HRH Chief Tanyi
Robinson is the Traditional Ruler, authority and King of Tinto Mbuh in Manyu
Division in the Southwest Region of Cameroon. He doubles as the De facto
Secretary General of the Southwest Chiefs. He is equally the Secretary General
of the Council of African Traditional and Native Authorities including Kings
and Monarchs from Africa with Head Office in Benin. On the 27th of
June this year he was awarded by the State Department of the United States of
America the 2015 Prize Award for Community Leadership. Professionally, he is a
Lawyer,a forester and an erstwhile Banker. He was interviewed recently by
Francis Ekongang of EDEV Web News.
Excerpts
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| HRH Tanyi Robinson Chief of Tinto Mbu- Manyu Division, SW, Cameroon |
Let’s look at you as
Royalty. That is as the Chief of Tinto Mbuh.
I got on the Royal stool in the year 2000 and I have been on
it for 15 years and I have held other portfolios linked to this stool at the
Sub Divisional, Divisional and Regional levels. I am as such the custodian of
the Tinto Mbuh culture. At the Regional level, for the past four years I have
been the Assistant Secretary General of the Southwest Chief’s Conference and I
am presently on my second mandate. In this regard I work with Fitzgerald Nasako
as Secretary General and then our President is Honourable Senator Nfon V.E.
Mukete. Nfon Mukete is aged while Fitzgerald Nasako’s responsibilities in
government keep him too busy so most of what is done by the Southwest Chief’s
Conference is in my hands.
What has been the
stance of the chiefs of the Southwest with regards to the political trends in
the country firstly with regards to the position of Anglophone lawyers and the
way the government has been handling the Boko Haram crises in Cameroon?
I will want to talk about Boko Haram because that is
strategic. When you are on a war front like Cameroon there are things that you
don’t say or comment on for strategic reasons. We of the Southwest Traditional
Authorities are unanimous in reminding the government of its leadership role on
the Fumban Constitution that brought the two Nations together. We all know West
Cameroon was a State of its own with its own legal, judicial, administrative
and financial institutions. It had its own House of Assembly and had the House
of Chiefs. Before the marriage with the East Cameroon at the time was
introduced there were written documents so we in our position as Traditional
leaders in the Southwest are simply reminding Government of the engagement that
was taken that the Anglophones should not be marginalized. We took a stand on
the recent quarrel that broke out between the Advocates or the Barristers and
we said that we are not sending any dissenting voice like refusing as some
people would say that we are for separation no. We are simply saying that there
was a union and there were documents that were signed and engagements taken as
gentlemen that we have always been, we just wanted to remind those who signed
the documents that it is a contract and should be maintained. That’s what we
are out for. We stand strongly on this issue of Bilingualism because the people
feel cheated. The people in the village for example don’t know French and if
you find sign posts at important points in French then it’s not meaningful. You
have certain projects in parts of the Southwest and when we go there we find
sign posts “interdit de traversez”. If you don’t tell the people that
trucks are coming in the language that they know then you are exposing them to
risks. These are the things that we as community leaders do not accept. We want
to remind government that certain things may be misinterpreted and that it
should be taken care of before it degenerates into something that can bring
conflict let us pre-empt it. That’s why we keep harping on it. That’s our role
to keep reminding them.
At the Pan African
Level you also have a huge responsibility as the Secretary General of the Pan
African Council of African Traditional and Native Authorities including Kings
and Monarchs.
This body has its Head Quarters in Cotonou in the Republic of
Benin and I think I am lucky to have been picked by my peers to be the
Executive Secretary. The President is from Benin. There are two Vice
Presidents; one from the West Africa, Cote D’Ivoire and one from Cameroon in
the Central African Zone. We thought that there should be a council regrouping
leaders from the whole continent. We realized that a lot was happening on the
backyard of African leaders. There was a need for them to take the front role.
They realized that what was done by the colonialists was to keep the
traditional leaders in the cold and away from their people. That’s why their
first actions when they came to Africa were to hunt down the leaders or the
Kings at the time. He was either sent to exile if he refused to follow them or
he was even killed if he put up a fight. We know of the case in Douala and
other parts of the continent. The so called missionaries had as their first
mission to eliminate the African leadership. This has continued with the Neo
Colonialist governments that came which were put in place by them in what they
considered independence in the sixties. Slowly these Governments themselves are
coming to face problems within themselves and because of Democracy and with the
realization that they can’t just govern without the traditional rulers. So they
keep taking us forward and backwards. We thought that it’s time we bring our
self to the fore-front of leading our people. This is how that sentiment came
to put up an association of traditional rulers that should promote inter-cultural
dialogue because once a decision is taken say in the villages, there is no room
for appeal. Most of the time, it just suits the people. It doesn’t go with the
hurting that comes when we take our own brother to the court. In my Kingdom
when a problem is solved between two brothers, it is bearing. These are the
kind of things we are bringing up encouraged by some African leaders
themselves. The Late Muammar Gaddafi was very interested in bringing the
traditional leaders in the fore front of leadership within communities which is
a step towards African Unity. After him Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea also
showed some interest and then we now thought we should sustain and push the
idea all through. Formerly it died because the two of them came in with money
and it was not from the stake holders themselves. So we are taking responsibility
in our hands.
The success story so
far your Highness…
The success story so far is Psychological that it is overwhelmingly
accepted by whoever considers himself a community leader, traditional leader or
crowned authority. We are just at the starting blog and our aim is to gather as
many leaders as possible.
I was Secretary General of the Committee that
was set in Yaounde to give birth to this structure, since the 30th
of September 2014. In Cotonou, Benin it got transformed into the post of an
executive secretary. So as an Executive Secretary, I am in charge of all the
co-ordination work of the council so it goes beyond administration since I do
conception, policy implementation, follow ups and we also get into
partnerships. Now we already have Harvard University as a partner interested in
the Department of African Studies. We have already signed a pact with the
Institute for African Patrimony based in Cotonou. They have been there since
1963. We recently got something to do with the Center for African Traditional
Languages and Customs and we are moving forward towards getting a seat in the
United Nations next September as a Civil Society Organisation as well as with
the AU, African Union and the UNESCO. Added to this is the need to introduce
this vision to African leaders in the Southern and the Eastern parts of the
Continent. We know the strong traditional role in South Africa with the Zulus,
as well as in East Africa in Kenya among the Kikuyus and the Tanzanians and
Ugandans. This, we intend to capture into the main stream of what we are doing
to promote inter African Cultural dialogue. They should work hand in hand with
formal authority to impact positively
As Secretary General of
this lofty institution, what is expected of you in terms of responsibilities?
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