By Njousi Abang*
In the past two months it has been raining cats and
dogs in Fako especially in the heart of the Southern Cameroon capital village
city of Buea. Yes, Buea, the only regional capital whose divisional
headquarters is located elsewhere with the sole purpose of making it remain
backward so that some people can’t look back to it with nostalgia. This is
Buea, the village city with only one main street that has been turned into a death
trap. It was in this town that I boarded a taxi from Buea Town to Bakassi na
Cameroon in Bomaka yesterday. While we were riding slowly and discussing about
the failure of the UN to grant total independence to Southern Cameroon and
thereby exposing us to another form of colonialism and annexation, it started
raining heavily.
The heavy rain drops flew through the open windows of the taxi
and soaked us within the taxi. When I asked the driver to whine up the glasses,
he complained that the mechanism for achieving that goal was dysfunctional. He
however, appealed to me to bear with him until the end of my journey. Since
only one side of my body was affected, I was compelled to heed because
alighting from the taxi would have meant that I would be soaked entirely before
I could seek refuge under someone’s veranda by the road side. While I stayed
there contemplating my fate, I began to think about how Cameroonians suffer to
work and earn meager wages and suffer to spend the money they earned.
I also
remembered a similar encounter when we got stuck with our beer bottles in our
hands in an open air off license when the rain was falling and flowing unto the
floor of the building. During that incident, we were forced to stand on our
seats to avoid our shoes from being soaked by the waters. Guess what? We were
actually thinking that we were enjoying ourselves in that squalid setting. Most
Cameroonians don’t watch the setting where they settle down to eat or drink.
Most are blinded by suffering to the extent that any thing goes. What is the
use of launching complaints when nobody will listen or act in your favour?
Indeed where do we begin to talk about the woes
plaguing Cameroonians? Where is the space in an article like this to state all
the details? What can we do to make a difference? To begin with the latter
question, it is worth noting that Cameroonians have the wherewithal to change
their lot but they lack the courage, spiritual and moral authority to do so.
Back to my encounter with the taxi driver as I earlier mentioned, it is worth
noting that the driver did not take it kindly when I alighted from the taxi and
suggested that I was not going to pay for the horrible treatment which he had
given me in his taxi. He rained abuses at me and insisted on getting his due which
I had no option but to pay. He said he was not responsible for the misery that
Cameroonians were going through and that he was only trying his best to survive
and I should not be the one to put sand in his garri. I paid for all the
inconveniences which I suffered and got into Bakassi na Cameroon bar, where the
blast of the music from the speakers was so horrifying that I had to caution
the bar attendant to spare my eardrums from destruction. I noticed that a host
of the customers in the bar were unruffled by the wild blast of the music. Some
were smoking profusely and drinking themselves to stupor. On one table, I noted
that a group five people sitting on it with three bottles of beer each standing
in front of them. The bar man had just be ordered to take away empty bottles of
similar stuff which indicated that they had been drinking for quite a while.
Cheah! I thought deep within that Cameroonians where poised for a healthcare
disaster. With very limited means to take care of themselves, most of them are
likely going to die early.
Similarly, Cameroonians who have had the bad luck
of traveling in a public transport vehicle know how much they pay for poor
quality transport services. Cameroonians know how much they pay for unhealthy
foodstuff displayed on the wayside or hawked along the highway. In urban areas,
most Cameroonians eat on the streets under very horrible circumstances. Come to
think of the shanty towns where the vast majority of our compatriots live in
and pay huge amounts of money as rents. MTN and Orange networks, AES SONEL and
Camwater take too much money from its clients who are constantly bombarded with
adverts and poor goods and services but give so little in return for the
customers’ hard earned currency. If you have ever cued up to pay any bills in
an AES SONEL center, you will better appreciate what Cameroonians go through in
order to pay bills for erratic services.
In addition, I would like to know if you have ever worked for an employer for a long period without a salary? If you haven’t, then ask a civil servant in Cameroon who after spending so many years without a penny finally gets a bank cheque or payslip. Just let him narrate what he has gone through before getting his arrears of salary paid. It is a story rippled with a lot of bribe-taking sprees from day one to the end where he ends up losing at least 40% of his wages. The story does not end there. He has to continuously go to Yaounde to ‘oil the lips’ of the pay masters or else he will have more hitches on his way to retirement when the dead toll rings.
Furthermore, who does not know that Cameroonians
suffer get a job? Who does not know that Cameroonians suffer to keep the job?
Who does not know that Cameroonians suffer to earn retirement benefits when
their services are no longer needed? Cameroon has suddenly become synonymous to
corruption and suffering. Although things may seem so bleak, there is hope in
the pipeline as some people continue to wrestle for the good in Cameroon to
stand out. Meg Biram says, “you can’t expect to see change if you never do
anything differently.” A negative mind will never give you a positive life.
Make a difference wherever you are. Cameroonians deserve a better life.
*Njousi Abang is a senior official of People's Action Party, PAP,Cameroon and a social critic.
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