The man who plays musical statues in Cameroon

Activist André Blaise Essama was battling to purge Cameroon of monuments celebrating its French colonial past and replace them with local heroes long before protests swept the world after the death of George Floyd.

Essama has flogged, beheaded and toppled statues honouring the French colonial era, earning himself arrests, fines and jail time for vandalism.

Over the years, one monument has drawn his particular ire — a statue of French World War 2 Gen Philippe Leclerc who was sent by Charles de Gaulle to the colony to rally local leaders and conscripts to help free France from Nazi occupation.

“I have removed Gen Leclerc’s head seven times. I buried them in my village,” Essama, a former computing engineering student, said. The authorities replaced the head each time. A wrought iron fence was built in 2015 to protect the monument, but that has not stopped Essama.

The French general’s place is in a museum, he said. He does not want Leclerc and other colonial administrators to be erased from history but believes they should not be celebrated in Cameroon’s public spaces.

The statue of Leclerc, leaning on a cane in front of a commemorative mural, was inaugurated in 1948. It stands by the central post office in the administrative district of Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala.

The area is dotted with colonial vestiges.

Opposite the monument is a square named after Leclerc, which contains a memorial to French and allied World War 1 soldiers and sailors. The main avenue from the square, one of the longest in Douala, is named after Gen de Gaulle.

“National monuments are important. They impact national memories and evoke national pride,” Essama said, dusting dirt off a statue of Cameroonian football legend Samuel Mbappé Léppé.

“Mbappé Léppé was a great player. He made you dream. He paved the way for many footballers. Mbappé Léppé is a real hero,” Essama shouted, raising his fist to the sky as onlookers applauded.

When Essama started his campaign a decade ago, people thought him slightly eccentric. He has since created an association that includes artists that have sculpted more than 30 works of arts honouring various Cameroon heroes.

A few years ago, they tried to erect a statue of one of Cameroon’s independence leaders on a major traffic circle in Douala but it was taken down by the police.

Cameroon was a German colony until it was split between Britain and France after World War 1. Under UN trusteeship, the French-administered area gained independence in 1960, while the southern British Cameroons voted to join French Cameroon in a federation in 1961.