NEC Handing Over Process: The Issue behind the books. By former Chairman, Sessekou Solomon Egbe

Take-Over from the Joe Eyong Administration, July 2003

It is important for me to start by addressing issues related to the take-over from the Joe Eyong Administration.

In July of 2003, I took over as Chairman of MECA-USA from Joseph Eyong, after serving as his Vice Chairman for 4 years. At the 2003 MECA-USA convention in California, Dr. Samuel Besong, Chairman Joe Eyong’s Treasurer, presented his final financial report which was rejected by the general assembly and returned to him. The first objection to the report was raised by Mrs. Esther Ayukeno who pointed out that the numbers on the report, when added up, did not match the total figure on the report. Dr. Besong explained that some smaller donations were not included on the list, but were included in the total amount.

Ms. Kathy Ettandip then raised an objection that she donated $500, but her name was not on the list. Mr. George Takang then added that his donation too was not reflected on the list and various people started raising objections to the report.
Sessekou Arreymbi then raised a motion that the report should be returned to Dr. Samuel Besong to be corrected, and that an audit should follow after the report was amended. (The report is attached as Exhibit A) (Report # 6)

Following this complication, I then assigned incoming Financial Secretary, Ms. Patience Ebini, to contact the outgoing Financial Secretary, Ms. Joan Essim, to smoothen the transition. After several weeks of collaboration, she collected all receipts that were in Ms. Essim’s possession and they went to the bank and transferred signatures. However, there were about 3 Western Union receipts that Ms. Essim did not have copies of estimated to add up to about $6,000. Because the funds were transferred using former Chairman Joseph Eyong’s Western Union discount card, only he could request a duplicate receipt from Western Union. After about six attempts to get him to go to Western Union with her to request copies of the receipts, including one time when late Justice Ekortarh was in DC, Ms. Essim gave up.

At the Dallas Convention in 2006, an issue was raised about the $6,000 discrepancy between Late Justice Ekortarh’s financial report and the Joe Eyong Administration’s report. I pointed out that the Eyong administration report included $5,933 that was spent at the beginning of the project before Justice Ekortarh was recruited as Legal & Financial Representative of MECA-USA in Cameroon. (See Exhibit B) Unfortunately, Chairman Joseph Eyong never showed up to answer the specific issues about the Western Union receipts that got lost in his possession. I therefore convened a leadership meeting in Maryland to give the former chairman an opportunity to address the issue. Again he did not show up. I convened a third meeting at his home in Silver Spring, but this time only me, Philip Tabi, Cletus Ayuk and Angel Tabe showed up for the meeting.

Up to date, the issue about the missing Western Union receipts and its related $6000 transferred to Cameroon, but never received by Late Justice Ekortarh has not been clarified. Most of the information above was gathered through interviews with the Eyong Administration’s Financial Secretary, Ms. Joan Essim.

End of the first Solomon Egbe Administration, July 2005:

At the 2005 MECA-USA Convention in Boston, the outgoing administration did not present a financial report. The issue was raised on the convention floor to attack my candidacy to run for a second term. My supporters argued that my outgoing Treasurer, Ms. Elza Etchu intentionally withheld the financial report to frustrate my campaign because she was not in my new administration, and was supporting my opponent. I explained the attempts I had made to get the Treasurer to produce the financial report without success, and won the elections by landslide. I hereby attach various documents (communications) between me, my Financial Secretary and Treasurer asking for the financial report. The documents also include the Treasurer’s e-mail to me warning me to get off her back about the report, and that she will make it available at the convention. (See Exhibit C1, 2, 3 and 4).
All the relevant documents pertaining to the first Solomon Egbe administration were handed over to the Peter Ako Administration on July 29th, 2007.

End of the Solomon Egbe Administration, July 2007:

At the 2007 MECA-USA Convention in Houston, members of the Ako/Besong Team spent hours questioning me (even though I was not running for office) until about 7PM. As we ran out of time to prepare for the elections, several steps of the electoral process were skipped, including the collection of administrative documents by the Council of Chiefs. The election ended up in chaos amidst allegations of fraud, most specifically because the Ako/Besong Team was declared winners by one vote which was cast by a member who had been suspended by MECA-DC. In addition to that, I personally observed MECA-DE registering members from different states on the floor, so long as they supported the Ako/Besong Team. Supporters of the Tabi/Mondi Team did not have this option because no other chapter was that blatant in their violations of the electoral rules. They immediately filed a petition to contest the results and threatened to file a lawsuit if the matter was not promptly addressed.

With all the confusion surrounding the elections, everyone left Houston without a proper handing over ceremony taking place. When I got to Maryland, I notified the Council of Chiefs that I will hand over all the documents that were supposed to be handed over to the Council of Chiefs to them through the MECA-DC Chapter Chief, Mr. Cletus Ayuk. The documents, which included all documents pertaining to the office of the Chairman of MECA-USA were handed over to Mr. Cletus Ayuk on July 29th 2007, for forwarding to the Council of Chiefs.

They included: (1) MECA-USA 501C3 documents; (2) MPC Land Title; (3) MECA-USA Financial Statement from the 2007 convention; (4) E-Mail from MECA Houston Chief acknowledging receipt of $2,525 sent to him as loan from MECA-USA to help finance the convention; (5) MPA Expense & Revenue Summary from 2000 through 2007; (6) MPC performance agreement and update letters from Ekor-Tarh and Tambe Carl; (7) Application with Standard Insurance Company to give universal life insurance coverage to all MECA-USA members; (8) Survey documents to create MECA-USA Credit Union; (9) Copies of all Western Union Transactions carried out by the two Solomon Egbe administrations; (10) Various receipts of reimbursed and un-reimbursed expenses during Chairman Solomon Egbe’s tenure; (11) Various letters from IRS; (12) Consent decree between Chairman Solomon Egbe and MPC contractor Tambe Carl regarding repairs on the MPC building; (13) Registration documents for MECA.org web site; (14) MECA-USA Official stamp and seal. These are the material that I used to run MECA-USA for the 4 years that I was chairman, and coupled with the $2,525 that Houston promptly forwarded to the Ako/Besong administration, there was sufficient resources for the association to move forward smoothly. (See Exhibit D)

Technical Difficulties in the transfer of authority:

First of all, the Ako/Besong Team kept insisting on transfer of books. They went all over the airwaves whining that my administration did not transfer “the books” to them. I explained the difference between “transfer of power” and “transfer of books”, but they kept to their story, so I kept quiet. I knew that I had already transferred the books in my possession, and that the information will eventually come out. I also realized that with the type of pompous attitude that the incoming administration was exhibiting, they could never bring themselves to the point of engaging my administration properly to discuss the process of “transfer of power”. Instead, they spent their time insulting us on the internet in an effort to bully us to the point of “magically transferring powers to them” without a formal process. We understood that they could not figure out how to proceed, but with all the negative attacks on us, we decided that we would not volunteer assistance if it was not specifically requested by them. Blinded by ego, they resorted to accusing my administration of embezzlement, as a means of pressuring us to rescind our position. We stood our grounds, and the new accusations even pushed us further to request an “independent audit” before our finance team would even have any conversation with them about transferring their documents over. Up till today, they are blocking an independent audit.

The Lawsuit:

In the meantime, the Tabi/Mondi Team announced that they were going to file a lawsuit against the Ako/Besong Team and John Etta’s Council of Chiefs for stealing the elections. As we anticipated the lawsuit, I did a due diligence of the association and found out that its incorporation status had lapsed. I did not know this earlier because the former Chairman, Joseph Eyong, remained the resident agent after he left office. In August 2007 I went to the Secretary of State’s office and revived the association and changed its resident agent to me. The dispute between the Ako/Besong Team and the Tabi/Mondi Team ensued until October when the matter moved to court. The Tabi/Mondi Team accused the Ako/Besong Team for stealing the elections with the complicity of John Etta and the Council of Chiefs. John Etta and Ako Peter responded, on behalf of MECA-USA, claiming that the Tabi/Mondi Team filed the lawsuit to cover embezzlement by my administration.

I filed an inter-pleader, arguing that the real party qualified to defend the interest of MECA-USA is me, and that I needed to know who the legitimate leader was, so I could hand over to them. I also argued that MECA-USA’s position was that both parties should come together in a conflict resolution forum within the association and resolve this matter peacefully instead of wasting the association’s limited resources on a lawsuit. I strongly objected to the use of an external attorney who was causing the association tens of thousands when we could use pro bono attorneys within the association for free and use those funds to help the poor and sick in accordance with our charitable mission. While the Tabi/Mondi Team funded their lawsuit with donations from their supporters, the Ako/Besong-John Etta Team funded their legal bills through some insidious means with MECA-USA funds with the complicity of some chapter chiefs who did not secure the opinion of their chapter members to disburse such large sums of money for a purpose that was not charitable in nature. In the end, Theodore Nkwenti, Esq., was the attorney for the plaintiffs on record; Jonathan Shurberg, Esq., was the attorney for the defendants Ako/Besong and John Etta; Solomon Egbe, Esq., was the attorney on record for MECA-USA. (See Exhibit E).

The Mediation:

Eventually, Mr. Emmanuel Ekumah, Dr. Daniel Essim and Ms. Patience Ebini and several others from both camps, organized mediation through teleconference, where the Tabi/Mondi Team agreed to drop the case in exchange for the Ako/Besong Team to call a reconciliation conference. The issue of whether my administration would “transfer the books” after the lawsuit was dropped came up, and I was contacted by the Tabi/Mondi Team. I agreed, on condition that and “independent audit” of my administration is part of the reconciliation process. The Tabi/Mondi Team dropped the lawsuit, and the Ako/Besong Team reneged on their promise to call a reconciliation conference. They came to me for “the books”, and I told them to setup an independent audit of my administration. Just because they did not want to implement an idea that came from me, they refused and Ako Peter resorted to attempt to suspend me and three other members of MECA-USA from the organization. The suspension failed, primarily because my home chapter MECA-DC refused to implement it.

MECA-DC Investigation:

At its September meeting, the general assembly of MECA-DC decided that they should give my administration an opportunity to explain the “handing of the books” issue. They setup a meeting at the former chapter chief, Cletus Ayuk’s residence. At that meeting I explained that I had handed over the books to Cletus Ayuk 14 months earlier, and was disappointed that when all this issue about “handing over the books” came up, that he never said anything. He explained that he sent an e-mail to John Etta and Peter Ako the day after I handed the books to them and explained that they had been transferred. Everybody at the meeting which noted that they had never seen anything from Peter Ako or John Etta acknowledging receipt of anything from my administration, and that they may have intentionally misled MECA members into believing that we were just refusing to hand over books. Mr. Cletus Ayuk then added that when he contacted my Treasurer to hand over his files, my Treasurer said he would hand them over only if I gave them the go ahead to do so. The members then asked if I would give the go ahead for my Treasurer to hand over the files, and I said yes – so long as my administration was audited first, so that Ako Peter and John Etta can show where they embezzled money. The members pointed out that the Ako/Besong Team is alleging now that they never said my administration embezzled money, and I produced a copy of their answer to the Tabi/Mondi complaint which accused the Tabi/Mondi Team of trying to cover up my administration’s embezzlement.

The minutes were taken by the current MECA-DC Chapter Chief, Chief Etchu Tabenyang, who presented his report to the general MECA-DC meeting. The chapter then decided to setup an independent audit team comprising 1 representative of my administration, 2 auditors appointed by the Ako/Besong Team, and two “independent auditors” appointed by the general assembly. The chapter appointed its 2 auditors, Peter Ako appointed his 2 auditors, and I was the last to appoint my 1 auditor. I was asked to tell my Treasurer, Financial Secretary and Cultural Officer to turn over all MECA-USA material in their keeping to the coordinators of the audit – Mr. Victor Etta and Mr. Maurice Tabe. All the material requested were transferred before the due date. On the date of the audit, all the auditors showed up, but before the audit could begin, the Ako/Besong auditors withdrew. They refused to participate in the audit, that Peter Ako who appointed them had no authority to appoint them. Since then, all the material remained with the auditors and/or coordinators, and none was ever requested to be returned to my administration. However, at the convention, the Ako/Besong administration tried to use the police to remove members of my administration from the hall, that we still held MECA-USA material. The MECA-DC members, knowing that this was a blatant lie as the material was with auditors almost started a riot against the decision. Their attempt to remove my team from the hall was stopped by the masses in the most embarrassing manner. These “books” have been with auditors since March, and up till today they are still refusing to participate in an audit.

Conclusion:

The truth is that the Ako/Besong Team focused so much on “handing over of the books”, when they should have focused on “transfer of power”. They went through four lawyers trying to strong arm me, but realized that they could not do anything, and certainly nothing could be done without the “audit” or “accounting” that I had requested. Not wanting to give in to my demands for and audit, they figured they could insult, blackmail and tarnish my reputation to force me into submission. They underestimated the amount of goodwill I have cultivated in the community over the years and were frustrated by their inability to destroy the loyalty of my supporters. By the time they realized that they had to focus on “transfer of power”, they had already antagonized my administration so much that they could not call them to discuss the transfer process as is normally required. Unfortunately, there is no other way to do it besides discussing the transfer process with the outgoing administration, or going to court.