Azore Opio
3 March 2008
opinion
If President Paul Biya had presented himself for 25 years as the Father of the Nation, on Wednesday 27, he doffed his Dr Jekyll hide and donned Mr. Hyde's loathsome demonic cloak. He was point blank that he doesn't care a hoot and that he was not going to brook any opposition!
Biya chose a most inopportune time to stage his one-man act drama. The taste of the audience was bitter, emotional and partisan.
Biya had forgotten that he was play-acting to an evening audience with a larger proportion of men, not a matinée audience composed chiefly of women. Biya himself was motivated by emotion, paranoia and the desperation to survive instead of reason. His greed overrode his sound judgement.
By the time he finished issuing his threats, the message had dissolved into a glob of meaningless babble. The 'speech' jarred as if it was written by an Orang-utan for an Idiots' Convocation ceremony, so much so that the usual spin that handpicked journalistic parrots apply to Biya's speeches became wobbly and didn't just stick.
Without understanding the perils of speaking carelessly to an angry people, Biya had raised the adrenaline level by several uncomfortable calibrations and raised temperaments to unbearable degrees.
From what the President said, he seems to be living in a precarious world, where fact and misinformation have become so entangled that he is unable or unwilling to extract a pristine truth. He even dared to mention negotiation as an alternative to using violence to be heard.
But what chances have cockroaches to negotiate with a council of fowls? Biya has never negotiated with any of the disgruntled members of the Cameroonian society - teachers, medics, the judiciary, warders (civil servants) the Southern Cameroons, the youths - but on Wednesday, he shamelessly called the very youths he has been manipulating to his advantage (they took FCFA 1000 each to vote for him) "delinquents with a prospect to looting" and even killing some.
The Head of State condemned delinquency forgetting that he is at the head of a coterie of adult delinquents. He conveniently found a scapegoat in the opposition parties and failed to address the root cause of the strike - general bitterness and disaffection against the repressive regime which provided fodder for the protestors.
Biya reacted in the way he did because he was taken completely by surprise by 'docile' Cameroonians and perhaps because they destroyed some of his interests. He did not know until Monday morning that Cameroonians had been making up their minds, albeit slowly, to spit out their grievances in unison - they had been spitting randomly their bile in the media, in their 'country meetings' (njangis) inside buses and taxis, over bottles of beer, in the markets, on the farms and so on. Now the venoms are coalescing.
Suddenly, the pendulum has swung. The rules have begun to change. The kaleidoscope of power has been shaken. A regime that once could not imagine that it could go back on its decisions saw its image of infallibility shatter in the day time. The very foundations of the regime have been shaken. It seems likely now that change in Cameroon will need more doses of violence.
Without doubt, the tide of public opinion has been turning swiftly against Biya and his government, which has an astonishing chronicle of disguise and deception, secrecy, blackmail, betrayal, corruption, hero-worship, tokenism, clienteleism, cronyism, cultism and all the other bad isms.
Election rigging, anti-constitutional amendment sentiments, regular price and tax hikes, police brutality and so on are the combination that underlies the recent strike. And Biya has, over the years, laced up this combination with catalysts such as lying, graft, corruption, embezzlement, human rights abuse and arrogance, which have been speeding up the reaction time, which sooner or later will reach the critical mass.
Biya is the desperate leader of a notorious clan, which has, for 25 years, terrified the people of this tropical rainforest country of Central Africa, Cameroon. With utter disregard for the law, Biya's troops keep the country in terror, fear and misery. He has given the police limitless power and they seem to be a law onto themselves - an autonomous army of sorts independent of any interference.
For those like the Santa Mafia and some Northwest Chiefs, Southwest elite, CPDM lackeys and others who have thrown the spanners in with the repressive regime and resigned to work wits members, they will live to tell the story.
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Thank you Mr Azore! We the members of the diaspora are watching events very closely and are in solidarity with the hardworking peace-loving people of cameroon. Your article leaves no point untouched and gives an unbeatable picture of this 'Animal Farm' of a regime. Yes, would you not be surprised to see(as George Orwell would say)pigs in charge even where lions dare!? Not to put too much maggi in an already scrumptious curry you have made, I would like to share my personal experiences for the one year i stayed in the country. ON TAX: I am a businessman and with all the prospects that Africa provides, the dream is to establish in my country. Alas! no more. The Biyem Assi branch of the Yaounde taxation is not a government office...no, it is a hide out for gangsters! it took me ages to get my patente out of there! in the end, i spent more than the document costs! Everyone was ready to go and get my documents for me if i gave a tip. In one occasion, i stood in the queue and as the woman was serving, a group of people came in and because they spoke ewondo, they had to be served first! after about half the day was gone without success, someone asked me to take them out for dinner. then she explained to me how the system worked. i had to see the 'big man'...that meant tipping him, then herself and her colleagues and then 20 percent of the total cost so they could speed up my documents!
ON FINANCE...LEGAL TENDER. There is no doubt that more than a quarter of cameroon currency is counterfeit! In the midst of such disorder, one would think the best place to visit is the Financial House opposite Hotel de Ville! When I was about to fly out, I went there to buy genuine dollars. The lady in charge was excellent in customer service. there was even tea and biscuit...wao was this cameroon? Little did I know that Carole Ouandji, was the keeper of fake dollars! She then sent everyone out of her office since the money i required was a 'large amount.' After signing papers, she then asked me to go out because it is company procedure not to take cash out in front of customers. After a few minutes, the door flun open and she pointed to an envelop of 100 dollar notes. The next time i opened that envelop was abroad trying to change some of the money in a bank. Man dollar after dollar was being rejected, as i sweated in dismay. If not of the rosary beads that my mum and aunt count everyday, I would have been in jail today! I sent someone there and Carole the thief refused to talk to me on the phone!
Now these are just two examples to show the chaotic nature of the country. no one cares, we have plunged into anarchy. Biya himself is at the head of all this...the man doesnt give a tosser, he just cant be bothered about what is going on in his countr. to him cameroon is the palace in which he is in now...that is if he is not in the Hotel Internationale in Switzerland! We got to kick this guy out! cheers