The former member of government, Shey Jones Yembe, has used this year’s football tournament, organised in Yaounde for boys and girls from the Wimbum extraction, in Donga Mantung division, in the North West region, to promote peace, living together and national unity. The yearly tournament which is an initiative of the Wimbum Cultural and Development Association, WICUDA is one of the highest crowd pulling event in the history of the Mbum people. However, this year's tournament was exceptional due to the fact that it was aimed at promoting peace, national unity and social integration. The organisers say it also seeks to promote local football talents and keep idle youths busy. This year’s edition, dubbed: “Unity and Fair Play” , was: “A Special Dedication To His Excellency Shey Jones Yembe, the unsung Hero of Mbumland.
Enter Shey Jones Yembe, Promoter of Peace and Unity
This year’s tournament that saw the participation of ten football teams and four handball teams, got the huge financial backing of Shey Jones Yembe. This reporter was reliably told that the Chief Executive Officer, CEO of the renowned and Cameroon’s best road construction company, Societe Mag Sarl, made available to the tournament’s Organising Committee, several millions to ensure a hitch-free sporting jamboree. All participating teams were given a cash prize of at least 100,000FCFA in the first round of both tournaments. Winners of the football trophy, played yesterday, went home with a cash prize of 700,000FCFA and a trophy, the runners-up pocketed the sum of 500,000FCFA while the team that emerged third was awarded the sum of 400,000FCFA.
In the handball category, the winner of the tournament was given a cash prize of 200,000FCFA and a trophy, runners-up bagged 150,000FCFA and the third team was given a consolation cash prize of 100,000FCFA. Peace, national unity showcased at tournament. This year’s edition of the WICUDA tournament, it must be said, provided a rare opportunity for the people of Donga Mantung, who are resident in the nation’s capital, to showcase their peace-loving nature, patriotism and their firm belief in a one and indivisible Cameroon. In addition, yesterday’s football final, pulled the biggest crowd in the history of recent Anglophone gatherings in Yaounde. Kith and kin from all the five subdivisions that make up Donga Mantung, politicians; irrespective of their political leanings, elite, members of the civil society and the clergy from all the division’s five subdivisions, as well as other Cameroonian sports lovers, were present at yesterday’s Shey Jones Yembe’s-sponsored WICUDA football final. Several dance groups and traditional displays from Donga Mantung, graced yesterday’s football final.
The tournament’s sponsor, Shey Jones Yembe, had said repeatedly his objective was to pull out youth who had been brainwashed to take up arms against the state from the bushes and to prevent others from joining Ambazonia fighters in the bushes. The tournament’s organisers appear to have corroborated Shey Jones Yembe, as they told reporters that most of the youths who actively took part in the sporting activities were ex-fighters of Wimbum origin. Meanwhile, back in Donga Mantung division, life has since returned to normal in areas like Mbot village, Ako, Nwa and Ndu subdivisions where thousands of youth had joined the Amba fighters and were terrorising residents of the localities. The president of WICUDA, Yaounde branch, Ta-Nformi Ngwatu Emmanuel, has hailed Shey Jones Yembe, for accepting to sponsor this year’s tournbament. Going by him, the tournament was more than just timely, as it gainfully occupied idled youth and the popu- lation of Donga Mantung resident in Yaounde, at a time the North West and South West regions are going through a turbulent moment which has forced many youth out of school, with some having picked up arms against the state…In the midst of the current conflict, the people of Donga Mantung and Nkambe in particular have, through their massive participation in this tournament, shown that they can hold tight to values of peace, unity and living together…this tournament has further strengthened the peace- loving nature of the people of Donga Mantung,” he revealed. He used the opportunity to thank Shey Jones Yembe for what he said was his peace and national unity-driven ini-tiati especially in Donga Mantung division..Added he: “we are so gratified by this elite. We want to thank this peaceful community that has the tradition of being united, for exhibiting the sense of oneness and patriotism by massively answering present throughout this tournament. The population of Donga Mantung has shown and is still showing to the world that to be united is to pull all the strings together…”
Explaining why this year’s tournament was dedicated to Shey Jones Yembe, the WICUDA-Yaounde branch president clarified that: “it was carefully designed to honour Shey Jones Yembe for his unmatched but unsung contribution to the peace that now exists in Donga Mantung division in general and his Nkambe Central subdivision of origin in particular…”
Force tranquille' of Donga Mantung
The CPDM permanent delegation leader for Donga Mantung, Shey Jones Yembe, may not belong to the category of politicians who mount rooftops to blow their trumpet, each time they undertake any political activity, but he remains one of the key persons behind why Donga Mantung is today a completely CPDM fief. The strength of the former minister, who doubles as the Board Chairman of the Ports Authority of Douala, PAD, lies in the fact that he believes in action than making noise.
The likes of Hon Ngala Gerard, Hon Mbongyor Naomi Nfor and Mayor Kanfon Borno Abdou of the Ndu CPDM-run council, who have emerged as the new breed of Donga Mantung CPDM bigwigs, have only Shey Jones Yembe to thank for bringing them this far.
It is an undeniable fact that Hon. Ngala Gerard and Hon. Mbongyor Naomi Nfor, especially were little known beyond their villages of origin, prior to the 2013 parlia- mentary election. It was thus Shey Jones Yembe who not only 'dragged' them into the CPDM but empowered both financially, materially and morally. Details are still sketchy but reports have it that at the 2013 legislative election, where Hon Ngala Gerard and Hon Mbongyor Naomi Nfor ran and lost, Shey Jones Yembe alone did not spend less than 100 million FCFA on their campaigns, says The Guardian Post. It was also thanks to Shey Jones Yembe alone, that the CPDM, in 2013, won the Nkambe council, which it retained on February 9, 2020. Sources within the CPDM in Donga Mantung have told this reporter that it is Shey Jones Yembe, more than twenty years after leaving government, who has almost single handedly been bankrolling the ruling party activities in Ndu and Nkambe subdivisions. Analysts are unanimous that Shey Jones Yembe, is the real hidden drummer behind the peace that has been reigning especially in Nkambe subdivision, since the Anglophone crisis erupted in 2016. It should be recalled that Nkambe is the only divisional headquarter in the entire North West and South West regions, that has never witnessed a single day of ghost town since the crisis started. Schools and business activities have since been going on unperturbed while all national days are celebrated there even more than in some Francophone towns. "The fact that Shey Jones Yembe, noted for his being publicity-shy and political maturity, he does not mount rooftops to sing his praises, does not mean that the powers that be is not aware that it is thanks to him that Nkambe subdivision has remained peaceful, schools and business activities going on unperturbed, since the eruption of the Anglophone crisis in 2016. It pains me when, out of sheer excitement, political amateurism and inordinate ambition, someone always rushes either to the traditional media or the social media to masquerade as the reason behind why the people of Donga Mantung have turned their backs against those preaching secession, ” a prominent Beti CPDM elite is quoted to have told The Guardian Post newspaper reporter. Accordingly, the lone English language daily in it's Monday 28th December edition revealed that unlike some power-drunk Donga Mantung CPDM elite who must take along television cameras and mount the soapbox to blow their trumpet each time they visit the division to offer assistance to the needy population, Shey Jones Yembe has been quietly supporting and encouraging parents throughout Donga Mantung division to send their children back to school.
He is also credited for playing an unpublicised role in getting hundreds of youths in Ndu and Nwa subdivisions who had joined the Amba fighters to drop arms and engage in gainful activities which he is sponsoring.
Culled from The Guardian Post
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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