Tembu Daniel has been the subject of so much bad press lately with many accusing him of being disrespectful and arrogant. For someone I have had the chance to talk to on various occasions, I can say I have never been a victim of his disrespect and arrogance. I have however witnessed his anger on one occasion -the unfortunate victim was his little boy who received a ‘big man’s slap’ for God only knows what -but then again, who am I to tell someone how to deal with his own kid.
I have had to take some anger management lessons in the past - just to say the average Cameroonian is a very angry person with a good chunk coming up on the bitter end of the scale. Not to make excuses for anyone of us.
It is also common knowledge that the town crier seems to be very disappointed in the lack of support from his fellow Cameroonians - his biggest endorsements or recognitions having come from Nigerian celebrities that many of us can only dream of having a comment like from. In many of his infamous social media outings, what I see is a man who is dying to have his work and efforts appreciated even the least but in the process has rather alienated many who claim to be his fans.
In all honesty, Tembu is not different from many of us. The only difference is that many of us are yet to be exposed or just do a better job hiding our real feelings which could be a bad or a good thing depending on the time and the place.
I have observed some of the cases that have been brought up against him and I believe some people do the most to provoke certain reactions from people they consider celebrities. I mean this is an industry in which a kid writes to Salatiel, in Pidgin English, telling Salatiel that signing him will change Salatiels life - that he wants to make Salatiel rich. Just to say people here know no boundaries. The fact is that Cameroonian ‘fans’ feel entitled to the attention of their celebrities or wannabe celebrities.
It is good PR for artists and popular figures to respond to messages from fans but most times in Cameroon, especially when the artist or public figure has not clearly put boundaries around them, fans want to be given attention for the sake of it - they play that, we made you famous card all so much as if to say they did a favor for the public figure and did that out of pity and not in respect to the value in entertainment et al that that public figure gives them.
Again, not to make excuses for Tembu but to say, I can understand his frustrations some times. I am not a huge fan of his works in general. He has many moments of brilliance which I believe will add up to something significant but that he is a hard worker is not something to be taken away from him - and in Cameroon right now, given the state of affairs, I respect hardworking youth with all their other character flaws.
Any- Ha!
With regards to his dismissal from The Association of Anglophone Comedians, I find the whole affair to be laughable. I mean I love the semantics of an association coming together to protect the integrity of their call and I think we need more associations in the entertainment industry working to protect and support members. That an association can take such decisive action is commendable but the question remains if the organization had the authority to make the declarations it made in that press release.
When sanctions are meted out by our beloved worlds most gangster government, we see things like:- Mindful of the constitution, Mindful of decree No. xxx, Considering bla bla bla etc - before someone gets sacked from or appointed to any position. And when someone is appointed or dismissed, the document carries some sort of Employee ID number or matricule number to be precise.
The communique from CAMCOMICS, does not give us any impression that Tembu Daniel was a registered member of the association vis a vis a member ID number. The document rather states that he was yet to attend one of their meetings or functions. We are not presented with the organizations by laws that have been violated by Tembu to merit his expulsion from the association.
The press release uses statements like “we do not see any reason to keep a bad seed….” Which is ironic because, like aforementioned and based on the words of the association, the bad seed never identified itself them in the first place. This reminds me of when a group of bloggers sat in a WhatsApp group to call me arrogant for saying I’m not a blogger whereas I had never been invited to any bloggers hangout. I have since gotten over that and put the blame on Paul Biya.
Just like when I made a professional mistake in my own work and later realized myself, I want to say here again that we have to really consider the things we do in this entertainment industry and think things many times over.
None of us have gone to school to learn about most of the things we do and now call ourselves professionals in so it is obvious that we will make mistakes. Based on my own past mistakes, I can only call on CAMCOMICS to reconsider how their organization is structured and how it should be organized and where need be, they should spend some time seeking more knowledge to help in raising their standards and level of professionalism.
Like many, I only learned of the existence of such an organization through this incident. I hope the organization also uses the decisiveness it just displayed to advocate for and support its good seed members.
We all have much to learn and we will never learn it all. For now, lets laugh.
- Tino Foy