Grégoire Owona (born 1950) is a Cameroonian politician who has served in the government of Cameroon as Minister of Labor and Social Security since December 2011. He previously served as Minister-Delegate at the Presidency for Relations with the Assemblies from 1997 to 2011, and he has also been Deputy Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (RDPC) since 1992.
Political career
Originally from Ngomezap in Centre Province, Owona was first elected as a municipal councillor in Douala in 1987. He was subsequently elected to the National Assembly in the 1988 parliamentary election as an RDPC candidate in Littoral Province, and he served in the National Assembly from 1988 to 1992; during that time, he was Rapporteur-General of the National Assembly's Finance Commission.
At the time of the March 1992 parliamentary election, Owona said that the RDPC's problem "lies in winning by too great a margin; we would be taken for cheats." He became Deputy Secretary-General of the RDPC Central Committee in July 1992. Following the October 1992 presidential election, in which President Paul Biya was re-elected, Owona criticized what he saw as the excesses of the press: "The current trend in Cameroon is to resort to invective ... and all those who slander and denounce would like the public to see them as heroes, threatened and persecuted." Owona was part of the delegation sent to the January 1993 inauguration of United States President Bill Clinton.
As President of the Technical Committee charged with drafting a new constitution, Owona was considered the architect of the draft. On 12 June 1993, he announced that the second draft had been completed. He was also Vice-President of the National Committee of Human Rights and Freedoms during the 1990s.
Owona was appointed as Minister-Delegate at the Presidency for Relations with the Assemblies on 7 December 1997. He remained on the National Committee of Human Rights and Freedoms after his appointment to the government, and some in the opposition pointed to that as evidence of the Committee's lack of impartiality.
Following Biya's appointment of the members of the National Elections Observatory (NEO) on 10 October 2001, Owona, speaking on behalf of the RDPC, praised Biya's choices as wise and called on the members of the NEO to justify the confidence that was placed in them.
Owona denied claims that the Anglophone population was politically marginalized in a January 2003 CNN report, arguing that Anglophones had appropriate representation in the nation's political structures and observing that the Prime Minister was an Anglophone. In March 2003, after Biya visited the United States and met with its President, George W. Bush, at the time of that country's invasion of Iraq, Owona defended the visit, stressing that Biya was working to advance Cameroon's interests. He said that the visit should not be perceived as marking a weakening of Cameroon's relationship with France and that it did not indicate an endorsement of the invasion.
Owona and RDPC Secretary-General Joseph Charles Doumba had a poor relationship; by 2003 they had reportedly not been on speaking terms for years, and Biya was said to primarily work with Owona, while largely ignoring Doumba, who was in poor health.
2006 defamation suit
After the newspapers L'Anecdote and Nouvelles d'Afrique—as part of an effort to identify prominent individuals guilty of "deviant behavior"—reported that Owona and about 50 others were homosexuals, he filed a defamation suit in February 2006, along with two doctors who were also identified as homosexual. Although homosexuality was illegal in Cameroon, President Biya said that the newspapers involved in "outing" were acting irresponsibly by basing their reports on rumors and invading the privacy of individuals.