Martin Jumbam

Celestin Monga speaks to Cameroon Life Magazine (Part 4): “Biya is no intellectual.”

By Martin Jumbam

In Part 4 of his interview to Cameroon Life Magazine, Celestin Monga denies that he is nursing any political ambitions and dismisses the idea that Paul Biya is an intellectual. He also takes delight in flinging punches at other so-called intellectuals, who enjoy the favours of the ruling prince. Read on.

Celestin Monga speaks to Cameroon Life Magazine (Part 3): “I drew much inspiration from Albert Mukong’s defiance of the regime.”

By Martin Jumbam

In Part 3 of his interview to Cameroon Life Magazine, Celestin Monga talks of his
encounter with some Anglophone and Francophone intellectuals, especially those who played a significant role in the political upheaval period of the 1990s.  Read on.

Celestin Monga speaks to Cameroon Life Magazine (Part 2): The Anglophone problem is the challenge of the decade

By Martin Jumbam

Revised and reproduced from Cameroon Life Magazine Vol III, No 6, July 1992.

In Part 2 of his interview to Cameroon Life Magazine, Celestin Monga discusses what has come to be known in this country as the “Anglophone problem”. To him, even though this problem is “the challenge of the decade”, it is just one among many such problems Cameroon is facing today. Read on.

Celestin Monga speaks to Cameroon Life Magazine (Part One): Biya is an embezzler.

By Martin Jumbam

Revised and reproduced from Cameroon Life Magazine Vol III No 6 July 1992.

In the 1990s, when Cameroon was almost going up in flames in that popular uprising that has come to be known as “Ghost Towns”, Celestin Monga quickly established himself as “a radical voice of defiance” to the Biya regime. He began by publishing an open letter to President Biya in the tabloid, Le Messager.

The Biya regime’s panicky response was to hurl both Monga and that tabloid’s publisher, Pius Njawe, before a muzzled court and to jail. The political dust raised by the Monga-Njawe case had barely settled when Monga again published an interview with a former SCB bank manager, Messi Messi, in which the latter openly and directly accused President Biya and his wife, Irene, of being responsible for the collapse of the SCB bank.