 18.

Rules well applied, will always penalize someone and leave them offended. Nigeria, clearly a favorite in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, bowed to the old FIFA rule whereby the first consideration (Point 1) has now become Point 3 in the new rule. That gave Angola the ticket to the 2006 World Cup to the detriment of Nigeria who had better goal difference (+14) in all group matches (Point 1 in the new rule). Angola had only +6. Nigeria had scored far more goals (Point 2 in the new rule), a whopping 21. Angola had scored only 12. But Angola had grabbed four out of six available points in matches between the two teams (Point 1 in the old rule, Point 3 in the new rule), having beaten Nigeria 1-0 in the away leg in Angola and held them to a 1-1 draw in the return leg in Nigeria.

Nigerian fans thought they had been cheated, but that was the rule then. It was respected. Not quite so for Algeria-Egypt in the 2010 qualifiers.

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*The author is editor-in-chief of Cameroon sport magazine “This is SPORT! This is FOOTBALL!”