In both Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun, criminal gangs and politicians have been quietly trading money and favours for mutual gains. For 37 years, thugs like Paul Atanga Nji, YCPDM National President Prince John Akwo Mukete, the late Nelson Fomenky, Battey Johnson and the late Mayor Ekema Patrick flourished while elected officials thrived. However, the citizens have always been on the losing side.

Today, the mobile phone of Minister Paul Atanja Nji who is wanted by the French Cameroun Special Criminal Court is ringing. And ringing. Most of the callers are candidates for the February 2020 municipal and parliamentary elections, seeking the kind of help that the gangster Paul Atanga Nji is uniquely qualified to provide.

Paul Atanga Nji isn’t a slick campaign strategist. He’s a French Cameroun gang leader who hails from Southern Cameroons and, for two decades, a CPDM grass root baron who now operates as Minister of Territorial Administration and has deep contacts inside Etoudi and the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo’s complex network of politicians and French Cameroun military gangs. The calls coming to Minister Paul Atanga Nji are all inquiring candidates wanting to know: “How much they need to pay and who do they need to pay the money to so they can get elected?

Minister Paul Atanga Nji, the renowned Samuel Eto’o and I were in a recent flight to French Cameroun!! Majority in the plane shared a conversation with Eto’o but ignored Atanga Nji who was a candidate in the Mezam CPDM race sometime ago and brought in a decent man Cletus Matoya to be his protégé.

Paul Atanga Nji has helped broker meetings between the Biya Francophone regime and at least two Southern Cameroons gang representatives in Nigeria, Dr Success Nkongho and General Nambere.  The gang representatives from Nigeria were former front line Ambazonia activists who had walked away from day-to-day thug life, but are still respected on the streets in Yaoundé but can no longer wield enough influence to the Southern Cameroons revolution.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai