Roland Fube and Human Rights in Cameroon

By Tazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.

Paul Biya has been around as head of state for the last 27 years. Since presidents are usually overexposed by the press, it is certain that Cameroonians have since lost interest in him because such exposure brings boredom after 5, 10, not to talk of 27 years! The people have since tuned out and can only be reawakened by a new show, a new leader...

As head of state, his cronies usually say that all that is done in Cameroon is done under his authority; therefore all bad and good happenings are attributable to him. Joblessness, unchecked corruption, embezzlement of public funds, impunity of public servants, electoral fraud, lack of transparency and accountability, inefficiency, and generalized indiscipline are all attributable to him.
In addition, as president, he is too aloof and does not behave like somebody who knows that "The People" are the boss for whom he works! He is perceived as one who invokes one set of conduct for those who oppose him and another for his friends and cronies; as one who pretends to impose discipline on his subordinates without accepting and working to the same discipline himself. He is supposed to be the national arbiter and be seen not to have a partisan spirit, but he has.

From this perspective, Cameroonians have a reason to be angry with him, and are likely to lose their nerves at the least provocation. Waiting for a presidential convoy for hours in heavy traffic, under the scorching sun is enough provocation!

Roland Fube, a school teacher in Yaounde is languishing in Kondengui prison "awaiting trial" for having made an "anti-Biya" statement when he lost his nerve in a traffic jam caused by the convoy of the president. The Forchive years are forcefully brought back to us by the news that he was arrested instantly by a plainclothes policeman! That era was supposed to have officially ended with the advent of the Criminal Procedure Code! How many such mad plainclothes men are going around the country unknown to us?

It is interesting that we recently read in a local newspaper that a whiteman, in frustration against anti-Obama statements being made by some white persons in the United States wrote that "I am going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying in seriousness or in jest anything of a threatening nature about President Obama". The white persons who say such threatening things are racists who do not think that a black man should be the president of the US
.In any case, this is only mentioned here to highlight the fact that where freedom of speech is a human value, a serious security force carries out investigations to determine to what extent "a threat" can go beyond "talking the talk". After all, during the colonial days, we are told that when an old African threatened to kill a whiteman if he had the opportunity, and was arrested for it, he asked his interrogators: "my mouth na gun?" If as some version puts it, the statement Roland Fube made in anger was "a threat", it is proper to ask the same question on his behalf...

Fube’s case indicates clearly that the Fochive era is still with us! Indeed, it is common knowledge that to settle a score with your "neigbour", you can pay a freak in a police station to cause him/her to be invited to the police station on a Friday...to be arrested and thrown into a police cell to spend the weekend there until Monday! Some of the extra-judicial killings that occur often in Cameroon, occur during such senseless and shameful operations!

Of recent there has been much talk about the human rights situation in Cameroon. This was ignited by the damning report of Amnesty International on the human rights situation in the country, published in January 2009. Many defenders of the Yaounde regime have made frantic efforts to give the impression that the report is an exaggeration. In the process, we have had confirmation that the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms in Yaounde is nothing short of window dressing. Roland Fube’s case tells us that the situation of human rights in Cameroon could even be worse than the one painted by Amnesty International!