The Fight Over UPC Party In The 90s

How Augustin Frederick Kodock, The Regime’s Man, Hijacked UPC, Registered The Party At OAPI As A Cooperative Society, And Used The Registration To Obstruct Other UPC Factions.

The original ‘Union des Populations du Cameroun’, UPC, or better still the Union of the Populations of Cameroon, which prides itself as the oldest political party in the country, was a real nationalist party. UPC which was created in the 1950s, to fight for the genuine independence of Cameroun, was forced to go underground following the very deadly war that was launched against its leaders in particular, after ‘independence’ by the neo – colonial Ahmadou Ahidjo regime, and the neo – colonial master, France.

Many of the party’s leaders like Reuben Um Nyobe, Felix Roland Moumie, Afana, Ernest Ouandji, among others, were tracked down at their hideouts at home or aboard and killed. Um Nyobe was killed in his hideout in a forest near his village in today’s Nyong and Kelle Division in the Centre Region, while Ernest Ouandji was caught and killed by firing squad in Bafoussam in 1971. Felix Moumie who was on exile in Belgium, was killed with poison by an hired agent. Other UPC leaders like Ndeh Ntumazah (from Mankon, Bamenda) that were fortunate to stay alive, were however forced to spend several years in exile.

Liberty Laws

President Biya’s Liberty Laws that the National Assembly adopted in December 1990 and which were promulgated into Laws on January 1, 1991, opened the way for UPC to be revived. Biya also granted general amnesty, which as well opened the way for UPC leaders and militants in exile like Ndeh Ntumazah and ‘Colonel Kissamba”, to return to the country.

But if the Biya regime in 1991 was prepared to accept the registration of UPC as a legalized political party in Cameroon, the regime however did not want the original UPC which was a nationalist party, and which was very hostile to France for its neo colonial policy over Cameroon. It should be noted that UPC militants that remain committed to the original ideology of the UPC, strongly hold, and rightly too, that the Ahidjo regime was a neocolonial regime set up by the French masters, that the Biya regime is a continuation of the Ahidjo regime, that France has continued till date with neocolonialism in Cameroon, and that Cameroon is thus not a truly independent country.

So the Biya regime did not want the revival of the original UPC which is a nationalist party, but rather wanted a new UPC ready to compromise, a UPC not hostile to France, a UPC that the regime could control, a UPC whose leaders’ interest will not be the genuine independence of Cameroon, but rather food or their personal interest.

Augustin Frederick Kodock – The Regime’s Man   

And so the Biya regime infiltrated UPC from the very takeoff of its revival. The UPC that was registered in early 1991 had Prince Dika Akwa as President, and Augustin Frederick Kodock as Secretary General. It should be noted that in the UPC from origin, the President is figure head position, while the Secretary General who has executive powers is the real boss or leader of the party. So the real leader of the UPC that was registered in early 1991, was Frederick Augustin Kodock, who in reality was a man of the regime.  Kodiock was a member of the UPC in the 1950s, but was dismissed from the party for anti – party activities.

A veteran politician and UPC member, Henriette Ekwe (senior journalist) who is one of those still committed to the ideology of the original UPC, disclosed in the programme, Canal Presse ,  over Canal 2 International in Douala on Sunday, March 17, 2024, that President Paul Biya knew that Augustin Frederick Kodock was thrown out of UPC by Roland Moumie in 1959, and that Kodock was thus not a true ‘UPCist’. He was rather a man of a friend of the regime. It would also be recalled that in the mid-60s when leaders and members of the UPC were being hunted for elimination by the Ahidjo regime with the support of France, President Ahmadou Ahidjo appointed Augustin Frederic Kodock into his Government, as Minister of Economy.

Kodock Hijacks UPC, And Takes It Into Government

Meanwhile after the revival of the UPC, it did not take long for Augustin Frederick Kodock, to hijack the leadership of the party with the support of the regime, and also by playing the tribal card (Bassa).  It was   the President of UPC, Prince Dika Akwa that was seen to lead the  UPC during  the days of Operation Ghost Town  in 1991, organised by the Coordination of Opposition Parties and Civil Society Organisations. Kodock as pro –regime man certainly did not want to be seen as the UPC leader in such an operation.

But it was Augustin Frederick Kodock that was in charge of UPC when it came to the time for the Tripartite Talks in the late 1991. He was also the one that led the legalized UPC into the first multiparty legislative and municipal elections in March 1992, that was boycotted by other opposition parties like Ni John Fru Ndi’s  SDF and Adamou Ndam Njoya’s CDU. It was also Kodock that after the election negotiated with the Biya regime and got the legalized UPC to enter the Government.

‘UPC Fidele’ of Dooh Michel

If the UPC members committed to the original ideology of the original UPC of Um Nyobe and his comrades, managed to stay in the legalized UPC in 1991 with Kodock as Secretary General, they could not continue in the legalized UPC when Kodock took it into Government after the legislative and municipal elections of March 1, 1992. There was thus a split in the UPC that was revived in early 1991, in early 1992. The faction of the UPC that broke away became known as ‘UPC  Fidele’, that is, the faithful faction of the UPC, and had as leader, Dooh Michel.

 Kodock Registered UPC At OAPI As A Cooperative Society         

Meanwhile what the other UPC leaders in the early 90s did not immediately know was that Augustin Frederick Kodock, as early as February 19, 1991, deposited a file at the Yaounde headquarters of the ‘Organisation Africaine de la Propriete Intellectuelle’, OAPI, which is in charge of Intellectual Property Rights in Francophone African Countries.

Kodock in requesting for the registration of ‘Union des Populations du Cameroun’ by OAPI, presented UPC as a cooperative society, and with some of his men, Dr Sende Joseph and Barrister Biyong Jean Calvin, as members of the management board of UPC. UPC of course was a political party, had nothing to do with a cooperative. Also, Kodock and his men did not have any cooperative society anywhere. But OAPI eventually granted Kodock’s request by registering UPC as trade mark on June 14, 1993. By then Kodock had had joined the Biya Government, and thus probably used his power as minister, to influence OAPI. More so, as Minister of Agriculture under which cooperative societies (agriculture) fall, Kodock could easily fake documents for a cooperative society that in reality did not exist.

Whatever the case, the registration number or the trade mark of UPC issued by OAPI was No. 32156. The seal of the UPC Party which Kodock also registered as the seal of the cooperative society, had registration number, 10774.

Kodock Drags ‘UPC Fidele’ To Court  

Kodock used the registration he obtained at OAPI, to fight the other UPC factions especially UPC Fidele of Dooh Michel, that he dragged to court in Douala for illegal use of the name UPC. Apparently acting on instructions, the court kept postponing the matter for over five years, during which local administrative authorities used it as a pretext to refuse to grand authorization to any other UPC faction, apart from that of Kodock, to hold a public meeting. This was a strategy that Kodock used to block other factions of the UPC from operating easily.

It should be noted that the MANIDEM Party of Ekani Anicet, which is also a faction of the UPC, was known at its creation as UPC MANIDEM. But the Ministry of Territorial Administration refused to register it, insisting that UPC should be taken off the name. After a long resistance, Ekane Anicet and the other founders of the party like Henriette Ekwe (senior journalist and veteran politician), were forced to drop the name UPC, and leave the party only as MANIDEM, in order for it to be legalized.