In a strongly worded response, journalist Georges Dougueli pushes back against accusations from the vice-rector of the University of Yaoundé II, defending the role of speculation in political reporting.
Here is the full text of his rebuttal:
WHO IS MR. OWONA NGUINI ADDRESSING?
“Dougueli speculates on the death of President Biya.” Of all the excesses uttered on June 26 by Mr. Owona Nguini on a television channel, this one flooded my inbox. What can I say? Dear sir, ‘speculating’ on the death of heads of state is part of my job. For us real journalists, nothing is sacred. It is not uncommon for a newsroom to write obituaries of certain personalities before they die.
Incidentally, François Mitterrand, who had little fondness for the press, called journalists ‘dogs’. Every seasoned politician endures this ‘pack’. President Biya himself knows this well. Perhaps it is the security zealots to whom the speaker plans to hand me over who need reminding. You cannot seriously cover state affairs without examining the health of those who embody the state. Which brings me to ask: who exactly is this television agitator addressing with his diatribe? A quick sociographic sketch of his target audience may be useful.
1. IS HE ADDRESSING THE ‘EKANG’ SUPREMACISTS?
Here we are on the political battlefield where this demagogue moves, carelessly wielding concepts as risky as they are inflammatory. When he tirelessly repeats ‘I am a lord’, some see only childish megalomania. That overlooks the deep influence of Laburthe Tolra on his ‘thinking’.
It was Owona Nguini who distorted and popularised the ‘Ekang’ concept from Mvett mythology. According to French anthropologist Laburthe Tolra, the Ekangs, these ‘Lords of the Forest’, supposedly descended from the banks of the Nile to colonise the equatorial forest.
Taking the French researcher’s theories at face value, Mr. Owona Nguini believes this population—which migrated to Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Congo—is destined to rule those territories. In Gabon, where the Fang people (40% of the population) are deeply steeped in Mvett culture, especially through the work of Tsira Ndong Ntoutoume, the danger of this supremacist singling out of ‘Ekangs’ has been understood.
It manifested during the 2009 presidential election as ‘TSF’ (Anything But the Fangs), a rejection expressed by non-Fang citizens. The ‘Ekang’ concept did not cross Cameroon’s southern border. What does it have to do with Fecafoot? Answer: for Owona Nguini, as for Carl Schmitt, politics is about designating the enemy. Yesterday it was the ‘Ntaalibams’ of ‘Uncle Maurika’. Today, the designated enemy is the ‘reserve’ supposedly formed by ‘church people’, those fanatics who ‘will create problems’… How? For whom? Why? Let this second-rate Mephistopheles explain. But I know that this professional intellectual-university agitator—endowed with the subtlety of a bull in a China shop—will eventually create real problems himself.
2. HE IS ADDRESSING THE RULING CASTE AGAINST THE RABBLE
Who can believe that Samuel Eto’o’s supporters, given the unprecedented harassment he has faced since 2021, are all ‘brainless’ or hired thugs? By sounding the charge against the ‘illiterate’ head of Fecafoot, his ‘flock’, his ‘ignorant fanatics’, his ‘cybernetic pack’, the agitator tries to mobilise the learned against the threat from below.
He constructs the fable of ‘brains’ versus ‘brawn’. To write the moral, Mr. Owona Nguini—and the clan he promotes—attempt to portray Eto’o as a ‘cancer’. He must be insulted, vilified until ‘death’ follows. Through this symbolic ‘murder’, perhaps this clan—whose image is tarnished by poor governance, endemic corruption, political crimes, Babylonian morals, etc.—might finally be rehabilitated.
The ‘illiterate’ people must be put back in their place, even if it means stripping that people of its sovereignty before the monarch’s will, through the abusive use of ‘high instructions’ falsely elevated to the top of the legal hierarchy.
I leave it to others—constitutionalists, political scientists, psychosociologists, or psychoanalysts—to analyse Mr. Owona Nguini’s statements.
