Three members of the Popular Action Party (previously known as People’s Action Party), PAP, described by the party hierarchy as “hungry boys in Kumba who are only crying over spilt milk,” have been dismissed from the party, officials said.

The dismissal of Albert Mukwelle Ngoh, Apack Takor and Ekambi Mukwelle Alphonse was made known during a press conference Ayah Paul Abine, National President of PAP, granted in Buea, Saturday June 11.

“The least the present party leadership would do in their maturity and compassionate disposition is to reconsider their decision should those misguided boys repent and borrow a leaf from the prodigal son,” PAP noted in a preliminary press conference statement.

The sacking of the PAP members was coming against the backdrop of a coup staged by the expelled members. They had on March 9, 2016, organised a press conference in Kumba during which they announced Ayah’s dismissal from the party, The Cameroon Journal gathered.

According to PAP officials, Ayah Paul remains the sole legal and legitimate national president of the party.

“An association is a group of persons managed by a smaller group of members freely chosen by the association. No particular member or group of members has appropriated interest that can be bequeathed upon demise… Any theory that PAP is the property of late Professor Ngoh’s estate that can be hired; pledged and redeemed; or sold absolutely or on terms is merely fantastic and based on misinformation or uninformed miscalculations,” Ayah said, indirectly referring to the sacked Albert Ngoh, son of the deceased Prof. Ngoh.

On allegations that he mismanaged party money, Ayah said: “By the time Ayah was to be formally invested as a presidential candidate, Ayah’s saving account had been wholly depleted. Loans were obtained at 360% interest rate per annum; even from some viable members of the party. There was such inescapable compulsion! The caution fee alone was 5 million francs. And for a presidential election, before Ayah, was a huge country to be covered. Some journalists even called Ayah “Penniless Ayah”. Yet was the campaign aggressive, thorough and unprecedented! The mere fact that Ayah came 5th speaks volumes. Only the unreasonable, the biased and imbeciles would want Ayah to dwell on the obvious: how one could cover the national territory with the mere sum of 15 million that was given before the poll! Really so curious!

“Obviously, by the time the remaining 15 million came, Ayah was in messy debts – having received less than 150.000 from internal friends and supporters; and under 500.000 from friends and admirers abroad! Even as only a tiny percentage of the debts could be serviced, a team of national officials of the party undertook a “thank you” tour of Ayah’s strongholds.

“Seriously speaking, does it not beat the imagination that the state gives money to a candidate for campaign and some officious bystanders arrogate to themselves the prerogative to demand to know how the money was spent? Is it not all the more facetious and wholly ridiculous that someone has the effrontery to make such demand where the candidate performs so spectacularly well in the manner of Ayah’s resounding performance?” … Seriously, every person of unsound mind would know that only the giver reserves the right to demand an account!”