Chief Charles Taku has a solid reputation as a friend of the oppressed.
In Search of the Elusive Soul of Justice is “a critical record of the contributions the author has made towards the fight against impunity and for individual and collective rights to security of persons, peace, justice and happiness…” The book explores many topics; it treats these topics clinically and candidly, ostensibly to contribute to a just, non-discriminatory and egalitarian world.
Taku’s book is a pot-pourri of issues and solutions thereof. It is an incisive treatment of the mishmash of problems almost suffocating global fair practice. It is, to say the very least, many voices, expressed in one song!
Who is Charles Achaleke Taku? He is a man of many parts. He is a lawyer, social critic, public affairs analyst, prolific writer, human rights crusader, staunch Christian of the Catholic Church and philanthropist. These attributes and more, come alive in his latest publication.
Taku has cut a niche within legal circles in his over three decades of legal practice, citable of which are, Member of the Cameroon Bar Association, Lead Defence Counsel at the International Criminal Court for Rwanda in Arusha-Tanzania and President of the International Criminal Court Bar Association. As a prolific writer and Public Affairs commentator, he has authored other previous books including “In Search of the Cameroonian Revolution” and “For Dame Lynder Chalker” as well as granted countless radio, television and newspaper interviews in major media outlets in Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya, Europe and America. Some of these works are published in the book under review.
Taku is a very restless man. It would even be pretty safe to state that every step he takes makes news. Well noted for his relentless litigations “as a friend of the court,” Taku is always one to ensure that the due process of the law is made available to anyone seeking redress.
Taku is newsworthiness personified. On any given day, he is the delight of every Editor worth their salt, within and outside of Cameroon. Whenever he writes or grants an interview, he, at once, thrives to be bold and frank, incontrovertible and meticulous. A student of history in his own right, Taku often gives phenomenal legal interpretation to historical facts, a practice that more often than not, puts to question the scholarship and character of “convenient Professors” of history and political science.
“In Search of the Elusive Soul of Justice” brings out an inherent knack for, and crusading spirit of good governance, peace and justice and the abhorrence of criminality and impunity in the erudite lawyer. It is a random collection of critical commentaries and analyses he has made and published, especially in print media across Africa, Europe, America and the world, in space and time. It consists also of landmark interviews granted by the author in prominent Nigerian and Cameroonian newspapers, as well as tributes to the memory of hapless victims of programmed massacres, other gruesome crimes and state condoned impunity. A chapter of the book is devoted to the memory of legal, literary and religious trail-blazers (living and dead) within and outside of Cameroonian shores. Some of the speeches he delivered at world forums during his tenure as President of the International Criminal Court Bar Association are reproduced in the publication. So too are keynote statements delivered at the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute found herein.
When it comes to the very touchy Anglophone problem, Taku’s stand as an avid crusader for crystal justice and unchaining Southern Cameroons from the shackles of neo-colonialism is laid bare and very passionately `defended with cast iron facts, evidence and moral suasion.
Whether it is about Kenyan or Tanzanian politics, selective or blind justice at the International Criminal Court, ICC, where at a point he was Lead Counsel and President of the Bar Association in that order, Taku’s focus has hardly shifted from the pursuit of the good society and the primacy of socio-economic reconstruction and egalitarianism.
Chief Taku’s latest work naturally brings out the lawyer’s obsession with the ideal society which, he argues, should respect due process of law. Be it in conference papers, newspaper articles or interviews, he conjures the ideal society; that society which guarantees individual freedom of thought, speech and action as well as protects the society as a whole from threats to the security of persons, family and property. And he often does so with a certain clarity of vision which he stubbornly defends to the logical end.
In Search of the Elusive Soul of Justice without any doubts would come in as a handbook for world leaders, Cameroonian political authorities, legal practitioners, world policy designers and scholars across the board.
However, Taku’s war against injustice would be a heavy cross on compromised shoulders, a nightmare if you will, for socio-political predators and the crass perpetrators of crimes against humanity that litter the landscape.
In Search of the Elusive Soul of Justice is a hovering terror more or less, an uncontrollable flock of butterflies in the stomachs of “Vagabonds In Power” (VIP) as it were.
*The Review was originally published by The Horizon Newspaper in Cameroon
