Marafa in critical health!

- Convicted former MINATD boss in critical condition at Yaounde University Teaching Hospital

-Family, lawyer step up vigilance following mysterious death of private secretary to former MINATD boss

Marafa Hamidou Yaya, Cameroon's ex-Interior Minister

Former minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, who is serving a 25-year sentence slammed on him in 2012, has once again succumbed to failing health and has been lying critically ill at the University of Yaounde I Medical School Teaching Hospital, known in French as CHU.
Lead Defence Counsel of the former MINATD boss, Professor Ndiva Kofele Kale, confirmed the report in a telephone chat with The SUN newspaper last Thursday, July 3.Professor Kale told The SUN that the former minister violently took ill early last week and was rushed to CHU.
On the details of his client’s illness, the legal guru said Marafa has been suffering from numerous ailments including cardio-vascular problems, eyes etc. These illnesses, he continued, have been aggravated by horrific prison conditions to the point where the former minister may lose his eyesight.
Even before his arrest and detention, the former minister had been nursing problems with his eyes and it is said that the president gave him an authorization to travel to France and undergo surgery at the American University Hospital but he turned down the offer insisting that a lot was circulating around about his imminent arrest and wanted to stay in the country and clear himself. This was before he was dropped from government.

He decried the appalling conditions in the hospital considered a flagship medical establishment in the country, noting that “the whole place smells due to lack of water”.
On the safety and security of Marafa, Professor Kale who has mounted a three-pronged strategy to get his client released, said he and the family has stepped up vigilance to make sure nothing happens to the former minister especially as his long-time private secretary, Mme Soppo, died mysteriously a few months back. On what has been put in place, Prof. Kale declined to comment further. It should be noted that the former minister is under strict security surveillance at the hospital with two military outfits viz the gendarmerie and the GPEIN keeping vigil and tracking his movements wherever he goes in the hospital including when he carries out laboratory tests.
Similarly, when quizzed on the results of his legal and diplomatic actions he has engaged to get his client released, he said all has been done and their fingers have been kept crossed.
As we early Monday morning, the former minister was still under observation with the possibility that he may regain his prison cell any time soon.
It should be recalled that Marafa Hamidou Yaya was slammed a 25-year jail term alongside Yves Michel Fotso and others in the early hours of Saturday, September 22, 2012 over charges of embezzlement involving the BBJ-2 presidential jet. This is not the first time the former minister’s health has deteriorated critically in detention as a result of the very poor detention conditions.
On the care being administered to Marafa at the hospital, Prof Kale intimated that so far the care is acceptable and added that he had to make sure the cardiologist is a sound one. He also noted that the Director of the hospital has been passing around to make sure everything is in order. Professor Kale praised the doctors and nurses at the hospital who are putting in their best in a much degraded working environment.