By Asonganyi Tazoacha*
As every schoolboy knows, Titus Edzoa
and his “accomplice” Thierry Atangana were sentenced to serve a 15-year prison
term because the grand design was that they would only leave prison after Paul
Biya had served his two terms of 14 years (prémier et deuxième septennats) and
left power. However, as the years reduced from double to single digits and kept
reducing, the prospect of actually leaving power became more and more real. Apparently,
Biya has not prepared himself for doing anything else other than being head of
state! He started to have second thoughts, and actually went ahead to cause parliament
to change the wise decision of the 1991 tripartite conference of a maximum two
seven-year mandate, to a life tenure. So what to do with the impending release of
Edzoa and his mate? Simple my boy! Open other judicial files, and extend their
sojourn in prison for as long as possible, since no one knows when the “big man”
will finally leave power. And so they were landed another twenty years in jail!
I do not know what this phrase dear to the regime “aller dire” really means in
English, but that is it!
Corruption intensified in Cameroon,
mainly perpetrated by the all pervasive CPDM party and its “militants.” We were
told that operation “Epervier” was the magic wand that would stem it and clean
up the mess, but it has only brought us shame and despair; it has only bred arrogance
and defensive reactions. Victims of the operation have turned out to be mainly
victims of power games. In open daylight as if to mock some of them and us,
police agents seeking to feather their own nests or to settle personal or
tribal scores, have added to or exaggerated information they received about
suspects, while some regime barons have influenced police reports for their own
personal agendas. The judiciary is usually recruited to put finishing touches. All
this is common knowledge. Even Ephraim Inoni saw his humiliation as the
vendetta of “the most powerful people” to use his own words.
The other day a CPDM section president
whom the press described as Biya’s street fighter or Biya’s madman, took upon
himself to “settle scores with Radio
France Internationale (RFI) and France” for putting their mouth – so to say
– in the Titus Edzoa/Thierry Atangana affair. He declared from his Mezam throne
(my translation):
“I would like to end by telling those
agitating for the release of Thierry Atangana and Titus Edzoa that the two
prisoners are both former civil servants in Cameroon paid from the public
treasury. The monthly salary of the two prisoners is 1.660.000 Fcfa (2500
euros). Paradoxically, the two prisoners who each served less than 15 years in
the public service are property owners evaluated at more than 39 billion Fcfa
(about 600 million Euros). Considering their monthly salaries, Michel Thierry
Atangana and Titus Edzoa would have worked for over 200 years to be legitimate
owners of the property they own today. That is the real debate…”
That is indeed the real debate! It is
this type of simple arithmetic in the Cameroon society as a whole that led a
baron of the CPDM some years ago to warn that if “Epervier” is let loose on
society, the CPDM regime would collapse. Reason why it has since visited only
selected households, although there is evidence of unaccounted for billions
shouting at us from every corner of the society. Since the CPDM regime has
carved out the country into patches of green grass on which it tethers its
chosen ones – its hungry cows - based on its politics of cronyism, favouritism,
tribalism and nepotism, the figures do not always add up for these chosen ones
– thousands of them, who are incidentally the richest people in Cameroon! Our
collective wisdom forced article 66 into the 1996 constitution to check the
generalized pillage of the resources of the country by barons of the CPDM
regime, but up to today, Paul Biya has been obstinate in his refusal to allow
the application of that article of the constitution, making him the chief
promoter of self and faction interests over general interest. Who is fooling whom?
Turning to our opposition SDF, common
sense would tell us that the election of Joshua Osih to parliament in 2013 was
as important for the party as the election of Clement Ngwasiri was in 2002:
Osih is the first vice president of the party; Ngwasiri was a “founding father”
and the president of the national advisory council of the party. The election
of such high profile persons into parliament is generally expected to lead to
the movement of chess pieces around the political chessboard of the party in
the House. However, in Cameroon politics, such movements are not always easy,
as the case of the SDF has shown.
To preempt such expected movements in
2002 the famous “Bamenda Peace Pact” was used to “finish” Ngwasiri. After a
secret meeting with the Governor of the Northwest, the Attorney General of the
Northwest, the Legion Commander and some other regime people, Fru Ndi surreptitiously
convinced Ngwasiri who was living under the same roof with him, and other new
entrants into parliament like Tasi Ntang and Aaron Neba to attend a follow-up meeting
convened by the Governor. Following the meeting, a “Peace Pact” was issued on
July 12, 2002 signed by Achidi Achu, Tadzong Abel Nde, John B. Ndeh, Buma A.
Foncham, Fon Doh Gwanyim III, Clement Ngwasiri, Tasi Ntang, Aaron Neba,
Ngomanji Emmanuel, Mankefor Clement and Adrian Kouambo. Incidentally Fru Ndi
signed a communiqué the same day to end the boycott of councils that the SDF
had decreed. The “Pact” exploded in the SDF like a bomb. The chess pieces were
not moved. All else is history.
Fast forward to 2013; Osih gets elected
to the House. So what happens to the chess pieces? Since the SDF is always
running behind the press these days to correct what the party said or did, or
what it did not say or do, we shall assume that what the SDF did not correct is
what they said and did. They should blame only themselves for this, not the
press. The press generally abhors tight-lipped politics because it give the
impression that there is something to hide, and creates a vacuum which the
press happily fills with speculation to force the tight lips to snap open.
Following the election of Joshua Osih
into the Assembly, everybody expected the chess pieces to be moved, so there was
speculation that he would either be the SDF group leader or one of the vice
presidents of the Assembly. But there was no such tectonic shift because of
mutual back-scratching in the party. Instead, the party went begging their strategic
partner to increase the number of vice presidents in the bureau of the House so
they could give it to their vice president. Apparently, their strategic partner
did not accept to do so, instead inviting the SDF to join them in government to
obtain more “places” to share to their stalwarts.
Interestingly, the press is telling us
again that the party is asking its strategic partner to reduce the “plethoric”
government; to cut it down to about 22 cabinet ministers. Then you start seeing
grandstanding to manipulate public opinion. A party that did not have the
courage to readjust its bureau members because of cronyism is asking its
strategic partner to readjust its government; a party that asked for the bureau
of the Assembly to be expanded to serve its selfish interests, is asking its
strategic partner to reduce the size of the government.
To use Chinua Achebe’s words, effective
communication is the oil with which politics is eaten. Unprincipled politics
has a way of mocking those who practice it. Political communication transmits
political views using arguments, symbols, attitudes and practices characteristic
of a political party. Political views based on best practices within a
political party are usually more convincing; simple examples speak more
forcefully and clearly than dozens of sermons and rallies and communiqués.
“Epervier” is not supposed to be a
ritual dance in which the heads of perceived “enemies” and rivals are cut and
proudly presented as trophies. Opposition politics is not supposed to be the
theatrical presentation of unprincipled and incoherent positions, most of which
have no bearing to the real reasons for the stagnation, laxity, generalized corruption
and embezzlement of public funds, poverty, disorganization, oppression and
repression, and the many other injustices that are our lot in the Cameroon
society today.
*Asonganyi Tazoacha is a sharp sociopolitical critic and Cameroonian University Don
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