Peter Wuteh Vakunta,
Ph.D.
Introduction
Life is not all sunshine and roses in Biya’s Cameroon. Much
water has flowed under the bridge since Mr. Paul Barthélemy
Biya'a bi Mvondo took
over the reins of leadership from his predecessor and mentor, Mr. Ahmadou
Ahidjo on November 6, 1982. Put differently, this mercurial hard-hearted
persona has presided over the fate of Cameroonians for thirty-four (34) years. It
is time to take the pulse of the nation-state. The Cameroon that Biya inherited
more than three decades ago has degenerated into a human junk-yard where
nitwits, miscreants and morally bankrupt self-seekers ride roughshod over a
befuddled populace. Aided and abetted by tribal overlords and imperialistic
octopuses, Biya has run the post-colony aground through ineptitude and dearth
of foresight compounded by unpatriotic fervor. With the support and blessing of
French imperialists, the Cameroonian lumpen bourgeoisie has organized the
systematic plunder of Cameroon. With the crumbs of the plunder that often
reverts to them, the Cameroonian petty bourgeoisie has been transformed, slowly
but surely, into a veritably parasitic socio-economic class that no longer
knows how to control its voracious appetite for foreign commodities—material
and intellectual. Driven only by their own selfish instincts, they no longer
hesitate to employ the most disingenuous contraptions, engaging in massive
corruption, embezzlement of public funds, influence-peddling, nepotism and
dereliction of duty in a bid to meet their ends by over-indulging in politics
of the belly.[i]
Politics of the Stomach
as Governmental Modus Operandi
Paul Biya
has surrounded himself with a bulwark of compulsive chop-broke-potters[ii],
culled from his own ethnic group, the Beti tribe, who have a knack for bulimia,
impulsive spending and misappropriation of state funds. Not satisfied with
living off the backs of the Cameroonian rank and file, these political misfits
fight tooth and nail to monopolize positions of power within the Chop Pipo Dem Moni (CPDM) ruling party[iii] that have the potential to allow them
to use the state apparatus for their own exploitative and wasteful ends. The
Beti modus vivendi epitomizes the political philosophy described by Polzenhagen
and Wolf (2007) as the “Kinship-based African Community Model” (p.131). This
model has been described as a horizontal network that stretches laterally and
embraces everybody who is perceived to belong to a particular social group
(Mbiti, 1990, p.102). The problem with this sort of ethnocentric political
philosophy is that it is exclusive, egregious, counter-productive, and inimical
to national integration. Paul Biya’s
governmental modus operandi has created a system of endemic corruption that
defies all attempts to eradicate. Corruption has crippled our national
economy. Writing along similar lines,
Timah Njei (2005) makes heartrending remarks about the State of Cameroon and
corrupt practices which I cite at length as follows:
Corruption
has brought our beloved country to her knees and exposed us to international
ridicule. Our country has held the first position as the most corrupt nation on
earth and it is on record that those governing us actually lobbied that the
country be classified as one of the poorest highly indebted nations on earth!
One really needs to be courageous and shame-proof to make a request like this
for such an apparently rich nation. This act alone qualifies us to be in the
hall of fame of corruption. The issue of corruption in Cameroon has gone past
the level that can be described only as a social ill. It has effectively become
part of our national culture. Corruption is embedded in every facet of our
national life and it has effectively thwarted and dislocated our path to nationhood
for generations to come"[8]
The forgoing
remarks lend credence to the consternation expressed by Cameroonian
sociologist, Jean-Marc Ela who writes as follows:
Le
Cameroun semble échapper à toute catégorie de l’entendement. Ce qui arrive à ce
pays relève de l’inimaginable, de l’incroyable et de l’impossible. Tout ce
passe, en définitive, comme si, sous le règne de M. Paul Biya, le Cameroun tout
entier avait basculé dans le hors-norme, la déraison ou la folie[9]
[It
would appear that the case of Cameroon defies all attempts at
comprehension. What has happened to this country seems unimaginable,
unbelievable, and impossible. In sum, it seems as if under Paul Biya Cameroon
has plunged into illegality, irrationality, and insanity]
The sad truth about this disheartening Cameroonian narrative
is that all of this mindboggling stuff is unfolding in full view of petrified nationals
who are mired in squalor, misery and abject poverty. A visit to the Briqueterie
neighborhood in the capital city of Yaounde would drive home the point. This is
an urban ghetto where human beings and animals vie for personal space. In an
article titled “Sodome et Gomorrhe:
Briqueterie-Mokolo: le Texas dans la capitale,” Ismaila Djida portrays
this neighborhood as the Sodom and Gomorrah of the capital city of Yaounde.
This holds true for other impoverished neighborhoods in the country such as
Moloko in Yaounde and Nkouloulou in Doula. While Cameroon is a paradise for the oligarchy
in Yaounde, the wealthy minority, for the majority, it is barely a tolerable
hell on earth. Part of this disenchanted majority, the so-called fonctionnaires (civil servants) suffer
insurmountable constraints engendered by governmental dysfunction, despite the
fact that they are assured a regular income. Their poverty-line wages are spent
before they have even been received. And this vicious cycle goes on and on with
no end in sight. Sometimes, pressure
from civil servants pushes politicians to grant some concessions, such as
salary increments. But these concessions are mere make-believe because the
government often takes back with one hand what it gives with the other. Thus a
ten percent wage increase is announced with great fanfare in the media, only to
be immediately followed by tax hikes, wiping out the expected benefits.
Clearly, politics of the belly sustained by a divide and rule contraption
constitute an integral part of the system put in place by politicians in
Cameroon to further divide and rule the
suffering masses.
Divide and Rule in the
Post-colony
Part of the exploited majority in Cameroon is constituted by peasants,
the well-known wretched of the earth, who are expropriated, robbed, humiliated
and mistreated on a regular basis by men and women in uniform—mange-mille[iv],
gendarmes and the military. Interestingly, the peasantry is the mainstay of the
Cameroonian economy because they are the ones whose labor creates wealth.
Thanks to their productive labor, the nation stays afloat against all odds. It
is from their labor that all those Cameroonians for whom Cameroon is an El
Dorado line their pockets. And yet, it is the peasants who are least served by
the nation. They lack road infrastructure, healthcare facilities, portable
water, electricity and good schools for their children. It is the peasants, creators of the nation’s
wealth, who suffer the most in the hands of so-called élus du peuple[v]. So much for a misnomer! It is the children of
peasants who swell the ranks of Chômencam[vi],
the plethora of the unemployed in Cameroon. It is among the peasants that the
illiteracy rate is the highest in the country—
68.9%. Those who most need to learn, in order to improve the output of their
productive labor, are the ones who benefit the least from investments in
education and technology. The peasant youth—who have the same aptitude like
their urban counterparts end up in the wrong places. Their initial impulse drives them to urban
centers—Yaounde, Douala, Bafoussam, Nkongsamba, Buea, and Limbe to name but a
few, where they hope to land jobs and enjoy, too, the advantages of modernism.
Sadly
enough, lack of academic qualifications precludes these compatriots from
landing gainful employment. Lack of jobs drives them into illegal activities
such as drug peddling, feymenia[vii],
prostitution and more. Some eke out a living by working as pedes[viii] at the beck and call of some sexually
starved katikas[ix]. Others
resolve to make a pittance working as
bendskinneurs[x]
and call-boxeurs.[xi]
As a last resort, some of them seek salvation by attempting to go abroad by any
means necessary. Lately, we have seen disheartening pictures in media outlets
of our compatriots who have perished like chicken on high seas and oceans in a
desperate attempt to flee from an uninhabitable homeland. The New York Times of May 29, 2016 reported that in three days,
700 deaths had occurred on the Mediterranean, some of them Cameroonians. Does
the Cameroonian society provide these compatriots with any alternative? Stated
succinctly, such is the state of the nation that Mr. Biya will bequeath to Cameroonians
when he ultimately answers the call of the Divine in the not too distant future—a
paradise for some and hell for the rest. When all is said and done, Mr. Biya’s
track record is one of dismal failure.
Underperformance of Political Incumbents
Students
of Mr. Paul Biya’s report card make no bones about the fact that he is a
monumental political failure. After thirty-four years of deconstructionist
leadership and retrogressive political agendas bolstered by intrusive
imperialist domination and exploitation, post-colonial Cameroon under the Biya
regime remains a backward nation with nothing to offer the world. This hitherto great nation has been
transformed into an underdeveloped heart of darkness, to borrow words from one
of Africa’s compulsive denigrators, Joseph Conrad (1899), where the rural
poor—employing 92 percent of the workforce—accounts for only 47 percent of the
gross domestic product (GDP) and supplies 94 percent of the country’s total
exports. It should be noted that in other African countries, notably Nigeria,
Ghana, Botswana and South Africa, farmers constituting less than ten percent of
the population manage not only to feed themselves adequately and satisfy the
basic needs of the entire nation, but also to export enormous quantities of
their agricultural produce. Paradoxically, in Cameroon more than 90 percent of
the population, despite strenuous efforts, experiences deprivation and is
compelled to fall back on imported food items from France, China and more. The imbalance between exports and imports accentuates
Cameroon’s dependency on foreign countries. An economy that functions on such a
paralysis inevitably goes bankrupt and is headed for catastrophe.
Private
investments from abroad constitute a huge drain on Cameroon’s economy and thus
do not help strengthen its ability to accumulate wealth. That is because an
important portion of the wealth created with the help of foreign investors is
siphoned off abroad, instead of being reinvested to increase the country’s
productive capability. Paul Biya inherited a buoyant economy from Ahmadou
Ahidjo and ran it into a recession a couple of years later not only because he
does not practice what he preaches but also because he lacks the cognitive
ability to conceptualize economic recovery strategies. In the 1990s, salaries of civil servants were slashed drastically, in some cases by
60 percent. This writer worked as senior translator at the Presidency of the
Republic at the time and endured the fiscal humiliation by keeping a stiff
upper lip. In fact, he worked for an entire fiscal year without receiving a
paycheck from the government because his dossier[xii]
had gathered dust in the drawers of some numskull in the Ministère de la
Fonction Publique [Ministry of Public Service] in Yaounde. He survived on a
pittance that was called prime de
technicité[xiii]
in bygone days. Salary cuts were quickly followed by privatization which still
leaves a sour taste in the mouths of Cameroonians to date.
The
greatest weakness of Paul Biya has been in the economic sector. Almost a year
ago, he posed a rhetorical question to Cameroonians when he asked the following
question: “Why is it that Cameroon has everything in human and natural
resources yet is not having the feel good effects?” Five cankers suffice to provide Mr. President
with a candid response: endemic corruption,
misappropriation of state funds, apartheid-style tribalism, blind-sidedness, and
impunity are wreaking havoc in the moral and economic fabrics of the
Cameroonian post-colony. Biya took over power in 1982 and announced with pomp
and fanfare that his catchwords were going to be rigor and moralization. But
the president soon found himself surrounded by a clique of diehard ethnocentric
tribesmen, cronies, as well as a coterie of myopic CPDM praise-singers that
sang his glories but remained blind-sided to national issues of grave
importance. Consequently, Mr. Biya remains
a myopic alien in the land that he purports to govern. If fact, he governs this nation of 23+ million
jobajo[xiv]
drinkers and makossa dancers by remote control.
Governance by Remote Control
Biya
does not live in Cameroon and, therefore, does not know Cameroonians. The
president is out of touch with the Cameroonian reality. The absentee landlord spends
several months in a calendar year in Europe touring casinos and nude beaches
with no specific agenda in mind. In 2009, Biya sparked global
outrage after reports emerged of a 20-day holiday in France where he spent an
average of £35,000 a day, totaling £700,000.Once back home, he retires to his million-dollar castle in his home village of
Mvog-Meka to play golf and drink whiskey
and champagne. It is for this reason
that international observers of the political status quo in Cameroon have
branded the Cameroonian Head of State le Roi
fainéant[xv].
Biya does nothing to change the destiny of his country. His latest fad about les grandes réalisations[xvi]
is political hogwash! The man is an under-achiever, to put it bluntly. Biya’s
inept governance has brought Cameroon to its knees. Three decades ago, cities
like Douala, Nkongsamba, Bafoussam, Edea, Limbe, Bamenda, Buea and Yaounde,
were commercial hubs teeming with business activities and life. Nowadays, they
are virtual ghost towns. Biya’s nonchalant leadership attitude has robbed
Cameroon of its luster. Cameroon is no longer the Africa in miniature that it
was once known to be. The Republic of Cameroon is a sore finger in the anatomy
of the African continent. Biya’s lack of political foresight has transformed Cameroon
into a beggarly nation. We are beasts of no nation, [xvii]to
borrow words from an illustrious son of the soil who perished fighting the
Cameroonian canker code-named biyaism. [xviii]
Biyaism has moved Cameroon ten years backwards in terms of infrastructural
development. The physical environment in Yaoundé is an eyesore. Piles of garbage litter streets here and
there. Potholes left, right and center. Unfinished government buildings punctuate
the already tarnished landscape of our phantom capital city. Douala does not
fare any better. It is a shadow of its former self. The Doula International
airport that Biya inherited from his predecessor is now in a shambles—no
running water in the restrooms, no toilet paper,
broken tiles on the floor, a total mess!
What remains of the Douala Port is a nefarious abyss in the bottom of
which customs officers hide to steal money from Tom, Dick and Harry. The Limbe
Deep Seaport is dead, buried, and forgotten. Speaking in Yaoundé on
January 15, 2015 at a meeting with a delegation of South Korean technocrats, Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional
Development, Emmanuel Nganou Ndjoumessi, announced that the Limbe Deep Seaport will be
operational soon. Cameroonians are still waiting and shall wait until Godot[xix] comes. Accountability
has been thrown to the dogs in that geographical expression nicknamed Cameroon.
Conclusion
The
pulse of the post-colony has been taken. And there is incontrovertible evidence
that the nation-state is malignant. This discourse serves as a pointer to the
legacy that Mr. Paul Biya and his accessories will bequeath to millions of
Cameroonians, many of whom have never known any other president. This is a
legacy that truly stinks and spells nothing but doom for the young men and
women that the president took the oath office on November 6, 1982 to nurture
and protect. The purport of this write-up is not to provide a panacea for the
myriads of ailments that plague Cameroon under President Paul Biya; rather it
is a dirge composed by a son of the soil whose heart throbs for the demise of a
nation richly blessed with natural and human capital; and yet sorely lacking in
strategic thinkers and leadership visionaries. No Cameroonian who loves and
honors his native land can remain indifferent to the status quo at home.
Indeed, valiant, hardworking people have never been able to tolerate such a
situation. Because they understand that this is not an irreversible situation,
but a question of society being organized on an unjust system for the sole
benefit of a select few. They have, therefore, waged different kinds of
struggles, searching for various ways and means to overthrow the old order,
establish a new order capable of rehabilitating the ordinary man, and give
their country a leading place within the community of free, prosperous, and respected
nations. Cameroonians have a tough call. They should not expect lynchpins of
the old order to change their mentality and embrace sweeping changes any time
soon. The only language that dictators respond to and understand is the
language of force, the revolutionary class struggle against the exploiters and
oppressors of the rank and file. The people’s revolution that I envision in
this write-up is the only act by which the Cameroonian people will impose their
will on the parasitic class that has hijacked the nation-state; that class has benefited
perennially from the matrimony that exists between the national and imperialistic
bourgeoisie in Cameroon. The Cameroonian Popular Revolution that is called for
will be a class struggle by which the Cameroonian people impose their will on
the ruling class by all means at their disposal, including arms, if necessary.
Notes
[i] In his
1989 book L'État en Afriquel:
la politique du ventre (translated as The State in Africa: Politics of the
Belly (2009)Jean-François Bayart attempts to describe African politics and, in particular, the relationship between clientelism, corruption and power
[ii] Reference to Cameroonians, notably
Betis, who do not save for the rainy day; spendthrifts
[iii] Derogatory name for the ruling
party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement( CPDM)
[iv] Corrupt police officers in Cameroon
[v] People’s
representatives
[vi] Chronic unemployment in Cameroon
[vii] Underhand deals of conmen
[viii] French slang for homosexual
[ix] Big shots
[x] Motor-cycle drivers
[xi] People who sell air-time to mobile
phone users
[xii] File
[xiii] Professional honorarium
[xiv] Locally brewed beer
[xv] Lazy king
[xvi] Big achievements
[xvii]Reference a play by Bate Besong titled Beasts of no Nation(1990)
[xviii] Paul Biya’s governmental philosophy
[xix] Waiting for
Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot
Works cited
Bayart,
Jean-François. L’état en A frique: la
politique du ventre. Paris: Fayard,
1989.
__________________.
The State in Africa: The Politics of the
Belly. New York: Longman, 1993.
Beckett,
Samuel. Waiting for Godot. Cambridge:
University of Cambridge Press, 1989.
Besong,
Bate. Beasts of No Nation.
Yaounde: Editions CLE, 2003.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Dover, 1990.
Djida, Ismail. “Sodome
et Gomorrhe: Briqueterie- Mokolo: le
Texas dans la capitale,” Retrieved
sodome-et-gomorrhe-briqueterie-mokolo-le-texas-dans-la-capitale-cameroon.html
Ela,
Jean-Marc. Innovations
sociales et renaissance de l’Afrique noire,
L’Harmattan,
Paris, 1998.
Mbiti, J. African
Religions and Philosophy. Florence: Heinemann, 1990.
New York Times. “Three
Days, 700 Deaths as Mediterranean Migrant Crisis Flares,” Retrieved
September
23, 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/world/europe/migrants-deaths-mediterranean-libya-italy.html?_r=0
Njei, M.T. “Cameroon and
Corruption,” Retrieved October 15, 2016 from
Polzenhagen, F. and
Wolf, Hans-Georg. “Culture-specific Conceptualizations of Corruption in
African English.” In Sharidian, F. and Palmer, G.B. (eds.) Applied Cultural Linguistics:
Implications
for Second Language Learning and Intercultural Communication,
125-168. Amsterdam: John Benjamin’s publishing
Company, 2007.
The Guardian
Newspaper. “32 Years of Biyaism: Those Praises of Deceit,” Retrieved on August
12, 2016 from http://www.cameroonweb.com/CameroonHomePage/NewsArchive/Editorial-32-years-of-Biyaism-those-praises-of-deceit-314291
About the author
Dr.
Peter Wuteh Vakunta is Professor of Global Languages and Cross-Cultural Studies
at the University of Indianapolis, United States of America
