Cameroon: Celebrating May 20

By Tazoacha Asonganyi(pictured) in Yaounde.

May 20 is an anniversary date shrouded by cynicism. It is the handiwork of (former President) Ahidjo for whom "democracy" was anathema and "national unity" a prize he sought greedily. He can be said to have decreed May 20 as a national day single-handedly, without due consideration for the complete history of the entire Cameroon.

In the landscape of the united country that was born following the UN supervised plebiscite of 11 February 1961, May 20 1972 like February 4 1984, fall in the constellation of the conceit of nationalists of the "Republic of Cameroon" that formed the union with Southern Cameroons.

In spite of everything, the union of the two Cameroon has made history for the last 47 years. Such history is only useful when it teaches lessons. Therefore, as we celebrate May 20 this year, it is useful to look at some signposts in the road that lays behind us, in the hope of building on our past.

One-man rule in a one-party regime has characterized the united country for the better part of its life.Whether the side of the party coin was named CNU or CPDM, the party usurped the authority of the state. Indeed, the party has been more harmful to the country than useful. The arrest and detention of barons of the party for embezzling huge sums of public money is testimony of the conspiracy of the leadership of the party against the state!

The suspects being arrested and thrown into jail are hard-core party barons and strong believers in the new deal regime, like many others, who profited from a long history of impunity of party barons and confused state coffers for their purse. The regime allowed corruption to become so entrenched that, in the present clash with the formidable network, the regime consciously makes it impossible to find the truth, and extremely dangerous to seek it. The "truth" lies with shady documents mounted against the chosen few from the sea of heads in the corruption fraternity. What we are witnessing is not a fight against corruption but a struggle to acquire window blinds to provide shade for the entrenched fraternity. Whatever the case, the pressure has been unleashed and the tide could become so strong that it overcomes even the worried circle of men who hold court in the new deal...

Many people are applauding, not so much for any effort to fight corruption as for the reality of the saying that what goes up must come down. By their applause, they are comforting themselves that all of them without exception will eventually come down in one way or the other. They are sending the clear message to the regime that it shall not be allowed to go away with half measures on corruption.

Unfortunately, it is clear that in much of what the regime is doing; it is placing perception ahead of reality. Lack of seriousness can be judged from the refusal to apply article 66 of the constitution on thedeclaration of assets. It can also be judged from the weak and confused law no. 2003/005 of 21 April 2003 laying down conditions for the organisation and functioning of the Audit Bench of the Supreme Court that is supposed to keep watch over public funds; the law sets aside important sections of Ordinance no.62/0F/04 (modified on 19 April 2002 by law no. 2002)

If history means anything, the regime would have borrowed from the past in this fight againstcorruption. Indeed, it is history that in Southern Cameroons as far back as 1958, a Commission of Inquiry Ordinance (Cap 36 of the 1958 law) existed and empowered the Prime Minister to appoint commissions of inquiry to publicly investigate wrongdoing in any department of government. In turning a blind eye to present and past frameworks for checking corruption, the regime has refused to de-personalise and de-politicise the fight, and so allowed continuing, persistent and serious breaches of the public trust across all arms of government.

Further, the regime has failed to pay enough attention to the "small" thieves that populate our ministries, like in Public Service and Finance. Instead of undercover police agents going around and listening to the small talk of citizens in bars, the regime would have mounted and introduced "documents" into the system for the agents to "follow" for purposes of identifying and dismantling the "spiders" in the cobwebs of fraud, bribery and corruption that entangleoperations in the ministries and frustrate citizens daily.

As the barons of the regime join in the celebration of May 20 this year, they should not only think aboutthese issues of corruption. They should also remember that Southern Cameroons experienced a democratic change of government as far back as 1959 with Foncha taking over from Endeley; and thatunification-citizens of Cameroon have never experienced a change of government leaders based onindividual choice, since 1961.

As they lead the celebrations, they should also remember that the last thing we need in the 21stcentury is another form of the same old thing we have lived through since the advent of the unitary state.

When people are elected undemocratically and they emerge on the scene to play the democrat, it isnothing short of the of the single-candidate-per-post elections of the one party days. Those to be appointed soon into ELECAM after May 20 will have the advantage of having lived through failed elections with piles of reports from the NDI, the Commonwealth, IFES, NEO and others to draw from. They would also have received recent lessons from similar structures in Kenya,Zimbabwe and others...

Our union is already 47 years old. Forty and over is a time for reflection. It is the duty of the regime thathas governed us in different shades since 1961 to create the appropriate environment for serious reflection on the future of the united Cameroon. The strength of politics is that it can create formulasthat allow people to break with past failures and move beyond seemingly insoluble problems. The special symbolism attached to May 20 should not be the show of empty force of arms and militants, but a show of compassion for past errors, and a new determination to move forward as a strong, just and united country.

Cameroon: Moving Forward To 2011!

By Tazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.

With all the distractions around us, like selective arrest of embezzlers of state funds, noises about impending big projects, pompous declarations about the food crisis and more, we should not lose sight of the momentous 2011 that is approaching at a gallop.It is of historical interest that once in a while, extraordinary human beings that stand out head and shoulders above all others appear on the scene. We all had this in mind when we embarked on the politics of change with the return of multi-party politics in the early ‘90s.

This was especially so because experience from South East Asia had taught us that one commanding personality could change a country in a generation…Such a personality gets thrust up by forces under the surface and they alter the direction of the forces in their poor, underdeveloped countries and make their life a legend, like Mao, Park Chung Hee and others...It is true that the opposition figures that emerged on the stage in the early ‘90s were products of different backgrounds: some were realists, others were idealists, but they seemed to be all aware of the weak foundation on which the country stood. They also seemed to be aware of the forces under the surface that had brought the country to its knees. All of them had one thing in common: each behaved like a star.

It was not long before we became aware of the dangers that had been cast on the struggle by these "shining" stars. Since great stars are only happy in their own unimpeded orbits, it was difficult to put them in one orbit! Each time they were "forced" together, it was more a partnership of circumstances and convenience, than of friendship and cooperation. And so under our eyes, the mission of the struggle whittled down and was departed from. In their dazzling, competitive orbits, they developed "strategies" that were more shell than kernel... As years went by, each developed the myopia of old men that it is difficult to imagine a satisfactory younger successor!So what was the challenge the emergent leaders were bound to meet? Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has responded with a question: "...why is Africa one of the richest continents on the planet, endowed with oil, precious stones, forests, water, wildlife, soil, land, agricultural products, and millions of women and men, and yet most of Africa’s people remain impoverished?" (seewww.project-syndicat.org/commentary/maathai1).

Thesimple reason is the lack of serious leaders with vision like Mao Tse-tung (for China) and Park Chung Hee (for South Korea) that truly emanate from within the society to create the appropriate environment for their countries to emerge from poverty, underdevelopment and helplessness. Africa’s false step was taken by the leaders that took over African countries following independence, because of their "limited and conditioned vision".

To paraphrase Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), the perception of the leaders of the colonised people was impaired by their submersion in the reality of colonisation. They were so inside the system that they could not see themselves in the struggle to free their countries except in terms of raising themselves to the status of those who colonised them.

Although they were colonised and abused, they identified with the colonial forces that denied them what they dreamt to become.Since the coloniser had inspired "admiration", being like the coloniser would also inspire "admiration"!Consequently, the opportunity to rule was confused with oppression; they imitated the use of power and authority by colonisers and ruled their people in the manner of the colonialist they had just replaced.Unfortunately, those who succeeded to replace these "strongmen" or "fathers of the nation", continued in the imitation.

Therefore the mission that faced the "new" opposition parties that emerged in the early ‘90s was to end this sterile imitation by providing appropriate leadership to lead our country out of the stalemate of underdevelopment and poverty. As would be realised later, the leaders did not seem to have a single grain of conviction, except in the hope that by some luck, they could grab the country and commandeer it in the image of those they were fighting to replace. Their political attitudes seemed to be dictated by opportunism, rather than by any coherent corpus of belief.

"Democracy" was always their pet slogan, and they invariably included it in the names of their parties, although they had very little idea of what it meant. It was like a password for self-preservation and self promotion…Most of the "leaders" spent precious time uprooting plants from the gardens of ideological certainties and replanting them in the gardens of the outfits they had set up as political parties; giving them funny names like rigour and moralisation, new deal, grands ambitions, power to the people, equal opportunity, republican ethics... and even creating "shadows" that fell into desuetude upon their creation... As expected, the gardens became more and more barren with passing years… and the hungry and expectant people became more and more restive!Although a politician should always be ready to prick the balloon of his own enthusiasm, none of ours allowed their balloons to be deflated.

Slowly, most of them came to believe in the illusion that the people can "rise up like one man" against injustice and frustration without nurture and prompting ... without professional managers of the emotion of change. What is difficult to understand is that although some of them led themselves up futile, blind alleys, they still seem to be persuaded that they are on the crest of a winning wave!After Ahidjo’s 22 years at the helm, it seems the only ambition of the present man at the top in our country is to be remembered for having blown out the highest number of candles in the presidential palace.

As we move forward to 2011, the various "stars" circling their individual orbits leave us only to hope that the year will mark our own "once in a while" when, from relative obscurity, an extraordinary human being with vision and patriotism will emerge on the scene.

Cameroon: Parliamentary Privilege, Proxies and Hate Politics

By Tazoacha Asonganyi(pictured) in Yaounde.

Adama Modi, one of the parliamentarians of the National Assembly has openly expressed his disgust at the repeated preference of the CPDM party for Cavaye Yeguié Djbril, another MP, for the presidency of the national assembly.

History has it that in spite of his parliamentary immunity
defined by Ordinance No. 72-12 of 26 August 1972 which clearly states that Members of Parliament should not be questioned elsewhere for votes or debates in the National Assembly, he was questioned by a committee set up by the Head of State, President of the CPDM for opinions he expressed in parliament. This was nothing short of a breach of parliamentary privilege!

Further, although Chapter XIII (Articles 56-59) of the Standing Orders of the National Assembly clearlydefines the "delegation of voting rights" by a member of parliament, there has been much accusation and counter-accusation in the press about whether or not Paul Ayah, another MP left such a delegation in the assembly, which was used to vote on his behalf. The CPDM parliamentarian who voted on his behalf is most vulnerable to the line of attack opened by the press on this issue, whether she is guilty as charged or not, because it fits in with the general fraudulent character and behavior of barons of her party.

It is incredible that although the rules on the issue are very clear, she has not made any serious effort to convince us that she acted within the ambit of the rules when she voted on behalf of her colleague.To remain in a party and yet disagree with its leadership on central issues of the day is not a joke.Forcing members to vote against their convictions or drawing artificial lines to contain rebellion tocontentious issues are all familiar behavior in party politics.

In general, although a party member can speak for the party on public issues, the party cannot speak for its member on such issues! It is immoral for a party to force its member to violate his conscience or violate the national interest. Using fraud to obtain the consent of a member on an important societal issue can only be the handiwork of persons with the same morals as those daily exposed as embezzlers of public funds.

MPs are supposed to use the immense moral authority of their positions to offer leadership and inspiration…Interestingly, although article 15(2) of the constitution of Cameroon states that each member ofthe national assembly represents the entire nation; we are told that Chief Inoni (the Prime Minister)had to answer for the "negative" vote of an MP against the amendment of the constitution to give Paul Biya the latitude to rule for life! We are also told that he was not answering for it because he is the Prime Minister of the entire nation, but because he originates from the South West Province with the MP.

After all, by the constitution, you are either "autochtone" or "allogène"; native or stranger! One of the hallmarks of the "new deal" regime is duplicity: representing the whole nation while being native or stranger; professing "national unity" while institutionalizing divisiveness!Sometimes the expression of political opinion based on conscience can attract visceral dislike and cloud the political judgment of even one’s colleagues.

One may hate the guts of a colleague, but to extend the hatred to family, village and area of origin is a mark of the bankruptcy of politics in our country. Several weeks ago, Hon. Ayah brought the case of the ethnic conflict in Akwaya to public attention. No one seemed to listen except the press! Only recently did we learn that Manyu Chiefs met and decided to pay attention to the problem.
It is like the administrative authorities were saying that since the MP did not want their amendment to pass, they did not care what was happening in Akwaya, his place of origin.It is a good thing that the Manyu Chiefs have also drawn attention to the conflict. It is also a goodthing that Divine Ewane, NGO personnel recently highlighted the problem in a newspaper interview,although surprisingly, he failed to mention the MP even once!

We can only hope that the partisan administrative authorities will shed their hate politics, theirincredible intolerance and spite, and their insensitivity to the sufferings of citizens under their charge, and pay attention to the welfare of the people without any consideration for the political opinions of their leaders.