Home — Annual Speeches » Speech of the Year 2024

Speech of the Year 2024
Reuel Mebuin, PhD, CRA

Fellow MACDANs:
There was a young dreamer who after a set of dreams was sold into slavery by his own family.
This action by his family saw this young dreamer forcefully removed from his family,
environment, comfort zone, relationships etc. into a strange foreign land where he will be
subjected to all sorts of abuse. I stand here today overwhelmed with joy because seated here are
many dreamers. (Yes, dreamers who at some point in their youthful days in our native homeland
had dreams of their own; dreams to change our land, community and her citizens.)

I am so honored and blessed to Welcome you to the Lone State (aka “go-it-alone spirit and a
State where “everything is bigger”). I hope your presence here will not be in vain. But rather,
what we will do here will speak loud and clear to Mantung Landers the world over that
individually or collectively we are a “go to” people and everything about us going forward will
be bigger.
I am so thankful to my family, especially my late grandfather, Rev. P.M Babi and my late uncle,
Tabi Manasses Babi, who instilled in me great leadership qualities, my wife and children who
gave me the space to carry on this privilege of leading you. I am thankful to my elders, Rev. Dr.
Joe Jikong and late Emmanuel Nyanganji, who were instrumental in my leadership journey with
MACDA. I am thankful to my Primary school 1984 graduating class who gave me the first true
test to leadership by electing me against all odds to deliver the graduation speech. I am so thankful to the current executive team with whom we toiled together through the darkness of these times. And finally, I thank God for the opportunity He blessed me with to lead you especially in these tumultuous seasons. I thank you for being obedient to God by giving me the
opportunity to lead you these many years. Because of this opportunity, I stand here today as a
better leader, son, father, husband, Mantung Lander, ambassador for Christ just to name a few.
During my presidency, I have had many ideological differences with some of you. While
differences and diversity should be openly welcomed and celebrated among us, we found
ourselves at conflicting extremes. I acknowledge the role I played in these differences. While my
role in these differences was based on my passion, values, convictions and beliefs, there was no
need for it to rise to personal conflicts and/ or disrespect. For my role, I am sincerely sorry to
anyone whom I offended and/ or disrespected.
As I step off the stage or as the light dims off my presidency, I want to highlight some of our
accomplishments:

  1. We provided medical assistance to Baby Joyce, Baby Sarah, Baby Catherine, brother Bertrand and currently brother Titus.
  2. We provided Humanitarians Assistance for IDPs (internally displaced persons) as a result of the ongoing crisis at home.
  3. We provided Covid Prevention Assistance to all the 3 clans following the outbreak of COVID-19
  4. We expanded our outreach, and we increased our branches from the lone TX branch to now 5 or 6 branches.
  5. We funded the GBHS Nwa project by equipping the Science Lab and providing books for the school’s library.
  6. We supported the Mbirikpa water project in Mbaw by providing resources to repair broken pipes and to extend the water to water to Ngu and Nguri villages.
  7. The DV Lottery project (of which we have already experienced some successes)
  8. The introduction of voluntary support to members following a life changing event
  9. Our support for the Nyanganji’s Educational Foundation
  10. Monthly educational and transformative sessions
  11. We introduced a “Need-Based” program to make available certain valuable resources for any Mantung Lander emigrating to the US and
  12. A “work-in-progress” website (https://macdausa.org) which I present to you today

None of these accomplishments came easy. They were made possible thanks to your sacrifices,
love for change and an in-depth desire to see practical change in us and in our community. Thank
you so much for walking the talk. Remember, “whatever we sow, we shall reap” and “let us
not grow weary while doing good for in due season we shall reap.”

As we celebrate our successes, let’s not be blind to our failures. The following proposed projects
never materialize or brought to fruition.

  1. Scholarships for high schools and college students in the US
  2. Income driven projects for women and youths in Mantung land
  3. Seeking for external funding for MACDA-USA as a 501 © entity.
  4. MD, DC, VA tristate chapter our 2 nd if not the most populated area remains without a vibrant chapter
  5. Our constitution remains outdated and does not serve us well
  6. The purchase of land in the Mbaw plains which not only preserve our land but increase our MACDA-USA assets while providing income opportunities to the less fortunate in Mantung Land.
  7. Initiating a Micro Finance institution in Mantung Land which should serve our people with financial knowledge while empowering them to own and re-write their wealth building narrative.

Fellow MACDANs, the greatest failure of all is the failure to act when action is needed. We did
not fail because we attempted these things and failed. But we failed because we did not even
attempt to initiate some of these projects. So many dreams were or are thwarted by the failure to
act upon our good intentions. But even as I discuss our failures, I remind you today that “failure
is an event and not an identity; it is what happens to us and not what or who we are.”
Thanks to these failures, I walk away a better, informed and transformed person with a different
perspective when it comes to engaging our citizenry.

To you the future leaders, you may want to re-visit these projects, and/ or introduce new and
bold projects. But to successfully execute these bold and transformative projects, you will need
people who are motivated, committed and who think, act and see things far beyond self, village
and tribe (clan). You will need to contend with 3 groups of people: Wicked, selfish and ignorant
people. Your success as a leader and change agent is conditioned on how well you relate with
and lead these 3 types of individuals. Unfortunately, you must relate and work with them in order
to march forward.

I have lived in this world long enough to learn that “In every community, there is work to be
done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it”
(Marianne Williamson). I have also learnt that “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand
fibers connect us with our fellow men” (Herman Melville). If these statements are true and
they are, it raises so many questions in us that we must answer if we want to see a semblance of
light come to our community. Why are we so reluctant to invest in our native community? Why
don’t we do well in partnerships and in partnering with each other? Why are we a walking
distance from the biggest economy in Africa yet we are so poor? Why is our land so blessed with
human capital and natural resources, yet development and wealth remain foreign precepts in our
community and among us? Communities like the Wimbum, Banso, Bamilekes just to name a
few are establishing in our communities while we sit and fight each other or do nothing. Few
months ago, I attended a development symposium organized by one of these communities and I
was so amazed as to how they are developing their citizens and their native land. Some of their
activities included, among others, the purchase of agricultural land in our community for their
sons and daughters who want to go into agriculture. While we sit here and do nothing or fail to
partner with each other in our development, I won’t be surprised that soon and very soon, we
will be buying food and land, renting homes etc. from these people if we are not already doing
so. What must we do to overcome this dilemma? We must discourage the sale of our future to
non-Mantung landers. But more importantly, we must as a group, a people and individuals
actively own and be responsible for the socio-economic development of our beloved community.

There are many among us whose best acts when it comes to Mantung Land is to be “arm chair
critics” or “Monday-Morning-Quaterbacks.” Some have taken the position of “naysayers”
without any reason while others have embraced a “silent and/ or do-nothing” viewpoint. Your
stance has not only been detrimental to the progress and development we so desire in our
community, but it also questions and challenges your God, the Creator and giver of life for
creating you as a Mantung Lander. It remains our desire and prayer to see you actively engage in
the development of Mantung Land. But if you don’t, be rest assured that this train has left the
station of stagnation and underdevelopment once and for all and we will keep moving forward,
opening new doors and doing new things for Mantung land and Mantung Landers.

Now to the young dreamer…After many years of challenges in a foreign land, God will exalt, the
young dreamer, Joseph to a position of power and authority and will reconnect him to his family.
But when Joseph reconnected with his family who had sold him into slavery and deprived him of
a youth, he did not go for revenge nor turn his back against them. He did not only acknowledge
that he is “in the place of God” and God had sent him ahead “to save many people alive” but he
actually provided for them. You too at some point as a young person, had a dream; a dream not
only for self but a dream to build Mantung land, a dream to transform Mantung Land and a
dream to transform Mantung Landers. Those dreams sold you here. God brought you here ahead
so you can become the change agent for the change you so desired to see among Mantung
Landers and in Mantung land. He sent you here to prepare a place, to save His people, your
people alive. He brought you here to be a transformative change agent. He brought you here to
actualize those dreams you had as a young dreamer. He has played His part. What remains to be
known is your part. And the questions we must ask and must answer both individually and

collectively are: “how will you respond to God’s call on you? Will you step up to that call?
Will you adhere to God’s call for you to be a change agent in Mantung Land and among
Mantung Landers? Or will you succumb to your selfish and limited world view of self; that
is myself, my family, my village and my tribe? Change agents have a world view that is bigger
than themselves, bigger than now and bigger than their resources can accomplish. Change agents
are willing to do it NOW irrespective of how much they have. They are not driven by abundance
but by their love, mercy and passion to see things changing for the good and seeing others
smiling. They do not think the work is reserved for others but that it is reserved for them. They
often look at themselves in the mirror and do not look at a microscope. To paraphrase the words
of William B Travis, “I shall never surrender or retreat from Mantung Land and being a change
agent. I call on you in the name of liberty, patriotism and everything dear to the Mantung
Landers’ character, to come to the aid of our community by being the change agent for the
change you so desire to see in Mantung Land and among Mantung Landers. I urge you to be a
Change Agent, the change and to bring about the change that must occur in Mantung Land!

Lon Live MACDA-USA
Long Live Mantung Land