The Member of Parliament for Akaya in Manyu Division in the South West Region, Hon. Ayah Paul Abine, elected under the banner of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), has declared his resignation from the party. He was speaking in Buea on January 7, 2011.
In a press conference, he stated that on January 3, 2011, he forwarded his resignation letter to the CPDM hierarchy. Hon. Ayah Paul in the letter said, “Fearing for my life and the safety of family, I have decided to quit the CPDM with effect from the date of this letter, namely, the 3rd of January 2011”. He said he would continue to serve the country as a parliamentarian until the end of the parliamentary term of office in 2012.
Manyu elite, led by the Minister, Assistant Secretary General at the Presidency Prof. Peter Agbor Tabi in a recent motion of support to President Paul Biya dissociated themselves from Ayah Paul’s declaration. In effect, the MP has been critical of government and of late, reportedly declared his intensions to run for the post of the national chairman of the CPDM in the forthcoming ordinary congress. He also reportedly declared his candidacy for the 2011 presidential election. Now he has decided to stay in the news by announcing his resignation from the CPDM party.
Talking to Cameroon Tribune yesterday in Buea about his next move, Hon. Aya Paul said “Many political parties have approached me to join them but I am still watching. The political parties styled me “a heavy weight” that can win votes,” he stated.
Hon. Ayah Paul, a career magistrate from Akwaya Subdivision in Manyu Division is serving his second term of office in the National Assembly, following his election in the 2002 legislative election. Throughout the seventh legislative period of the National Assembly, he occupied the post of Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. In the ongoing eighth legislative period, he was voted into the helm of the same Committee. Before resigning from the CPDM, he had earlier resigned from the post of Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the National Assembly.
