Garga Haman Adji

Garga Haman Adji (born 27 January 1944 ) is a Cameroonian politician. He served in the government of Cameroon as Minister of the Civil Service from 1990 to 1992 and is currently the President of the Alliance for Democracy and Development (ADD), a minor political party. He is also a municipal councillor in the First Arrondissement of Maroua.

Early life and education

A Muslim and a member of the Fula ethnic group, Garga was born in Maroua. He began working in the state administration when he was a teenager, becoming an auxiliary administrative assistant in Yagoua Prefecture on 26 November 1961 and then head of the secretariat of the sub-prefect of Kar-Haye in July 1962; the latter post enabled him to gain experience in preparing a budget. After the legalization of multiparty politics in December 1990, Garga helped to found a political party, the Alliance for Democracy and Progress; it was legally recognized on 4 June 1991.

In the government, Garga worked to fight corruption. identifying 42 of them who were alleged to have stolen one million CFA francs or more. Garga argued that the senior officials should be put on trial to demonstrate that corruption would not be tolerated, but no action was taken against them. Garga's ministerial portfolio was then modified on 9 April 1992, when he was appointed as Minister of the Civil Service and Administrative Reform; He denied that he was persuaded to resign by opposition leader John Fru Ndi, although he campaigned in support of Fru Ndi's candidacy in the October 1992 presidential election.

As the representative of a political party, Garga was included on the 22-member National Vote Counting Commission at the time of the October 1997 presidential election, and he accused the Commission of acting fraudulently in its handling of the results.

Following the June 2002 parliamentary election, Garga and four other notable northern politicians released a statement in July, in which they alleged electoral fraud and announced the formation of a "resistance front". They warned that the governing Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (RDPC) was moving the country back to single-party rule and called on politicians "to transcend any divergence, selfishness and personal ambition in order to create a movement capable of saving Cameroon from collapse". Garga also joined other northern politicians in signing a September 2002 memo decrying the government's alleged marginalization and neglect of the north and urging that more attention be paid to addressing the north's problems.

Garga stood as the ADD candidate in the October 2004 presidential election. Refusing to join the opposition coalition at that time, he said that aside from Fru Ndi and Adamou Ndam Njoya the coalition was composed of unreliable opportunists, while his critics argued that wanted to run for President only to satisfy his own ego. In the election, he placed fourth with 3.73% of the vote. Biya won the election overwhelmingly, although Garga managed a "respectable" performance in the area of Diamaré, located in Far North Province.

In a statement released on 15 October 2004, a few days after the election, Garga condemned the election as fraudulent, pointing to a wide range of flaws and asserting the need for an independent electoral commission to oversee future elections. He also criticized other opposition leaders for behaving in what he described as a fractious, selfish, and inconsistent manner since the early 1990s. In other post-election observations, he disapprovingly noted that people tended to vote for candidates native to their own region and stressed the importance of unity, saying that the people should move beyond tribal politics and vote on the basis of ideas. Regarding discontent and secessionist tendencies in the Anglophone population, he said that their grievances had merit and that the government should take those grievances seriously.

Anti-Corruption Commission and 2007 election When Biya launched an anti-corruption campaign in early 2006, Garga expressed cautious approval, saying that Biya was finally doing what he had recommended in the early 1990s and that it was "better late than never", but he also said that the anti-corruption campaign needed to extend much further. According to Garga, many ministers and heads of state corporations were corrupt.

On 15 March 2007, President Biya appointed Garga to a three-year term on the Coordination Committee of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. At the swearing-in ceremony on 30 May 2007, Garga collapsed, but he received quick medical attention and recovered within minutes. In the press, his collapse was blamed on the very crowded atmosphere in the hall, as well as the fact that he had been standing for about an hour.

Garga was one of three ADD candidates elected to the 35-member Municipal Council of the First Arrondissement of Maroua in the July 2007 municipal election. In reaction to the National Elections Observatory's generally positive report on the 2007 parliamentary and municipal election, published on 31 July 2008, Garga said that the election was rigged and that the Observatory's report did not reflect reality. According to Garga, voter registration was selective and represented such a small portion of the population (4.6 million registered voters out of 18.5 million citizens) that the election had no credibility. He also pointed to allegations of multiple voting and vote-buying in claiming that the election was not free and fair.

Personal life Garga, as a Muslim, has several wives.