Meyomesse announces candidacy for 2018 election

In an interview with the daily La Nouvelle Expression a few days after his release from prison, the writer and Cameroonian politician made no mystery about his intentions. He wants to make use of the popularity he acquired during his period of detention.

Enoh Meyomesse believes he finds himself within the footsteps of African politicians who led their countries after a prison time. "God put some extraordinary people in prison. Jomo Kenyatta, 10 years in prison, after Kenyan independence he became president. Bourguiba, 10 years in prison, he got the independence of Tunisia, he became president. Nkrumah, four years in prison, he got the independence of Ghana and became president, Sekou Toure, Jacob Zuma, etc. And why not me, why will I stop? », Noted the politician in an interview with the daily La Nouvelle Expression.

To take advantage of the popularity he acquired during nearly four years at the Yaoundé Central Prison, he intends to stand in the next presidential election in 2018. "They have made me one hundred times as popular as I was before. Somewhere, I should even thank them. Now I'm known worldwide, I was getting packets of letters in prison. Sometimes it came 70 per day. What did I live off? Money that came from all over the world", shows the man who was known as a political prisoner.

He thinks he is a victim of the "conspiracy" of the elite "Bétis" and especially "Bulu" (ethnic group of head of State, Paul Biya) who can't stand to see one of them in the dispute.

In a media release, the writer, sentenced April 16 by the Court of appeal at the Centre to 40 months in prison for aggravated concealment, even though he had already spent the equivalent of that time in prison, denounced his conditions of detention. He claims to have spent more than a month in the dark at the Legion of Gendarmerie of Bertoua where he was transferred after his arrest November 22, 2011 at Yaoundé airport while returning from a trip to Singapore.

"I almost went blind. I bathed once in thirty days of a month. I felt like an animal. It was also forbidden to feed us," he said. He came out of prison, on 27 April 2015, nearly two weeks after the verdict of the Court of appeal of the Centre, this is because of the "flippancy of magistrates" who said that he is to await the outcome of the hearing. His counsel filed an appeal in cassation to the Supreme Court to claim his acquittal.

"I cannot accept that they finally stick me this story of concealment. They began by : I want to murder Paul Biya, and continued with: I went to buy weapons, and it became attempted rebellion, fourth, it became aggravated theft in complicity, Fifthly, it is complicity in aggravated theft; now it ends with receiving stolen goods. Finally, what is it? It's the judicial trial and error. They must find where to pinch me. I can't accept the verdict by the Court of appeal of the Centre," he insisted.