Dear Brothers & Sisters,I am very pleased to be here today for the Peace and Reconciliation Conference. I am also honored to present a report of the events before and after the MECA USA Convention 2009 in MECA DC that led to an aborted election but the Council of Chiefs(COC) decided to hand over power to the Ako-Besong Team to lead MECA USA for the next two years. It is unfortunate and disappointing that none of the Ako-Besong team members or supporters is here today for an initiative to set the ball rolling for reconciliation and seeking common grounds for the sake of the organization and Manyu. Nevertheless, with such an impressive crowd, it shows that there are so many of us who are willing to move forward.
BACKGROUND:
As most of us, if not all of us present here today already know, Prior to the convention, a lot of things transpired that left several people asking last minute questions but no answers were provided by the ruling team(Ako-Besong). The most pressing issue was the abrupt change of the convention venue (about two days before the convention). The initial venue that was reserved by the MECA DC chapter chief, months before, despite all warnings from some members in the community about fire code violations, was subsequently, not available because the Montgomery County Fire Dept. eventually shut it down. Due to time constraints, he sought the assistance of a few members to search for a venue. Mr. Etchu Samuel (former MECA-DC Chief), one of the committee members, quickly identified a hall that he has been doing business with the owner for more than ten years. Mr. Etchu has signed numerous contracts over the years on behalf of MECA and individuals for events in that hall without any problems. With the approval of the President, he reserved the hall, a security deposit of $500(non refundable) from MECA DC was paid toward that on or about June 3rd, 2009. A few days before the convention, reliable sources from the Ako/Besong team notified a few people that there had been a series of teleconferences going on about excluding certain people from participating in the convention by bringing in police officers to enforce restraining orders against those four MECA DC members. Thereafter, Mr. Etchu started receiving calls from the President and the MECA DC Treasurer to quickly cancel the contract in his name and let the President solely sign the contract. Mr. Etchu insisted that he should be given a valid reason for doing so because it was too close to the convention and it made no sense. The President got some elders involved and requested a meeting for them to ask Mr. Etchu to immediately rescind the contract. The meeting did not hold because it did not make sense that a couple of days to the convention, without compelling reasons, the convention venue should be changed. Despite efforts to get him or any other person added to the contract, the President insisted that it had to be him solely or the contract must be rescinded. Otherwise, he and his cohorts will not have exclusive control over the events in the hall. Eventually, the President, went ahead single-handedly, using MECA-DC funds to secure a more expensive hall for the convention just for them to be able to carry out their motives.
DJ Issue:
As part of the convention program, the name of the DJ was not included but instead referred to as DJ Manyu. This was also a part of the larger scheme to exclude certain people from the hall. Following serious arguments within the MECA DC group against the will of the President and some of his folks, Mr. Oben Ernest was confirmed by the meeting as the DJ for the convention. Following a personal issue between him and one of the dissenters (Mr. Larry Eyong-Echaw), a complaint for a restraining order was filed against Mr. Ernest Oben by Mr. Eyong-Echaw claiming that the new convention venue was his school, in anticipation that it would be granted just prior to the convention date to exclude Mr. Oben from participating in the convention, thereby stopping him from being the D.J. This scheme was also futile because by the time Mr. Oben was served, he was already installed in the hall.Petitions to the IEC:
As you all read on open forums before the convention, the Agbor/ebini team filed several petitions with the IEC proactively with their concerns about electoral issues. One of them was the absentee ballots that were anticipated to be the most problematic issue as far as the election. Despite the specifics of that petition, the IEC never acted upon their constitutional mandate to respond to the petitions because the IEC Coordinator, Dr. Ann Asam, a staunch supporter of the Ako/Besong team ignored the petitions and never brought them to the attention of the IEC body. Thereby, leaving the agbor/ebini team and its supporters with no other options but bring their case to the convention floor to be addressed and resolved. All the agbor/ebini team requested was for proper constitutional procedures to be adhered to and proven for all absentee ballots. Despite several open disclaimers by members who were registered in DE to vote in abstentia without their knowledge, they still had them for absentee ballots. Some of them made it to the convention only to testify that they were not affiliated with any MECA USA chapters. How could we have accepted that?
At The Convention:
Despite all the wahala, the excitement of people being at the convention was extremely impressive. People argued but still chatted and hugged one another. However, on Friday was the prelude when Dr. Samuel Besong, former Vice Chairperson of MECA USA instructed the MECA DC President to stop Mr. Assam Assam Eyong from talking on the microphone because he claimed he was not a member of MECA USA. According to him, Assam was one of the members that were suspended from the organization by the Ako/Besong administration. Thanks to one of the moderators who later clarified on Saturday that the previous administration had handed the books to MECA DC appointed individuals long ago in the process of the chapter intervening to resolve the stalemate. Mr. Assam was then stopped and asked to hand over the microphone which he did not comply.On Saturday, the deliberations went well. Then, came time for the electoral process to start. The IEC was installed and the Council of Chiefs Coordinator, John Etta (a fervent supporter of the AKO/BESONG Team) announced to the Manyu people that four individuals who were already admitted into the hall and paid their convention registration fee would not be allowed to vote. In addition, there were four restraining orders against them not to be in the hall. Two police officers were ushered immediately into the hall to make sure that those individuals vacated the hall immediately. For once, the reactions of the Manyu people took the schemers by surprise as they shockingly watched the officers stand dumfounded by the overwhelming reactions/resistance from the crowd, screaming at the top of their voices that it was not going to happen. The restraining orders and the officers were rendered powerless. The Ako/Besong team was left extremely dejected, humiliated and frustrated.
Then, came, the issue of absentee ballots that the IEC body could not move on with their deliberations because of a "deadlock". Dr. Ann Assam vehemently refused to make available all the absentee ballots for review to the IEC members. Although she reported to the General Assembly that by a vote of 6 to 3, the IEC had accepted to admit absentee ballots, she was confronted right there by IEC members who expressed that it was a blatant LIE as they never voted based on her refusal to present the ballots for review if they EACH met constitutional requirements and payments. Dr. Ann Asam, IEC Coordinator shamefully retracted her statement claiming that it was a mistake.
Although, Mr. John Etta, and the Ako/Besong supporters were given opportunities to continuously present the issue to the assembly as though the agbor/ebini team was acting as if it was unaware that the constitution allows for absentee ballots, they never gave any of the agbor/ebini team members the opportunity to clarify its position too. However, eventually, people like Seseko Ebini, Mr. Ekumah Emmanuel, spoke and outlined the real issues of the absentee ballots and asked that each and every aspect of the constitution must be applied strictly and at this point that it had become a serious contentious issue, the ballots should be reviewed not only by one person (Dr. Ann Assam) but by the entire IEC. There were a host of conventioneers that expressed their disappointments about the creation of absentee ballots in MECA.
While Mr. Cletus Ayuk requested that all the IEC members be allowed to express themselves, it was also suggested to the MECA DC President that all the absentee ballots should be handed over immediately to four identified individuals and possibly any other interested members( Ms. Joan Essim, Seseko Ebini, Mr. Cletus Ayuk, & Mr. George Ashu) in conjunction with the IEC, who will review and validate each and every one of the requests per the constitution and bring the results to be added to the electoral votes. All IEC members had an opportunity to finally speak and express their concerns about the absentee ballots. At the end, the IEC Coordinator spoke and explained how the ballots were sent to her i.e. by compiled lists from some chapters like California as opposed to individual members. She expressed that the constitution was vague and ambiguous on the absentee ballot issue making applicability impossible. Basically, by the time she finished, she made it clear to all how she bent the rules to admit all absentee ballots from the Ako/Besong team. The assembly was left with no other option but screaming that the absentee ballots be thrown out. Even a family member to Dr. Peter Ako that was singled out from the crowd to express how she felt about the absentee ballot, said on the microphone, "Throw them out". This brought Dr. Ako staring into her eyes in shock and she repeated her words without blinking. The MECA DC President, and others pushed as much as they could to bring MECA CA to the ballot box and save the absentee ballot review for last to no avail as people were bent on having the ballots reviewed before the electoral process could start. Some IEC Members resisted the process and expressed that reviewing and validating the ballots was a domain exclusively for the IEC and none other. Therefore, the ballots must be handed back to the IEC Coordinator. Following heated arguments and obstructing MECA CA members from casting any ballots into the box, the next thing we knew was the sudden declaration from initially, Dr. Bessem Besong, IEC member from DE & Wife to former vice chairperson, Dr. Besong. Thereafter, Dr. Ann Asam made an announcement cancelling the election and asking everyone to leave the hall immediately. Dr. Ako & Dr. Besong quickly brought the police officers back into the hall and they declared the meeting adjourned and making it clear that there was no election. People could return to the hall at 10 p.m. for the gala. The scheme to defraud the election was unraveled, frustrated and out of shame, the election was called off.COC & Its Plans for MECA USA:
The Council of Chiefs confirmed on the convention floor that NEC handed all documents to COC. At the time when the IEC took over, it was incumbent on them to make it clear that the office of the chairman was vacant until a new one was elected since NEC is not appointed.
Although COC decided to hand over power to the Ako/Besong team until 2011, despite clarion calls for a caretaker or interim government until elections occur at a future date, the agbor/ebini team and other chapters voted against that decision because it was illegitimate and sets bad precedence for MECA USA.
The agbor/ebini team thanks all the manyu people for their enormous support and will continue to stand for initiatives to bring justice and efforts toward reconciliation and unity back into our MECA USA.
May God Bless Us All. Patience Ebini, MSW, LL.M
Candidate for Vice Chairperson
Agbor/Ebini Team 2009
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