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President Paul Biya, who initially showed an unprecedented warm acceptance of the appointment of Tonye Bakot as new Archbishop to Yaounde and made political capital of it was conspicuously absent at his enthronement on Saturday. Cardinal Tumi highly disliked in Yaounde for his open criticism of the Biya regime was also absent.
Despite the key absences, Archbishop Tonye Bakot, a Bassa, was enthroned by the Apostolic Noncio Elisio Anthonio Ariati, to succeed Archbishop Andre Wouking, a Bamileke, who died last year. Ewondo faithfuls who have in the past openly rejected the idea of a non-Ewondo leading them were urged to “throw away” ethnicism and tribalism.
When Tonye’s predecessor Archbishop André Wouking was appointed in 1999 to head the Arch dioceses, the papal decision was greeted with open hostility, both from political authorities and the mainly Ewondo Catholic faithfuls. His enthronement was consequently boycotted.
To guard against the bitter experience of the past, Cardinal Precin Tursepe, the prefect of the congregation for the evangelization of the people urged the faithful to embrace fraternity that surpassed tribalism and ethnicity.
In a message delivered by the Apostolic Noncio Elisio Anthonio Ariati, the Pope’s representative to Cameroon, Tursepe said:
“Hold fast your fraternity. Fraternity that reaches out to all horizons - throwing away discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, tribe or political affiliation.”
Meanwhile, after publicly expressing his approval, Biya’s staying away from Tonye’s installation was most unsuspecting. Though he was in the country and “unoccupied” he preferred to be represented by the Secretary General at the Presidency Jean Atanga Mebara. Mebara was accompanied to the enthronement by a fleet of cabinet ministers. He never as much as tried to capitalize on the private visit of the president of Mozambique, Jaochim Chissano by welcoming him at the airport. It would have been an incontestable excuse.
Observers described Biya’s “boycott” as a quick retreat to redress damage caused to the Ewondos following his warm acceptance of Tonye. Though there was a massive turnout of faithfuls, observers say the Ewondos are still uncomfortable with a non-Ewondo as their Shepard and any open support would lead to a serious rapture in relations between the president and his people.
“This is something Biya cannot afford to gamble with as he counts on the Ewondos to win next years elections”, an observer said.
For his part, Cardinal Tumi, archbishop of Douala preferred a conference abroad to Tonye’s installation were he would have been sideline despite his position as the highest ranking Catholic official in Cameroon.
“Tumi considers Tonye as Biya’s man with whom he has a very sour relationship.”
Biya’s warm acceptance of Tonye was interpreted to mean his strategy to use the Archbishop against Tumi.
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