ICON of the week: Dr.
Fonkam Azu’u:
The Genuine Intellectual Anglophones are Proud
of after Professor Fonlon
Every generation has its heroes. Good men are generally known only by those who have benefited
from them except in the case or cases where the person occupies a conspicuous
position. Leadership requires patience, a lot of patience. It also requires a
lot of sacrifices. Good leaders are born
as well as made. To be a good leader, a
genuine one of course, a person must be able to manage different moods,
temperaments and shades of opinions. One
person in Watchdog Tribune’s eyes, stands out tall when these qualities of
leadership are substantiated. The person
is nobody else than Professor Samuel Fonkam Azu’u, the genuine intellectual, who
heads Elections Cameroon (ELECAM). Our keen readers are sure to appreciate the
reasonableness in our choice only after perusing the accounts that follow.
from them except in the case or cases where the person occupies a conspicuous
position. Leadership requires patience, a lot of patience. It also requires a
lot of sacrifices. Good leaders are born
as well as made. To be a good leader, a
genuine one of course, a person must be able to manage different moods,
temperaments and shades of opinions. One
person in Watchdog Tribune’s eyes, stands out tall when these qualities of
leadership are substantiated. The person
is nobody else than Professor Samuel Fonkam Azu’u, the genuine intellectual, who
heads Elections Cameroon (ELECAM). Our keen readers are sure to appreciate the
reasonableness in our choice only after perusing the accounts that follow.
Dr. Samuel Fonkam Azu’u has beside his lecturing prowess
in the University, proven his intellectualism by giving Cameroon’s
electoral body, ELECAM, a human face making it acceptable to Cameroonians most
especially to the very critical leading opposition party, the Social Democratic
Front (S D F).
Shortly after his appointment as the President of ELECAM,
Fonkam Azu’u went on a crusade to debunk skeptics who doubted its
credibility. In January 2011 shortly
before the October Presidential elections, Fonkam installed computers in ELECAM
offices geared towards the checking of excesses of the electoral registration
to thwart all misgivings. The
installation of the computers with unique intercom system were effected in all
sub-divisional headquarters of the country and within two weeks, some 60.000
new voters were registered with 160.000
existing registered voters coming in to verify their names within the Northwest
Region alone because of the confidence
Cameroonians started having for ELECAM and its chieftain, Fonkam Azu’u.
Equally through lobbying, despite the fact that ELECAM had
taken over the computerized data base from MINATD, it acquired new software by
the UNDP which is more versatile than what MINATD had with it, ELECAM was able
to manage candidates Polling Stations and the outcome of the presidential
elections results were quite impressive to a vast majority.
In another vein, with the computerization of the ELECAM
offices, ELECAM was able to organize the 2011 Presidential elections on
schedule. There were organized on the
appointed date. Secondly, the elections
went on successfully through out all polling stations. As Fonkam Azu’u himself admitted, after those
elections, “It’s in fact a point of satisfaction because I have traveled across
the continent to observe elections.” Truly, he went to countries where
elections had to be postponed twice because the logistics were not in place.
For bringing sanity in Cameroon’s electoral system, all
Cameroonians and friends have applauded that the 2011 elections were conducted
in a very peaceful and serene atmosphere.
In fact, since the advent of multiparty politics in Cameroon, few keen
observers of the Cameroon political sphere would envy the fact that the 2011
elections was by far the most peacefully conducted, and with the biometric
registration put in place, there’s no gainsaying that Fonkam Azu’u’s ELECAM
stands tall above all election bodies in this continent, Africa.
Overcoming SDF
Extremism
Today, SDF is the first to applaud ELECAM for its
credibility. Recently in Bamenda, the
very critical Northwest Civil society Coordinator, Nkwenti Simon and the SDF
Mayor of Bamenda II, Fidelis Balick Awah, and all showered kudos on Fonkam
Azu’u for making Cameroonians have confidence in the country’s electoral
system. Mayor Balick hailed Fonkam Azu’u for beating records in the 2011 Presidential
elections when over 7 million Cameroonians registered and voted, first of its
kind since the advent of multiparty politics in Cameroon. Who then says
Professor Samuel Fonkam Azu’u is not a genuine intellectual par excellence.
