Dougueli defends his reporting on Biya’s health in pointed rejoinder to Owona Nguini

In a recently published column, the journalist answers the vice-rector of the University of Yaoundé II, reminding him that a reporter’s job often relies on informed speculation.

Here is what he wrote:

TO WHOM IS MR. OWONA NGUINI ADDRESSING HIMSELF?

“Dougueli speculates on the death of President Biya.” Among all the excesses uttered on June 26 by Mr. Owona Nguini on a television channel, this particular remark flooded my inbox. What does he expect me to say? Dear sir, “speculating” on the death of heads of state is part of my profession. For us, real journalists, nothing is sacred. Sometimes a newsroom even writes the obituary of certain personalities before they die.

 Furthermore, Mitterrand, who held journalists in low regard, used to call us “dogs.” Any seasoned politician endures this “pack.” President Biya is no exception. Perhaps the zealots of the security apparatus—to whom the speaker plans to hand me over—should learn this. One cannot credibly cover the life of the state without inquiring into the health of those who embody it. So at this point, I wonder: to whom is this diatribe directed? It may be useful to sketch a brief sociology of this TV-show mystifier’s target audience.

1- IS HE ADDRESSING THE “EKANG” SUPREMACISTS?

This is the political arena where this demagogue operates, recklessly juggling dangerous and incendiary concepts. When he endlessly 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 popularized the concept “Ekang,” taken from Mvett mythology. According to French anthropologist Laburthe Tolra, the Ekangs—these “Lords of the Forest”—allegedly came down from the banks of the Nile to colonize the equatorial forest.

Mr. Owona Nguini, taking the French researcher’s theses literally, believes that this population—which migrated to Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo—is destined to rule those territories. In Gabon, where the Fangs (40% of the population) are deeply immersed in Mvett culture, especially through the work of Tsira Ndong Ntoutoume, the danger of this supremacist singling out of the “Ekangs” has been understood.

 It manifested during the 2009 presidential election with the TSF (Anything but the Fangs), a rejection expressed by non-Fang segments of the population. The “Ekang” concept has thus not crossed Cameroon’s southern border. What does this have to do with Fecafoot? Answer: for Owona Nguini, as for Carl Schmitt, politics means designating the enemy. Yesterday, it was the “Ntaalibams” of “Uncle Maurika.” Today, the designated enemy is the “reserve” supposedly constituted by the “churchgoers”—those fanatics who “are going to create problems”… How? To whom? Why? Let this cheap Mephistopheles tell us. Meanwhile, I know that, in the times ahead, this professional intellectual-university agitator—equipped with the restraint and finesse of an elephant in a China shop—will eventually cause 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 “scatterbrains” or hired thugs helping him out? By sounding the charge against the “illiterate” head of Fecafoot, his “flock,” his “ignorant fanatics,” his “cybernetic pack,” the agitator tries to mobilize the clerics against the threat supposedly posed by ordinary people.

 He constructs the fable of “brains” versus “calves.” To write the moral, Mr. Owona Nguini—and the clan he promotes—try to portray Eto’o as a “cancer.” He must be insulted, vilified until “death” follows. Through his symbolic “murder,” perhaps this clan—whose image has been tarnished by poor governance, endemic corruption, political crimes, Babylonian morals, etc.—will finally be rehabilitated.

The people of “illiterates” must be put back in their place, even if it means stripping that people of its sovereignty in the face of the monarch’s will, through the abusive use of “high instructions,” falsely elevated to the top of the hierarchy of norms.

I leave it to others—constitutionalists, political scientists, psychosociologists, or psychoanalysts—to analyze Mr. Owona Nguini’s remarks.