The Conflict Of Leadership In MANIDEM, And The Effects Of The Controversial Decision That Minister ATANGA NJI Took In 2018

KAH WALLA Asserts That The Problem MANIDEM Is Facing Today, Began In 2018 When The Minister Took The Controversial Decision To Replace DIUEDONNE YEBGA With EKANE ANICET   

Observers Think The One Big Mistake YEBGA Made Was Not To Take The Matter To Court, While The Mistake EKANE Made Was Not To Organize A Congress To Get Some Legality And Legitimacy

 As For KAMTO’s Situation, KAH WALLA Thinks “A Decision Was Taken Somewhere” That KAMTO Will Not Be Presidential Candidate, And That The MANIDEM Problem, Serves Just As An Excuse

 A Communiqué Signed By DIEUDONNE YEBGA On July 29, 2025, Said MANIDEM Regrets That Several People Have Come Out To Make Declarations And Take Positions, When They Do Not Know The Constitution Of The Party.

In the March 2, 2018 cabinet reshuffle, Paul Atanga Nji was appointed Minister of Territorial Administration. The minister immediately delved into politics, to create a group of so called opposition parties baptized as  G. 20, to support President Biya’s candidacy in that year’s presidential election. This was a strategy to give the false impression to the world that even part of the Cameroon opposition, supported Biya’s candidacy.

Minister Atanga Nji then went on to address  correspondence No. 0000032  dated July 17, 2018, on the,  Situation In Some Political Parties, to all the 10 Governors in the country. In the controversial correspondence, the minister said the leader of UPC was Bapooh Lipot Robert, the President of MANIDEM was Ekane Anicet, and the President of CPP was Tita Samuel Fon. The minister told the Governors to scrupulously respect the directives.

Thus Minister Paul Atanga Nji, pushed out the legal and legitimate National President of MANIDEM, Mbombog Dieudonne Yebga, and brought back his man, Ekane Anicet, who had stepped down as President of MANIDEM almost 10 years back.  There was no doubt that Minister Atanga Nji and Ekane Anicet struck a deal. Of course Minister Atanga Nji is known to be somebody who never does anything for the interest of the opposition.

The Case Of CPP

In the same controversial correspondence that Minister Atanga Nji addressed to Governors in July 2018, he also brought back the former Pioneer President of CPP, Samuel Tita Fon, to replace Edith Kah Walla, who was the elected, or better still the legal and legitimate National President of CPP. But the no-nonsense Kah Walla dragged both Minister Atanga Nji and Samuel Tita Fon to the Administrative Court of the Centre Region in Yaounde, and won the case in 2019, and thus got back full control of the CPP.  The Administrative Court ruled that it is the congress of a party that elects its President, and that it is was not for the Minister of Territorial Administration to designate the President of a political party.

Talking in a programme over Balafon Tv in Douala a few days ago, the National President of CPP, Edith Kah Walla, recalled that Dieudonne Yebga who was duly elected President of MANIDEM by the party’s congress in 2015, brought the party into Stand Up For Cameroon Movement, and that they worked together in the movement. Kah Walla who also pointed out that the purported congress of MANIDEM that announced the dismissal of Dieudonne Yebga from the party was strongly contested, said they were all taken aback in July 2018, when the Minister of Territorial Administration, addressed a correspondence to the Governors, in which he designated his own persons as the leaders of three political parties which included UPC, MANIDEM and CPP.

Dieudonne Yebga Failed To Go To Court

As aforementioned, Minister Atanga Nji said Robert Bapooh Lipot was leader of UPC, whereas the party’s congress that held in 2017, re-elected Balenguel Nkot Pierre as leader. The minister in the correspondence said the President of MANIDEM was Ekane Anicet, whereas the legal and legitimate President of the party that was elected at the last regularly convened congress of the party that held in 2015, was Dieudonne Yebga. As regard CPP, Minister Atanga Nji said Samuel Tita Fon, the former President of the party was President, whereas the legal and legitimate National President of CPP that was elected at the party’s congress, was Edith Kah Walla.

Meanwhile, the National President of CPP, Edith Kah Walla, disclosed in the programme over Balafon Tv, that considering the fact that she and Dieudonne Yebga were working together in the Stand Up For Cameroon Movement, she thought they would jointly go to court to challenge the controversial decision of the Minister of Territorial Administration, and thus seek justice. But she said Dieudonne Yebga was hesitant, and so she went alone ahead with the CPP, and won the case.

2018 Presidential Election

The big mistake that Mbombog Dieudonne Yebga did, with his own situation, was that he did not go to court to challenge the controversial decision of Minister Atanga Nji, to have declared in his July 17, 2018 correspondence to Governors, that Ekane Anicet was the President of MANIDEM.  Yebga probably thought that he could ignore the minister’s message to the Governors, and continue to carry out his function as President of MANIDEM.

At the 2018 presidential election, Dieudonne Yebga who was still pushing ahead as President of MANIDEM, together with his camp declared support for the candidature of Barrister Akere Muna, and thus went along with him and his NOW Movement during the campaign. When a few days to the election proper, Akere Muna decided to withdraw his candidature and support Maurice Kamto’s candidature, Dieudonne Yebga and his camp in MANIDEM went along with him to support Kamto.

Meanwhile as time went on, the administration made things very difficult for Dieudonne Yebga to continue to operate as President of MANIDEM, as the local administrative authorities reinforced the instruction of their minister that the President of MANIDEM was Ekane Anicet.

‘The Beginning Of The Problem MANIDEM Is Facing Today, Goes Back To 2018”

Meanwhile the National President of CPP, Edith Kah Walla, in the recent programme over Balafon Tv in Douala, rightly said that the roots of the problem that MANIDEM is facing today as regard the leadership conflict, started with the controversial decision of the Minister of Territorial Administration in July 2018, to replace Dieudonne Yebga as President of MANIDEM with Ekane Anicet

Meanwhile as many political observers have noted as well,  Ekane Anicet too made a big mistake, that since the 2018 designation as President of MANIDEM by the Minister of Territorial Administration, he, did not convene the congress of MANIDEM, to give him some form of legality and legitimacy as President.

As regard the problem of multiplicity of candidacies that ELECAM received from MANIIDEM for the 2025 presidential election, many political observers think that Mbombog Dieudonne Yebga  in reality is not interested in being a presidential candidate, but he definitely has a score to settle with Ekane Anicet, who no longer has a good relationship with Minister Atanga Nji, and thus cannot count on him like in 2018.  Maurice Kamto in this whole thing is the victim of the conflict between Ekane Anicet and Dieudonne Yegba over the leadership of MANIDEM, and is definitely not the real target of Yebga.

MINAT Is Not A Credible Reference To Know The Real President Of A Party

Meanwhile, having failed to organize a congress to try to legalize and legitimize his presidency of MANIDEM, the main document that Ekane Anicet appears to have to show as evidences that he is President of MANIDEM, is the correspondence that the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, addressed to the Governors on July 17, 2018, and that the fact that until recently it was his name that was on the website of  the Ministry of Territorial Administration commonly known as MINAT,  as President of MANIDEM.

But from all evidences, it is indisputable that MINAT under Minister Atanga Nji, is not a credible reference to know who is the real President of a political party. We saw how in 2018, Minister Atanga Nji in a correspondence to Governors said that the President of CPP was Samuel Tita Fon, but then the real President of CPP, Edith Kah Walla, dragged the minister and Tita Fon to court, and won the case. There is also the case of the legalized faction of the UPC. The court ruled that the real leader of UPC is Balenguel Nkot Pierre, while the MINAT Boss has been insisting that it is instead Robert Bapooh Lipot. There is the case of PCRN. While a number of court rulings all confirmed Cabral Libii Ngue as the National President of PCRN, Minister Atanga Nji for a longtime insisted that the National President of the party was the former leader, Pa Robert Kona.

Kah Walla Condemns Plot Against Kamto

Meanwhile as regard the situation of Maurice Kamto in the 2025 presidential election, the National President of CPP and Coordinator of Stand Up For Cameroon, Edith Kah Walla, also said in the aforementioned programme over Balafon Tv in Douala,  that “it was decided somewhere that Kamto will not be a candidate” at the 2025 presidential election. She said the problem in MANIDEM is just an excuse that those who took the vicious decision to block Kamto from being a presidential candidate, are using. Kah Walla has also signed a communiqué of Stand Up For Cameroon, strongly condemning the plot to block Maurice Kamto, a frontline opposition leader in Cameroon today, from being a candidate at the October 12, 2025 presidential election.

Meanwhile in a two page communiqué done on MANIDEM’s letter headed paper and dated July 29, 2025,  and signed by Dieudonne Yebga who claims to be the President of the Party, it was  said that MANIDEM regrets that several persons have come out in the last few days to made declarations or take position on what is happening in MANIDEM, when they do not the Constitution of the party. It was pointed out for example that since 2018, the former President of the party, Ekane Anicet (though name was not mentioned), has been passing around as “President de Comite de Direction du MANIDEM”, whereas such a post has never existed in the party. The communiqué insisted that MANIDEM has just one President of the party, and that the current President is Dieudonne Yebga,