A “Shithole” Regime Embarks on
Corruption of Voters and Still Hoping to Change Cameroon
LA FORCE DE L'EXPERANCE
In the 1970's there were 8 pumps on Ghanastreet and
70% fewer people than they are now. In 2018 there is no public tape water on
Ghanastreet. People are poorer in terms of amenities that influence their
health than they were in 1970. Ambazonian fighters did not go around destroying
public taps in Bamenda.
In 4 years time since we accepted to host the CAN
football event, we have not succeeded in building enough facilities to do so.
Something which Equatorial Guinea, a country smaller than some regions in
Cameroon has been able to do and very successfully. Ambazonian fighters did not
attack the construction sites of the football stadium. The chaos and the lack
of vision, the perpetual ineffectiveness of government and the inabilities of
70 to 90-year-old men who rule the country is what happened. If that is the
force of experience, please give us young enthusiastic inexperience. Fighting
separatist is not a good enough excuse to remain in power. In fact one is left
to wonder why the attempts at violent separation took so long for it was bound
to happen.
Our roads are human traps that kill citizens daily,
our hospitals will make some medical experts in the middle ages blush, We can
generate more electricity on our waterways than any other country in Africa
except Congo but we have no electricity that can last for a whole day. And we
pride ourselves on the force of experience?
Our economy is in shambles, our indebtedness is
reaching dangerous proportions especially to the Chinese with whom we sign
secret contracts that do not reach the scrutiny or either the bought press or
the citizens who in the future will be confronted by the disastrous terms on which
we received Chinese financing.
And then there is the issue of corruption for the last
20 years where the sitting regime has simply managed a dangerous kleptocracy
that has indeed gained experience in the theft of public resources with
impunity. If one of your close Minister's steal public resources you can say
well that person was morally flawed. If 5 steal you could say it looks like a
disaster for the country. If 10 steal you might if you were intelligent
conclude that there is a systemic error both in the choices you are making as
to who becomes a Minister but also in the system that you have put in place for
accountability and checks and balances. However, if 30 or 40 Ministers and
heads of government parastatals are all stealing then surely it should have
occurred to you that you are masterminding a kleptocracy and that these thefts
cannot be distinguished from your rule nor can you simply distanced yourself
from them. If you have not succeeded in stopping the massive leakage of public
funds into private hands with all that experience, in 36 years, what makes you
or anyone else think you will suddenly do it in the next 7 years. Why should we
expect that you will suddenly become a dynamic fighter of a corruption that
must by now have seeped into every artery of your regime?
Finally, there is the system of government. With all
that force of experience, how much are you aware of what goes on in the country
in your name and the name of your regime? The regional hospital in Bamenda has
4 dialysis machines for kidney patients attached to the water purification
unit. If one of those machines go bad (and they often do) the doctor has to
call somebody in Yaounde, who contacts a French company who is the monopoly
supplier to the Ministry of health who then sends a mechanic from Yaounde to
come to Bamenda and repair it. And sometimes he arrives to find out he needs to
replace a part which must then come from their stores in Yaounde. This is the
best we can do after 36 years experience for a unit that serves an entire
region?
You appoint the members of Elecam, the members of the
constitutional council and the members of the supreme court and you appoint the
D.O's and make them the official returning officers of election results in
their district and you talk of democracy? With all that experience has there
really ever been a fair and transparent election in Cameroon? No, experience is not a bad thing, the wrong
experience is. Being old is not a bad thing. Being old and clinging to power
while driving the country with your age-mates slowly into the abyss is a
horrible thing to happen to a country. Cameroonians are not going to wake up on
the 8'th of October and see change.
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