By Ayah Paul Abine
The Bible tells how people marveled at the immense authority Jesus addressed issues with. The son of God would declare, for instance: “It was said that…, but now I tell you that…” Were Jesus alive today, I
would supplicate Him to grant me leave to borrow from His residual authority and proclaim that “it was said that the pen is mightier than the sword; but now I tell you that the law is mightier than the pen”.
And the law truly is the mightiest! On it is peace contingent; orderliness and interactions of rights. Every nation, every person that wants progress must be amenable to it.
You are at liberty to hold otherwise. But veracity stares you in the face: ignore the Ten Commandments and the gate of hell shall swallow you. Temporal recompense is not any less telling. Some felony does
cost you your life: life that no person ever can give. One misdemeanor or another drives a wedge between you and your loved ones. And a simple deviance depletes your pocket at the dead end of
trivialities! A lawyer would confound you with jaw-breaking legal jargons like “de minimis non curat lex” to edify the apparent travesty.
The law therefore is all-pervading. What beats the imagination then is why the authorities of Cameroun are so completely impervious to legality. And verily they are, from top to bottom; from all the four
cardinal points. Even the Constitution do they take for a simple discretionary guide. The courts are peripheral to powerful extra-judicial, informal courts. Justice is the barrel of the gun…or at the best bartered!
Cameroun is the wonder land where, (unlike the rest of the world where “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom), “the fear of the gendarme is the beginning of wisdom”! A realm where battered masks conceal the visage of gentle conformity! Therefore does no-one get baffled that the press should keep informing the world, with no-one condescending to deny it, that ELECAM officials are asserting that voters’ registration will begin in September, 2012.
Those edicts never can be the product of ignorance. The chair of ELECAM, Dr Fonkam Azu’u Samuel, holds a terminal degree in law. The law in the circumstance is often said to be written across his
breasts. No presumption that is at all! Nor is that said for jest. Except to the extent that Dr Fonkam may be not more than a figurehead would one necessarily expect him to teach that, by the laws in force
in Cameroun, registration commences on January1 and ends on August 31 each year. Exceptionally would registration stop within that period were the electorate called to the polls!
It goes without saying that any registration by ELECAM between September 1 and December 31 this 2012 or any other year shall be total illegality.
The Bible tells how people marveled at the immense authority Jesus addressed issues with. The son of God would declare, for instance: “It was said that…, but now I tell you that…” Were Jesus alive today, I
would supplicate Him to grant me leave to borrow from His residual authority and proclaim that “it was said that the pen is mightier than the sword; but now I tell you that the law is mightier than the pen”.
And the law truly is the mightiest! On it is peace contingent; orderliness and interactions of rights. Every nation, every person that wants progress must be amenable to it.
You are at liberty to hold otherwise. But veracity stares you in the face: ignore the Ten Commandments and the gate of hell shall swallow you. Temporal recompense is not any less telling. Some felony does
cost you your life: life that no person ever can give. One misdemeanor or another drives a wedge between you and your loved ones. And a simple deviance depletes your pocket at the dead end of
trivialities! A lawyer would confound you with jaw-breaking legal jargons like “de minimis non curat lex” to edify the apparent travesty.
The law therefore is all-pervading. What beats the imagination then is why the authorities of Cameroun are so completely impervious to legality. And verily they are, from top to bottom; from all the four
cardinal points. Even the Constitution do they take for a simple discretionary guide. The courts are peripheral to powerful extra-judicial, informal courts. Justice is the barrel of the gun…or at the best bartered!
Cameroun is the wonder land where, (unlike the rest of the world where “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom), “the fear of the gendarme is the beginning of wisdom”! A realm where battered masks conceal the visage of gentle conformity! Therefore does no-one get baffled that the press should keep informing the world, with no-one condescending to deny it, that ELECAM officials are asserting that voters’ registration will begin in September, 2012.
Those edicts never can be the product of ignorance. The chair of ELECAM, Dr Fonkam Azu’u Samuel, holds a terminal degree in law. The law in the circumstance is often said to be written across his
breasts. No presumption that is at all! Nor is that said for jest. Except to the extent that Dr Fonkam may be not more than a figurehead would one necessarily expect him to teach that, by the laws in force
in Cameroun, registration commences on January1 and ends on August 31 each year. Exceptionally would registration stop within that period were the electorate called to the polls!
It goes without saying that any registration by ELECAM between September 1 and December 31 this 2012 or any other year shall be total illegality.
As rumours in Cameroun are rarely bare of
veracity, let it be registered in capital letters that NO LAW in contemporary
Cameroun does permit ELECAM to do registration between September 1 and December
31 ever? Nor any exception!
Failure on the part of ELECAM’s chair to avert
another violation of the law would only enhance our persistent contention that the electoral body lacks both independence and neutrality.
Tell me not you are waiting for the blind to get behind our leaders. If na so, you go wait long tam, my broda! Tory sweet soteeeh tiefman laugh for banda!
Tell me not you are waiting for the blind to get behind our leaders. If na so, you go wait long tam, my broda! Tory sweet soteeeh tiefman laugh for banda!
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