Cameroon: When Certificates Are Cooked- Up, Not Earned!

By Christopher Ambe Shu

When a Cameroonian tells you that he holds a Ph.D, Master’s Degree, or any end –of- course certificate in a particular field, you may not be wrong to ask: "Have you actually earned the certificate or degree you boast of?"


Also feel free to follow-up with other serious and challenging questions that would let you know how, when and where he earned the certificate or qualification cited. The questioning is aimed at trying to determine the authenticity of the certificate.

For it now seems that, the cooking-up of academic and or professional certificates is in vogue in Cameroon; all this is to ensure that smart underachievers get underserved job and study opportunities or career promotion at the detriment of those who actually spent time, energy and money undergoing and completing a course or training-in other words, at the expense of the deserving and meritorious ones.


The advent of computer technology has made it much easier for the forgery of these certificates, coupled with the fact that corruption is rife in this central African country.


So, people tend to pay little or no attention to moral and legal values in trying to eke a living.
Despite Cameroon’s abundant natural and human resources, a good percentage of its citizens still live in abject poverty.Cameroon has a population of over 18 million people, with a labour force of 6.716 million (2008 est.), and unemployment rate stands at 30% (2001 est.).Also, literacy rate for the total population is 67.9 %( 2001 est.) . Life expectancy of the total population: 53.69 years (2009 est.)

The Cameroonian population living below the poverty line is 48 %( 2000 est).


Corrupt practices, embezzlement of public funds by holders of public office, unemployment are still prevalent.

Needless to note that, Cameroon recently emerged twice as the most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International, a Berlin –based good governance watchdog.

Survival now, it appears, is for the "fittest" like in the jungle, and not for the competent and meritorious.

Thousands of university graduates make ends meet by hawking, farming and petty trading, whereas failures fabricate their qualifications and bribe their ways into government jobs.

Recently, the Cameroon government was the first to raise an alarm when in its effort to recruit ex-temporary workers on contract basis into the public service, the committee in charge realised that hundreds of certificates presented by the applicants were fake, cooked-up in the quarters.

According to Cameroon Tribune, the state-owned daily, "In 2007, some 17, 558 were classified as temporary workers in the public service. Those eligible to be recruited on contract basis were 11,978 while 5,580 were not eligible. After going through the documents of those eligible for recruitment, it was realised that 1,053 have fake certificates while some of them had already abandoned the job".


Just several weeks ago, more than 100 Cameroonian student-gendarmes (military police) were dismissed from the corps when certificate verification confirmed that, they used fake certificates at different levels to get recruited.


These fake certificates are not only used back home but are used abroad.


Of course, there is no doubt that a few can still perform well at higher levels with their bogus certificates, but a majority are mediocres, retarding development and progress wherever they find themselves. A man who has nothing ,cannot give!


In recent past years, the University of Buea, rated both by foreign assessors and the Cameroon government as the pride of Cameroon's universities, raised an alarm about the forgery of its attestations of results.


The alarm was first raised by the pioneer Vice Chancellor of University of Buea, Dr. Dorothy L. Njeuma, in 2004. She discovered the abuse when some institutions abroad wrote to her requesting confirmation of results of supposed graduates seeking admission into higher studies.


Conscious of its growing reputation, Cameroonian con artists, some not even graduates of post-primary schools, forged the university's results attestations to gain admission to foreign universities for post-graduate work and to secure well-paying jobs.
You may ask, "How are these certificates or attestations forged?"


The answer: These forgers replicate genuine transcripts with high Grade Point Averages (GPAs), typing their names on them as owners. Some produce fake transcripts with GPAs as high as 3.8 out of 4. Such transcripts and attestations bear the forged signature of the registrar and the university seal.


Although the Cameroon government has exposed many fake certificate holders in certain services as part of its anti-corruption campaign, it is generally held that, thousands upon thousands more will be uncovered if government takes the this certificate verification exercise very seriously, and considers harsher punishment for culprits, so to deter others.


It is surprising that many known forgers are not in prison even when document forgery is a crime in Cameroon.
In his 2008 New Year Message to Cameroonians, President Paul Biya condemned, in strong terms, inertia which is a major characteristic of Cameroon’s Public Service.


"It is now time for action. Let’s shake off inertia, remove obstacles, set objectives and schedules and keep them", President Biya told Cameroonians in his New Year message.But the inertia is still there as many workers are not happy with low salaries they earn and so don't put in their best.

Critics also greatly blame holders of fake qualifications in the Public Service, but who are still undiscovered, for the mediocre performance of Cameroon’s civil service. For performance is a result of talent and skill,not otherwise.


"There are a lot of people in the Public Service without genuine certificates. It is just natural that such people can not be efficient workers", a disgruntled citizen, told me after learning of the dismissal of more than 100 student-gendarmes for using fake certificates to secure their recruitment.

Isn’t it high time Cameroonians and the government in power gave meritocracy, honesty, moral rectitude, transparency, duty-consciousness and patriotism their rightful places in the development process of this island of peace ,called Cameroon?



NB:First Published on June 8,2009 at http://mwcnews.net/content/view/31109/26/