Let someone tell President Paul Biya that the key to development is WORK !
By Ayah Paul Abine
That Paul Biya is eight letters and Paul ayah is exactly eight letters is a
fact both striking and notorious. Apart from this striking comparison, the two
politicians are conspicuously contrasting. But a few days back there was neat
convergence in their visions: the one flowing from the other.
As Mr. President once told the world, he is the “meilleur élève” of President Mitterand. This time around, Mr President has in all subtlety made himself Ayah’s best student. This is not a laughing matter – not an instance of being pejorative either!
It would be recalled that Ayah has been consistent in crying out that for Cameroun’s enormous endowment in natural and human resources, there is no reason whatsoever for Cameroun to lag behind neighbouring countries in development when those countries are far less endowed.
Ayah has on several occasions cited, for instance, Equatorial Guinea that buys sugar cane and even sand from Cameroun; and yet it is aiming at becoming an emergent state in 2020 with proceeds from petrol alone: fifteen full years before Cameroun that is so variously and enormously endowed. Ayah has repeatedly blamed it all on waste, lack of patriotism (disregard for the general interest), inertia, lawlessness – (Mr. President may have preferred the subtle phrase “absence of coordination”) – etc. The most polite way one can put it is that Mr. President, in some portions of his speech of December 31, 2013, did literally paraphrase Ayah Paul.
What was curious though is that, after enumerating all the vices and failures of his government,including the inability of that government to execute the 2013 public investment budget above 50%, Mr. President failed to go on to sack the government for inefficiency and mediocrity. That is the least a serious and reasonable leader ought to have done.
What is all the more curious is that Mr. President resorted to the past failed habit of posing questions most discursive. It would be remembered that a few years back Mr. President asked why African countries (especially Cameroun, one should emphasize) were stagnating while Asian countries that at the time of independence were at par with African countries in terms of development have become economic giants, launching rockets into space.
Someone may wish to tell Mr. President that the people have given him their mandate to manage the natural and human resources of the country on their behalf. He owes the people a duty to account to them for his stewardship: he is responsible to the people. It never can be the other way round as Mr. President never gave any mandate to the people!
It baffles much more because Mr. President has never missed an opportunity to preach that the truth and the good example come from the top. The top is Mr. President. If things have gone wrong, it is incumbent on Mr. President to re-examine how good the examples from the top have been; how honest the truth has been! There is no duty on the commoners so to do: no duty to account, one should repeat!
Mr. President knows how, even as a member of the United Nations Organisaton, he has ignored the authoritative voice of the scribe of that organization to dialogue with Southern Cameroonian leaders. Mr. President knows how he has similarly ignored the presentation of double maps and flags to him in the furtherance of the Southern Cameroons’ status of sovereignty. Nor has Mr. President paid any heed to the ruling of a subsidiary organ of the United Nations that recognized Southern Cameroonians as “a people” and called for dialogue between them and Mr. President. Strangely contrastingly, Mr. President has availed himself of the ruling of another organ of the United Nations against the law-abiding Nigeria.
Banking on those exemplary good examples of disregard for legality and justice from the top, the Prime Minister sat on the judgment of the Full Bench of the Supreme Court in favour of some helpless Camerounese for seven years. Even a written parliamentary question from the people’s representative that Ayah then was was ignored. It took Ayah’s sound counsel for the matter to be filed with the UN Human Rights Commission for the government to satisfy the judgment, some 8 years after the highest judicial authority of the land had passed it.
Like father like daughter, the Minister of Culture has systematically ignored judgments of the Full Bench of the Supreme Court declaring SOCAM a nullity. And that has she done with impunity and with the benediction of and protection from the top in the pot-kettle game of mutual smear. She is up to the time of writing these words thriving in confusion consequent upon her arrogant illegality – lawlessness if that she prefers!
Proceeding from those imperial good examples from the top, Mr. Peter Agbor Tabi is inflicting pain upon all he suspects are not promoting his unbridled vaulting ambition to become prime minister. True indeed,Mr. Peter Agbor Tabi right at the tip of Mr. President’s nose is sadistically inflicting collective punishment on holy innocence by transferred aggression.
Naturally proceeding from those divine good examples from the top too, and, as if by contagion, the Minister of Justice by a mere letter did annul the law of the legislature setting up regional administrative courts; and he did transfer their jurisdiction to the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court with hands long proclaimed tied. And as the best students of their Minister, the courts did arrogantly twist the law in their new CPDM robes that cut across their oath of office!
Aside from illegality and lawlessness, Mr. President did regret the absence of coordination in his over thirty governments since taking office in 1982. This again was only in line wih Ayah’s consistent position. It would be remembered that Ayah has kept harping on the fact that no leader does it alone, or all by himself. Leadership is the duty to coordinate. If done efficiently, the leader takes the credit. Otherwise, he takes the blame. It is idle then to plead such hollow contention as “Biya himself is good, but the people around him do let hm down”. Mr. President is the captain. He has to steer the course. He does know that the ship stays afloat with him or sinks with him. He is inextricably glued to the team in good or bad weather.
The plain truth is that Mr. President has surrounded himself with dishonest and inefficient mediocrities. These egocentric collaborators have raised an opaque wall that has estranged Mr. President from the people, and cut him off from the realities of his country. Lazy as they are those collaborators have surrendered themselves to intrigues and sordid machinations that paint black the true Camerounese patriots in consolidation of their unproductive self-serving positions. The two most intelligent and efficient ministers, Messrs Marafa Hamidou Yaya and Atangana Mebara, who would have cleansed the filth in a little way found themselves fatally struck by the political sledge hammer christened “Operation Epervier” in expensive euphemism. Mr. President is discovering belatedly that even his personal security in the end does become vulnerable the moment 500 francs is brandished before those he thought all along he could count on.
Therefore would one have liked to suppose that Mr. President would have immediately sacked his senile collaborators, having realized the futility of continuing to entrust the fate of Cameroun to the very failures who do take refuge behind a façade papered with perforated CPDM livery against a threadbare backcloth. That is the least any reasonable person would have expected! But how could it be otherwise?
Who is that reasonable person that can believe that those who had failed when full of youthful energy would draw road maps in senility today and implement them successfully when already sapped of vitality? Who says that a government with the sole youngest cabinet minister above 45 (ten full years above the UN ceiling for a youth) would still have faith in a future they would regrettably behold only in their graves in comprehensive passivity? Who is that person?
Let someone tell Mr. President that the key to development is WORK.There is no room for any argument here. Is not it true that thousands of hours of public holidays to celebrate the vile victories of “Lions Indomptables” have not moved Cameroun any one point forward? Who can seriously argue that any country seriously prosecuting for development does deplete state coffers of billions of francs for such idle fictions as laying a foundation stone for a project; many more billions for partial inauguration; and even much more for final inauguration? How can a country develop when to lay a foundation stone the venue is an inter-regional road, with the resultant paralyzing of economic activities as public transport vehicles are immobilized four kilometers in either direction for a dozen hours? Who wants to tell that a country would develop where, as it is the case for about a year now in Buea, every one of five days is an illegal public holiday, baptized “keep Buea clean”, during which time all businesses are shut down as the people are told to await the arrival of Mr. President indefinitely, even for a fictitious event?
Poor Camerounese! Thay have even lost the count! None now remembers that Cameroun was about the same level with Ivory Coast in the production of cocoa at independence. Imagine the gaping chasm today! Ivory Coast was on 1.22 million tons as of 2009. Only for Cameroun to set for herself the target of 260.000 tons in 2014! More than just shame isn’t it? But that would well be Mr. President’s next question on December 31, 2014! In the slough of despond! Even going dizzy!
But there is hope! I believe not that it was by error that Mr President let lie the fiction dressed up as “50th Anniversary of Reunification”. The noose is obviously tightening aroumd some chimerical monster’s neck! Chaos and lawlessness are tumbling down the lethal abyss. Official corruption much faster! Oppression in a sheerdrop!
A new dawn is in the horizon! Heralded by freedom! Soon to be watered by legality! Nurtured by love! And crowned with sharing! The new era!
Long live Southern Cameroons!
As Mr. President once told the world, he is the “meilleur élève” of President Mitterand. This time around, Mr President has in all subtlety made himself Ayah’s best student. This is not a laughing matter – not an instance of being pejorative either!
It would be recalled that Ayah has been consistent in crying out that for Cameroun’s enormous endowment in natural and human resources, there is no reason whatsoever for Cameroun to lag behind neighbouring countries in development when those countries are far less endowed.
Ayah has on several occasions cited, for instance, Equatorial Guinea that buys sugar cane and even sand from Cameroun; and yet it is aiming at becoming an emergent state in 2020 with proceeds from petrol alone: fifteen full years before Cameroun that is so variously and enormously endowed. Ayah has repeatedly blamed it all on waste, lack of patriotism (disregard for the general interest), inertia, lawlessness – (Mr. President may have preferred the subtle phrase “absence of coordination”) – etc. The most polite way one can put it is that Mr. President, in some portions of his speech of December 31, 2013, did literally paraphrase Ayah Paul.
What was curious though is that, after enumerating all the vices and failures of his government,including the inability of that government to execute the 2013 public investment budget above 50%, Mr. President failed to go on to sack the government for inefficiency and mediocrity. That is the least a serious and reasonable leader ought to have done.
What is all the more curious is that Mr. President resorted to the past failed habit of posing questions most discursive. It would be remembered that a few years back Mr. President asked why African countries (especially Cameroun, one should emphasize) were stagnating while Asian countries that at the time of independence were at par with African countries in terms of development have become economic giants, launching rockets into space.
Someone may wish to tell Mr. President that the people have given him their mandate to manage the natural and human resources of the country on their behalf. He owes the people a duty to account to them for his stewardship: he is responsible to the people. It never can be the other way round as Mr. President never gave any mandate to the people!
It baffles much more because Mr. President has never missed an opportunity to preach that the truth and the good example come from the top. The top is Mr. President. If things have gone wrong, it is incumbent on Mr. President to re-examine how good the examples from the top have been; how honest the truth has been! There is no duty on the commoners so to do: no duty to account, one should repeat!
Mr. President knows how, even as a member of the United Nations Organisaton, he has ignored the authoritative voice of the scribe of that organization to dialogue with Southern Cameroonian leaders. Mr. President knows how he has similarly ignored the presentation of double maps and flags to him in the furtherance of the Southern Cameroons’ status of sovereignty. Nor has Mr. President paid any heed to the ruling of a subsidiary organ of the United Nations that recognized Southern Cameroonians as “a people” and called for dialogue between them and Mr. President. Strangely contrastingly, Mr. President has availed himself of the ruling of another organ of the United Nations against the law-abiding Nigeria.
Banking on those exemplary good examples of disregard for legality and justice from the top, the Prime Minister sat on the judgment of the Full Bench of the Supreme Court in favour of some helpless Camerounese for seven years. Even a written parliamentary question from the people’s representative that Ayah then was was ignored. It took Ayah’s sound counsel for the matter to be filed with the UN Human Rights Commission for the government to satisfy the judgment, some 8 years after the highest judicial authority of the land had passed it.
Like father like daughter, the Minister of Culture has systematically ignored judgments of the Full Bench of the Supreme Court declaring SOCAM a nullity. And that has she done with impunity and with the benediction of and protection from the top in the pot-kettle game of mutual smear. She is up to the time of writing these words thriving in confusion consequent upon her arrogant illegality – lawlessness if that she prefers!
Proceeding from those imperial good examples from the top, Mr. Peter Agbor Tabi is inflicting pain upon all he suspects are not promoting his unbridled vaulting ambition to become prime minister. True indeed,Mr. Peter Agbor Tabi right at the tip of Mr. President’s nose is sadistically inflicting collective punishment on holy innocence by transferred aggression.
Naturally proceeding from those divine good examples from the top too, and, as if by contagion, the Minister of Justice by a mere letter did annul the law of the legislature setting up regional administrative courts; and he did transfer their jurisdiction to the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court with hands long proclaimed tied. And as the best students of their Minister, the courts did arrogantly twist the law in their new CPDM robes that cut across their oath of office!
Aside from illegality and lawlessness, Mr. President did regret the absence of coordination in his over thirty governments since taking office in 1982. This again was only in line wih Ayah’s consistent position. It would be remembered that Ayah has kept harping on the fact that no leader does it alone, or all by himself. Leadership is the duty to coordinate. If done efficiently, the leader takes the credit. Otherwise, he takes the blame. It is idle then to plead such hollow contention as “Biya himself is good, but the people around him do let hm down”. Mr. President is the captain. He has to steer the course. He does know that the ship stays afloat with him or sinks with him. He is inextricably glued to the team in good or bad weather.
The plain truth is that Mr. President has surrounded himself with dishonest and inefficient mediocrities. These egocentric collaborators have raised an opaque wall that has estranged Mr. President from the people, and cut him off from the realities of his country. Lazy as they are those collaborators have surrendered themselves to intrigues and sordid machinations that paint black the true Camerounese patriots in consolidation of their unproductive self-serving positions. The two most intelligent and efficient ministers, Messrs Marafa Hamidou Yaya and Atangana Mebara, who would have cleansed the filth in a little way found themselves fatally struck by the political sledge hammer christened “Operation Epervier” in expensive euphemism. Mr. President is discovering belatedly that even his personal security in the end does become vulnerable the moment 500 francs is brandished before those he thought all along he could count on.
Therefore would one have liked to suppose that Mr. President would have immediately sacked his senile collaborators, having realized the futility of continuing to entrust the fate of Cameroun to the very failures who do take refuge behind a façade papered with perforated CPDM livery against a threadbare backcloth. That is the least any reasonable person would have expected! But how could it be otherwise?
Who is that reasonable person that can believe that those who had failed when full of youthful energy would draw road maps in senility today and implement them successfully when already sapped of vitality? Who says that a government with the sole youngest cabinet minister above 45 (ten full years above the UN ceiling for a youth) would still have faith in a future they would regrettably behold only in their graves in comprehensive passivity? Who is that person?
Let someone tell Mr. President that the key to development is WORK.There is no room for any argument here. Is not it true that thousands of hours of public holidays to celebrate the vile victories of “Lions Indomptables” have not moved Cameroun any one point forward? Who can seriously argue that any country seriously prosecuting for development does deplete state coffers of billions of francs for such idle fictions as laying a foundation stone for a project; many more billions for partial inauguration; and even much more for final inauguration? How can a country develop when to lay a foundation stone the venue is an inter-regional road, with the resultant paralyzing of economic activities as public transport vehicles are immobilized four kilometers in either direction for a dozen hours? Who wants to tell that a country would develop where, as it is the case for about a year now in Buea, every one of five days is an illegal public holiday, baptized “keep Buea clean”, during which time all businesses are shut down as the people are told to await the arrival of Mr. President indefinitely, even for a fictitious event?
Poor Camerounese! Thay have even lost the count! None now remembers that Cameroun was about the same level with Ivory Coast in the production of cocoa at independence. Imagine the gaping chasm today! Ivory Coast was on 1.22 million tons as of 2009. Only for Cameroun to set for herself the target of 260.000 tons in 2014! More than just shame isn’t it? But that would well be Mr. President’s next question on December 31, 2014! In the slough of despond! Even going dizzy!
But there is hope! I believe not that it was by error that Mr President let lie the fiction dressed up as “50th Anniversary of Reunification”. The noose is obviously tightening aroumd some chimerical monster’s neck! Chaos and lawlessness are tumbling down the lethal abyss. Official corruption much faster! Oppression in a sheerdrop!
A new dawn is in the horizon! Heralded by freedom! Soon to be watered by legality! Nurtured by love! And crowned with sharing! The new era!
Long live Southern Cameroons!
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