Another crisis threatens to rip CBC apart as search for Prof. Tih’s replacement begins

By Nfor Hanson Nchanji

CNA EXCLUSIVE:

-Accuses CBC Chairman of tribalism and nepotism

-Decries un-Christian behaviour of same Chairman for blatant disregard of CBC Constitution

-Exonerates CBC Executive President as a good leader just being arm-twisted

-Praises Prof. Tih Pius for a remarkable job in healthcare, and leadership in Africa

The Cameroon Baptist Convention Held Hostage by Tribalism

The Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) has started the year 2024 with a leadership crisis that threatens to beat every known record of its leadership scandals. The year 2023 ended with the need to replace one of Africa’s most gifted and most performant leaders, Prof. Tih Pius. He has led the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services Department (CBCHSD) for a record nearly three decades and has transformed it from near-nothing to the best health provider in the state of Cameroon.

It can be factually argued that the CBCHSD is the leader in health services provision by any church on the continent of Africa. Besides the several state-of-the-art hospitals and clinics that it runs across the nation, the CBCSD also offers a training centre in Mbingo Baptist Hospital, in partnership with Johns Hopkins University in the USA, that brings in qualified medical practitioners from around Africa for specialization in surgery and internal medicine. Though still performant, the need arose for Prof. Tih to take his retirement. As a successful leader, he had prepared for continuity through leadership succession by grooming his possible successors. That is what successful leadership is supposed to be.

Unfortunately, the Convention finds itself caught in the grip of a top leader who is silently tribalistic and nepotistic. The CBC got saddled at its top an astute politician, a retired Divisional Officer, Mr. Yosimbom John Mkong, whose primary interest is to place his village men in the top leadership positions of the Convention. His current scheming and manipulations to effect a leadership bypass in the Health Services Department are causing tempers to flare in certain quarters of the Convention that might lead to an open tribal conflict in the Church. The focus of this article is to objectively expose what leadership that is consumed by tribalism and nepotism can do to bring down a department that is the pride of not only the CBC but the entire nation of Cameroon. If these excesses are not brought to check, it will also bring to shame the Convention that is considered by many as the moral conscience of Cameroon. In every respect, the simmering scandal that the Convention is presently going through is one of the worst leadership blunders in the African church.

It is important to observe a number of facts in the first place. First, Prof. Tih didn’t work single-handedly to develop the CBCHSD to stand at par with the state of Cameroon in providing health services. He worked with a team of leaders whom he developed for the system at every level, culminating at the top with administrators and senior administrators. The system is organized as such for productive performance so that at any level, there is always a pool of competent personnel to draw upon to meet the system’s leadership exigencies.

Secondly, the rise of the Department is also the result of a competent Board of technocrats that meets twice a year (in June and December) to review and think out strategies for better performance. The members are experts carefully selected from within the cream of the Convention. The consistent performance of this no-nonsense Board, over the years, has smoothened the path for the growth of this Department even in tough economic times, to top all health providers in Cameroon except the state. Readers might want to know that the government of Cameroon recognizes CBC Health Services as the best provider of health services next to the state.

Thirdly, this succession scandal is taking place at a time in history when the Convention has, as Executive President (Moderator), one of its finest pastors in the person of the Right Reverend Dr. Nditemeh Charlemagne. He caught the attention of the church and the nation when, at his inauguration in 2019, he announced his three-point mantra of office as Truth, Equity, and Development. These are virtues grossly lacking in Cameroon. As such, every eyebrow has been opened and every finger crossed to see how this unfolds in real life. It is expected that the realization of this mantra will provide hope, not only for the CBC, but also for a nation buried in hopelessness. This article will close with a review of these mantras in light of the nascent mafia in the CBC Health Services Department to demonstrate how the Chairman’s manipulations are a travesty of the Executive President’s operational principles.

Fourthly, just recently, the Executive President introduced the offices of Deputy Directors in the CBCHSD and painstakingly explained that it provided a platform for smooth succession and continuity at the helm of this key Department of the Convention. Consequently, the first and second Deputy Directors were voted into office with that understanding heralded across the Convention. Thus far, this intended direction of leadership mutation has not raised any eyebrows. This added to the accolade of the Executive President’s competence and foresight. When all was ready for leadership change at the close of the Year 2023, many jaws dropped at the shameless manipulation of the laid-down rules by the Chairman of the Convention. Readers might also want to know that this chairmanship is a ceremonial position, though Mr. Mkong Yosimbom now wields more power, almost as much as the Executive President, than ascribed to him by the constitution of the Convention. In the present scandal, it is not fair to blame everything on the Executive President. The man behind the scandal is the Chairman himself.

Finally, the General Council (Synod) of the Convention, which is its highest decision-making body next to the General Session, is made up of Field Pastors (Parish Pastors) who are mostly men without the guts to stand up to leadership manipulations. Some of them hardly even understand the issues that count in the Convention. It is not uncommon that decisions at this body are often arrived at through the mind and even intimidation of the Chairman of the CBC who presides at these meetings. There are surely some thinking heads in the Council. Unfortunately, they are drowned by unsuspecting and unthinking hand-clappers whose delight in being Council members is the name that goes with it. These and other members still see their Chairman as a Divisional Officer whose opinion is law.   

The Mafia in the Making

When the CBC elected Mr Yosimbom John, it was widely believed that a man of principle had come into the leadership of the Convention. He is a retired civil administrator and politician who professes Christianity, and so passes for a practicing Christian politician. From every indication, he is a believer. Unfortunately, he is not, in the practice of leadership, the principled-oriented and objective leader that he parades himself to be. His tenure has been marked by tribalism and nepotism. He is known to push for his kindreds to be employed by the Department of Health Services even if they are not qualified for the job. For reasons of probity, we withhold such instances. This notwithstanding, his tribal tendencies speak loudly. Such instances include manipulation to have his village man appointed as Vice Chancellor of the Baptist Seminary in Ndu. Who in the Convention did not know that the choice of this man as Vice Chancellor was a travesty of academic morality and justice? Secondly, a few years ago he fought like a hungry lion to secure the position of the Director of Christian and Theological Education for one of his sons. And this time around, the opportunity knocks for him to put into the top job in the Health Services Department in another village kindred. He wants to get this position, come what may, for his village man. How come we throw stones only at the Executive President?

The Chairman’s greed was so vagarious that no one expected him to blatantly present two candidates all from his village. This was to happen, nonetheless, since he is a member of the three-man Search Committee for the replacement of Prof. Tih Pius. The first bold act was to dismiss a member of the Committee who represents the Board of the Health Department. Barrister Sama Aloysius, who had served as Board Chair was immediately dismissed to make the path to presenting two Oku village folks, smooth. Moreover, Mr. Mkong John Yosimbom was attacking on another front. As soon as it was evident that the Deputy Directors were seeded for the position of Director of the Health Services Department, Mr. Mkong launched a smear campaign against Mr. Warri Denis, the First Deputy Director in charge of Finance and Administration (See next section). In reality, none of the two Deputy Directors was considered good enough by a Mkong-dominated Search Committee. The absence of the CBC legal luminary, Barrister Sama, gave the Chairman a leeway to present two men from his village for election. His tribal drive was so strong that his Search Committee failed to notice that one of the candidates was above retirement age, while the other was in his first year of administration without any experience, whatsoever. Despite his feverish fight to convince the no-nonsense Health Board during the election session, these low-profile candidates failed to get the vote required to hold office. The highest score for the better of the two mediocre candidates was 3 votes out of 16. Readers may equally want to know that Mr. Mkong staged a strong campaign for the General Council of the CBC to endorse these results and hand the office to his kinsman.

Defamation Campaign

Several months before the election of the CBCHS Director, the first Deputy Director of the department and the first possible successor of the outgoing Director came under the negative review of Mr. Mkong John Yosimbom. Several months before the elections, this man has been keen to paint Mr. Warri black in every way possible, including accusations of tribalism, corruption, and immorality. He has been careful to talk to people of influence to make sure that this first deputy is disqualified on some grounds, baseless as they may be. He kept a strong influence over the Search Committee and succeeded to sideline both Mr. Warri and the second Deputy Director. What is painful is that such a high-level leader of the Convention would make such blatant accusations against the next highest leader in the most important Department in the Convention, without anyone holding him to task to counter such allegations. If these aren’t barefaced allegations to knock out a qualified candidate, how come Mr. Warri, a native Wimbum man, holds this position and his Wimbum people are not in the majority in leadership positions within the CBCHSD institutions and programs? Why can’t the CBC allow Mr. Warri to defend himself before Mr. Mkong John in the presence of leaders of the Convention? Why keep him in this high office (Director of Finance) if he is that corrupt and that incompetent to run for the top job? This is someone who had a 100% vote by the Health Board to occupy his current position. This is where the Wimbum Community is coming in. They feel that they are being sidelined through the rejection of Mr. Warri Denis. While Wimbum spiritual leaders in the Convention are peace lovers, and or, sheepish leaders who fear to speak out against such gross injustices and baseless accusations of their kindred, the ordinary Wimbum Christians feel the pain of ostracism. Moreover, the Wimbum Christians and elites are not ready to take it. This is the gunpower that is loading for a possible explosion if redressive measures are not taken by CBC leaders. The Chairman’s intended objective in this defamation campaign is to disqualify Mr. Warri who is the main contender for the position. Mr. Warri must be knocked out for his lightweight apprentice administrator to get the job. It is obvious that if Mr. Warri were from Mr. Mkong’s Oku village, there wouldn’t even have been any Search Committee meetings, or even elections if it were not just for the sake of fulfilling all righteousness.

The Election

The election did take place during the December 2023 Board meeting. The Search Committee presented two candidates of choice to the Chairman. One of the candidates was above 61 years old, which is above the retirement age of 60 for the CBCHSD. All objections by the Board did not change the decision to have this retiree run for an executive position in the Health Services Department. The other was a novice in the administration who is in his first year as an administrator and had even failed to sustain the level of his hospital. Under his leadership, Etoug-Ebe Baptist Hospital, which he heads, has dropped in its standing on the CBCHSD performance scale. The major criterion for his candidature was the fact of his Oku origin. None of the seasoned administrators holding offices, including the first and second Deputy Directors came from Mr. Mkong John’s village. None of the seasoned, experienced, competent Senior Administrators was contacted to run for the position. The Board heatedly rejected both candidates.

However, the Executive President under pressure from his Chairman, called for the decision of the ballot to settle the matter. The results were telling. The candidate above retirement age got 1 of 16 votes cast, and the neophyte administrator got 3. Twelve votes were cast against these candidates, demonstrating the outright rejection of these candidates by a Board attuned to excellence in qualified and performant leadership. 

Efforts to Validate the Election

These results were presented to the General Council (Synod) that same weekend in its December meeting. Contrary to all expectations, the Chairman argued for the validation of these results. He desperately wanted the Council to accept that a junior administrator won the election by 3 out of 16 votes cast. He had lobbied key Council members to accept these results. One of his village men, a beneficiary of his leadership, the Vice Chancellor of the Seminary, shamelessly advanced a defeated motion that the Health Board should be dissolved. It’s unthinkable how a college of clergymen could be so void of reason. Common sense demands that the outgoing Director should keep his office while the Search Committee goes back to work until the next Board meeting. In the present botched situation, the General Council voted to bypass the Technical Board of the Health Services and handle the election itself. The General Council has no competence in health management. Their constitutional responsibility is to validate election results.

In the CBC Constitution, Section 12 article 3 states that the “General Council confirms…the election of Directors and Deputy Directors of Departments by Department Boards”.  Any attempt as the Council was misled to highjack elections from the Board of the Health Department – is a gross violation of the constitution. This Council has the prerogative to send any Board back to the drawing board to come up with a leader. To Mr Yosimbom, there is fire on the mountain. He wants to grab the position while the opportunity lasts before he leaves office by the end of this year. Consequently, there is no room for the Board of Health Services to do another search and hold elections. Rather than giving this Board a vote of thanks for its competence, the Chairman guided a wax-like Council to disregard the Board and to arrogate to itself the responsibility that falls outside of their competence and constitutional provisions. Any election of a Board leader by the General Council is a violation of the CBC Constitution.

The same section of the Constitution cited above says in Section 4a that the “Departmental Board … Elect Directors and Deputy Directors of Departments” amongst others. Tribalism must have reached its highest mark for such blatant travesty of the Constitution to have been presented to the General Council. It also beats reasonable imagination that the General Council so thoughtlessly accepted to violate its own Constitution to satisfy the avarice of an individual. It is this gross violation of the Constitution and efforts to validate a botched election, that fuelling current tempers not only in the CBC but amongst sympathisers of those unjustly side-lined. There is a high probability that if the CBC Executive President allows this to go, his mantra would have been defeated. Moreover, the Convention might erupt in tribal conflicts that will beat hands down any CBC scandal in its almost one-hundred-year history.

Constitutional Breaches and Unprecedented Procedures   

In his desperation and determination to give the office of the Director of Health Services to the candidate from his village, Mr. Mkong is manipulating the Executive President to engage in constitutional breaches and unprecedented procedures. The CBC Constitution, as earlier noted, does not give the General Council the right to conduct Departmental elections. Doing so now is a breach of Section 12 of the Constitution.

Equally, each Board of the Convention has its peculiarities, and Board members are selected based on knowledge of and competence in the specific ministries of the Board they operate. To attempt to bypass a Board and conduct elections in its state is unprecedented and constitutionally unacceptable. Moreover, it endorses incompetence that will lessen productivity. It also creates a situation in which future leaders will find running the affairs of the Convention difficult. Departmental Boards will lose their rights, meaning, contribution to the growth of their Departments. Such a move, to say the least, has the stench of a terrible mafia. Unfortunately, CBC Christians are currently not aware of this event. Churches have put their trust in their leaders who represent them at these meetings, but they are failing to educate them on these events. It is equally unprecedented that a ceremonial Chair of the Convention now wields power almost as much as the Executive President.

The Convention is witnessing for the first time a Chair who flaunts the seating Executive President’s operational principles. Furthermore, a General Council that arrogates to itself the right to conduct Board elections, runs the risk of validating same, which is a constitutional travesty. Such a bypass requires that the General Council convenes an extra-ordinary General Session to “confirm” the elections because it cannot elect and confirm at the same time!! This, however, is not provided for in the constitution. The hidden agenda that of saddling an Oku man into the office of the Director of Health Services – comes with unprecedented trappings for the Executive President and the Convention generally. It is an open breach of the CBC constitution and its common practice. The precedence this act sets in motion will one day include also electing Field Pastors for the various Fields of the Convention whenever and wherever a Field has problems. This is the extent to which a highly tribalistic and nepotistic chairman toys with the smooth functioning of the CBC to confiscate top jobs for his village folks.

The Stupefaction of the Executive President’s Mantras

What onlookers cannot understand is that all of these manipulations are happening during the reign of a most competent Executive President. When Rev. Dr. Nditemeh Charlemagne took over the top office of the Convention, he placed his term of office under the triune mantra of truth, equity, and development. There was this euphoria that swept through out the Convention. How is this mantra exemplified in the current situation rocking the CBC? 

Where is Truth

When the positions of first and second Deputy Directors of the Health Department were created, the reasons were elaborately heralded the Executive President, Rev. Dr. Nditemeh Charlemagne as a strategy for smooth transition and continuity. Two of the best-groomed leaders were elected by the Board for the posts. It went then, without saying, that the Board has come of age to sustain its phenomenal growth through competent leadership continuity. When the moment came for transition, the much-announced truth got buried. What we hear today are barefaced accusations labelled against the astute First Deputy Director, Mr. Warri Denis by the CBC Chairman Worse still, no one remembers to run the mantra of truth by the situation as it presently is. First, can the truth be established concerning the Chairman’s behind-the-scenes accusations against the First Deputy? If not, why not? Secondly, is it true, as some CBC leaders contend, that the Health Department Board boycotted the elections? This is a shameful and false evaluation of what happened at that Board meeting. The truth is that every voting member of that Board, 16 in number, did cast the ballot, with 12 voting against the two Oku candidates of the Chairman’s choice. The one, as noted above, got one (1) vote and the other three (3). If the mantra of truth be practiced, the ballot was free and fair, with an outright rejection of mediocrity. The truth is that none of the candidates was competent enough for that office. It cannot be true that in a Department with several senior administrators and experienced administrators, only one man, in his first year as administrator could have been found to stand for election against a fellow village fold above retirement age at the time of the elections. The mantra of truth has simply been dumped in this matter. Instead of upholding this truth by reassigning the Board and even revamping the Search Committee, the Chairman moved to nail the Board and to flagrantly violet the constitution and all due matter of processes, to have his way with falsehood. Truth needs to be given a chance in this issue.   

Where is Equity

The principle of equity, in all manner of academics, describes a situation of fairness, justice, fair play; impartiality, and lack of discrimination amongst others. It speaks of a situation of honesty, integrity, rightness, objectivity, and balance. This demonstrates the good intentions of the Executive President at the start of his mandate. It is to be noted that everywhere during the last three years, his speeches have underscored these mantras. But nowhere has the principle of equity been more abused than in letting a tribally inclined man have his way in choosing a leader for the Health Services Department. The drive to give the job to a tribesman flaunts the mantra of equity. Unfortunately, the Executive President does not seem to measure the danger to his principles by the man who is his ceremonial Chair. Moreover, to the General Council, Mr. Yosimbom is still a Divisional Officer who speaks almost ex-cathedra. If the principle of equity were to be upheld, the competent Board would be allowed its constitutional rights and responsibilities to choose a leader through due process. Moreover, the right candidates should be given the right to run for that post. To bypass them in favor of an unqualified tribesman is a public manifestation of injustice, partiality, and discrimination. It is for this reason that advocates of equity and sympathizers of the first and second Deputy Directors are gearing up for a contest. It is never a good fight when people go in to fight to defend justice. It is always better that justice be done than be fought for by those who feel discriminated against. It stands to reason that gross injustice is in the process of being done against the first and second Deputy Directors for the obvious reason that they are not of the Chairman’s village. This is barefaced tribalism and a complete travesty of equity. Imposing lightweight candidates simply because they come from his village is an act that is triggering another tribal crisis for the Convention. Already, tempers are rising, and objections are mounting on social media. This flaunting of equity has not gone unnoticed. The competent candidate, the first deputy, for example, is a Wimbum man whose folks want to know why such disrespect of one of theirs. They feel (and rightly so) that equity does not apply when it comes to them.

Where is Development

It’s a known fact that the outgoing Director of Health Services and his collaborators and Board have achieved a fit uncommon in Cameroon and Africa. For a church-run Department to emerge and stand shoulder to shoulder with the state in providing healthcare has not been by accident. The success of this Department financially sustains (by and large) the other financially-sick Departments of the CBC. It has brought phenomenal upgrades to the infrastructure of the CBC. It is the fallouts from Prof. Tih’s leadership, alongside his team of administrators and Board that the Baptist Centre in Bamenda is what it is today. A few years ago the centre, which is the Headquarters of the CBC, was a shanty slum. It is today the pride of every CBC and every non-Baptist denizen of Bamenda. On a national level, if the church has contributed in any way to the development of Cameroon, it is the CBC through its Health Services Department. This is not to deny the influence of the other Departments like Education and Evangelism. The CBC has through its secondary and high schools, produced some of the best brains in Cameroon. But the Health Services Department is the leader in development. It is presently paying out salaries to more than 7000 employees, up from 600 at the time Prof. Tih came into the office. These are breadwinners for their families and agents of development of the country.

The reason Africa lags in development is because of ( amongst others) tribalism and nepotism that promotes mediocrity. Abdul Kalam said: “When learning is purposeful, creativity blossoms. When creativity blossoms, thinking emanates. When thinking emanates, knowledge is fully lit. When knowledge is lit, the economy flourishes”.

Come to think about the CBCHSD. It has flourished from two hospitals (in Mbem and Banso) and a few hundred staff to 8 hospitals and 30 Health Centres with state-of-the-art equipment across the country, thousands of employees, and a university in partnership with affiliation with the John Hopkins University in the USA because of a leader who leads in purposeful learning that leads to creativity, thinking, and knowledge in health services provision. That is how and why the Department of Health has flourished. This is the development we want, not only for the CBC but also for Cameroon as a whole. The Executive President, as an intellectual, when he formulated his mantra of development, certainly thought in line with Kalam about how the CBC can economically flourish. Like Kalam, he should know that low-level cadres will defeat his objectives and frustrate his mandate. For the CBC Chairman to scale down competence by imposing on the Department of Health a Director who is incapable of managing a small hospital is to defeat the well-meaning mantra of development.

Provided this mantra is respected, and tribalism and nepotism are overtly relegated, the Health Department will seek to maintain leadership that is based on competence. The present pick for the office is not capable of sustaining the current level of performance of the CBCHSD. Readers may want to know that the unconstitutional election coming up next March is planned to feature this same candidate of the Chairman. To find excuses to bypass a competent board that has labored all these years to put the CBC on the world map of health services is counter to development. It means nothing to a chairman blinded by tribalism and nepotism to undo the achievements of the CBC Health Department provided his kinsman is put on the seat of Director. Tribalism and nepotism have blinded leadership from perceiving the realities of truth, equity, and development.

That is the reason for the growing crisis of leadership change in the CBC Health Services Department. The situation is recent but has already built in the minds of those who feel ostracised the urge to fight back. They have a constitutional reason to argue for justice to be done. They are simply laying claims to the mantras of truth, equity, and development. It helps CBC leadership to know that people are watching. They may not only watch; they will soon desire to be actively involved in doing justice that is needed to keep the achievements of the Health Services Department and to add to its values.

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Cameroon News Agency reached out to the CBC Communication Department and an anonymous source told us: “Let us wait for March and see what will happen”, apparently referring to the elections which the CBC Chairman has insisted must take place again (in gross violation of the CBC constitution as per the whistle-blower’s article above.
CNA will continue following these developments as they unfold and will keep our readers updated, allowing every party the opportunity to respond to any allegations when they deem fit.

CNA Executive Editor- Nfor Hanson Nchanji