Carrying The Cross With Christ At Lent

Since the beginning of Easter, Catholics are going through the Stations of the Cross, repeating the trials and last moments of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion. Lent started some weeks ago with Ash Wednesday when the ritual of reminding man that he was dust and shall return to dust was reenacted in most Christian credos around the world.

Christ is believed to have carried his own cross to his crucifixion to free mankind from the crushing burden of sins.

Christ, today hailed as King of Kings had no palaces, and never lied and killed to have and rule earthly kingdoms and institutions. During his trials in the wilderness, he was shown large expanses of lands that would tempt those carrying his cross today, but Christ resisted the temptations for 40 days and nights.

Satan has taken Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua and some Catholics to the hills of Banja where he has shown hectares of rolling Mbororo lands to them. He has tempted them (Cornelius and some Catholics) to denounce the cross of Christ and he would give them the lands for the construction of the Catholic University of Cameroon.

His Grace Cornelius Fontem Esua easily dropped the cross of Christ and carried a caterpillar to Banja to claim the Mbororo hills for himself and some greedy supporters of his corrupt actions.

As follower of Christ and of Saint Peter, Cornelius Fontem Esua should have resisted the temptation to grab Mbororo land. He should have continued carrying the cross and see the Mbororo as fellowmen to be protected in their divine rights to life, property and peace.

Since 2009 when Cornelius was taken to the Banja hill, the Mbororo have known no peace as they have received repeated threats from the cunning one who was supposed to carry the cross of Jesus Christ.

Worst, he even ascended the hill on 19 March 2014 during lent to destroy Mbororo houses and farms. He should have retreated to the hill to pray and be blessed with the beatitudes. His agents fought there pouring blood instead of blessing the poor in spirit to inherit the Kingdom of God.

The 10 Commandments entreat us to stop stealing, lying, defiling, gambling, bribing and killing. Cornelius Fontem Esua has not done business on the Mbororo hills of Wumse-Ndzah, like a layman who knows the 10 Commandments. A catechist boasted to me that they were more pious than priests. Should I doubt him?

In fact, when you take away all of somebody's earthly possessions, you could be rightly said to have killed that person. Cornelius has also defiled the sacred sites on Mamada hill where the Mbororo Muslim pray, bury the navels of their newly born and entomb their dead. All these things are sacred even to the pope in Rome.

In 2013, one of Cornelius' priests in Alamatu Mile 7 Mankon, caused the Government Delegate of Bamenda to demolish a FCFA 22 million house belonging to Mbuh Elizabeth Ndifon. The only reason advanced is that the Catholics were in the process of buying the same piece of land just like the retired UN Peace Keeper, Mbuh Elizabeth.

On 02 May 2013, Cornelius corrupted the administration of the North West in general and Mezam in particular, so much that S.D.O Felix Nguele Nguele was ready to commit the worst error of his career as an administrator. Felix Nguele Nguele led a caterpillar to destroy 09 houses belonging to Bambili people in Abeur to create space for the resettlement of 300 Mbororo people. These houses were built on titled land belonging to the Bambili people.

His dis-Grace Cornelius has been claiming that nobody was living on the Mbororo land. He and his agents and assigns lied to the Minister of Lands, surveys and State Property to grant to grant him a temporal concession over the Mbororo lands for the construction of the Catholic University of Cameroon.

The prelate, who should be in Kondengui Maximum Security prison granted an interview to the Catholic newspaper, L'Effort Camerounais in April 2013 claiming that Wumse-Ndzah was empty land. In the same interview he claimed he had paid compensation to those living on the land. Everybody has a say. Indeed! Even the evil and righteous do.

How could the man of God be targeting 300 people for elimination and claiming they do not exist yet paid them compensation? Cornelius, after 05 years would have understood that the land at Wumse-Ndzah was granted to him and the CATUC in error. The Mbororo had complained to him and petitioned the authorities against the land concession. I have personally addressed him in the presence of SDO Felix Nguele Nguele and some of the Mbororo resident in Wumse-Ndzah. The courts of the North West region have proven that the land is occupied and exploited and cannot be expropriated by whoever.

The Administrative Court of the North West Region has admitted the petition from Ardo Bi Mamada to rectify the administrative errors which led to the granting of a temporal concession to the CATUC over the Mbororo lands.

Even though the Ardo was arrested, tortured and detained on orders from the archbishop's assigns and agents, he refused to receive the derisory amount proposed to him as compensation. If Cornelius was not full of cunning he would have construed the rejection of compensation by the Mbororo chief as their rejection of the CATUC project on their land. As a real Sicilian Mafioso, Cornelius and his supporters believed they were going to maneuver their way with the complicity of corrupt government agents.

In typical Roman empirical fashion, the administration of the North West Region washed their hands like Pontius Pilate. Felix Nguele Nguele told me on the phone that the demolition of Mbororo houses was a private matter that did not threaten the peace and public order of his division. What cunning did Cornelius play on all these people to wash their hands of the matter?

Even the good guy, Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique of the North West Region remained indifferent.

Radio Evangelium, a radio claimed to be for Christian evangelization promoted by Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua boasted on Saturday 22 March 2014 that Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique was one of the Catholics dedicated to the Catholic Men Association (CMA) during this period of lent at the St Joseph's Metropolitan Cathedral Bamenda.

Was Adolphe told not to carry the cross of Jesus Christ when he joined the CMA? Does bowing to be blessed by the sinful hands of Cornelius transfixed this good governor and transfigured him into Lucifer?

I will carry the cross of Jesus Christ for the Mbororo and other indigenous peoples. When we carry the cross of Jesus Christ, we become our brothers' keepers. Our brothers are all those who form the community of human beings, indiscriminately. Did Christ not summarize the 10 Commandments to one global command for us to love our neighbors as ourselves?

Does the archbishop and his Christian brethren love their Mbororo neighbors as themselves? It is clear that the man of gods (money, land) hates the Mbororo so much that he took a caterpillar to their land to bulldoze houses and everything there. I have spoken to many good Catholics who are appalled by the archbishop's greed and insensitivity, but the Catholic vow of silence will not allow them to speak up. They must now distance themselves from this prelate who has exchanged the cross of Jesus Christ with a demolition machine.

My friend just reminded me that I sound naïve to expect so much good from the Catholic Church. The church was behind slavery, supporting and promoting it. The church also justified and supported racism as well as colonialism.

At the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana where a bulk of slaves transited from Africa to captivity in the Americas, I saw the chapel of the slave holding located just above the male dungeon. The narrator told me that the slave masters used to pass and peep at the wailing slaves on their way to church. And prayed, they prayed to a god they claim gave them the slaves.

Desmond Tutu, in his characteristic way, said when churchmen came to South Africa, they had the Bible and the Africans had the land. They asked the Africans to close their eyes and pray. At the end of the prayer, the Africans had the Bible while the churchmen had the land.

This anecdote illustrates how churchmen come with the Bible and deceive the poor promising them salvation in heaven if they offered their lands to Christ. Christian kings and queens benefitted from slavery and colonialism. Cornelius continues the practice even in the 21stCentury.

The churchman has paid moneys to the judiciary to arrest me. Are they coming after me because I am a defender of the laws of Cameroun? Even if the laws were bad, while we work to tinker good ones, we must make an effort to respect the bad ones in place, except they are repugnant.

If I had not led my Mbororo brothers in peaceful resistance that the Catholics turned violent, would Cornelius not have demolished all houses on Mamada hill?

There is abundant evidence that the archbishop was not joking sending a caterpillar to Banja. He meant business. He wanted to bulldoze the Mbororo out of existence. He did same with the 09 houses in Abeur, Bambili on 02 May 2013. His priests were encouraged to demolish the house of Ms Mbuh Elizabeth Ndifon in 2013.

All those who have any modicum of respect for human rights and the laws should be minting gold medals to hang on my chest instead of cooking up arrest warrants for me. Any bearer of an arrest warrant for the servant of mankind in God's vineyard will suffer a cardiac arrest. With the cross of Jesus Christ in my heart, no weapon fashioned against me shall prosper. Others before Cornelius and incorruptible Magistrate James George Ngwene have faced the Divine tide that rises in my defense.

Yet, as the wicked and corrupt are suicidal, some criminals who should be in jail, but are allowed to poison Christians on Sundays with unholy communion would not stop coming after me. Others who were long qualified to rot in Kondegui prison but appointed by some presidential error are parading the corridors of power and breaking the laws of Cameroun. They would be venturing where Angels fear to tread, coming for me. May their corruption blind them permanently like the Lady of Justice.

Fon Christopher Achobang
Social Commentator, Human rights activist
Mbengwi County
The Cameroons
Tel, (237) 99365954
(237) 33160489