By Samira Edi
When it comes to unconstitutional misbehavior, Biya is in good company. Our protestations not withstanding, the government is a deaf mute. The protestations of the people count for nothing, especially when the international community backed by the western media does not give it tannoy support. Biya is following the footsteps of the Omar Bongos, the Sasso Nguessos, the Obasanjos, the Kibakis, the Mugabes, the Obiang Nguemas of Africa... disreputable zoo community of dictators who cling to power!
The system is flawed from bottoms up—that is the origin of Cameroon’s problems. The whole country is morally decomposing from top to bottom. I'll keep lamenting the absence of standards and values. The lack of transparency and accountability is our intractable virus that shambles up every well-intentioned public effort.
Above all, there is no chance of enforcement of the laws in Cameroon. The country is more or less as desperately ungovernable as your common banana republic. There is the conspicuous absence of national conscience into the national psyche. Cameroonians are too lax and unconcerned about the perils of the country to bother where it is headed. As for the “intellectual elite”, everyone with their little McJobs in a little corner or the self-employed debrouilleurs don't really want to know about what is happening back home.
Shamefully, I've read here how Cameroonians in the Diasporas have become complacent in their little niches abroad, with no intention of ever returning home. Everywhere I look around in Cameroon, I realize that the true heroes are those that stayed behind in the country.
As a formidable block armed with the correct mindset, intellectual capacity and physical ability, Cameroonians in the Diasporas have the potential to introduce a seismic shift of change and possibilities, stopping the country from total collapse and rescuing its peoples. Of course it needs a humongous effort and self-sacrifice. What country was built without the mindset of blood, sweat and tears?
I will be turning in my grave, in shame, if I knew that my grand children [who might eventually be born abroad] ended up having to grapple with keeping the country afloat; something that was supposed to have been our responsibility.
This spawn of the devil; Biya and his clueless cabal of national defalcators know that Cameroonians are tired of their incompetence. But more importantly, they know that the force that represents real significant danger to expose and put a buffer on their mediocrity are too unconcerned, too complacent about life in other peoples' countries to bother. A wo/man's got a car, a job, a wife/husband/kids, they cannot unset the apple-cart.
The corrupt CPDM know that those in the Diasporas are sucked to depletion by desperate relatives back home—those whom the Biya government have deliberately kept dangling precariously at the edge of perpetual dissatisfaction. While they are perched on the high-table, they seem untouchable forever. It is preposterous that Biya is astonished about the delays of whatever project he set out, but cannot muster the dictatorial muscles to summon the man in charge. He only wonders about one cement factory! Let him look beyond his parochial viewfinder—maybe if he’s blinder than he makes out, he’ could sneak a peek into the depth of decay that his government wrought. He and his party of thieves continue to plunder our natural resources while the economy plummets further.
As a poor country, Cameroon represents no significant interest to the West. If the people continue to remain silent in their frustrations, no one will ever know we were dying on our feet. The odds are stacking against us. While we plod on ahead, time is running out. We could have started with inculcating these basic facts of inhumanity about Cameroon into the psyche of our national team—do not play for a country where others are not free!
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