Azore Opio
4 April 2008
column
When we last examined the arcane subject of embezzlement and corruption, people like Etondo Ekotto, Siyam Siewe, Ondo Ndong, Amougou Belinga and such like were caught in the spotlight.
This started tongues wagging. The news then in the country ranged from great looting to minor pilfering. The Ondo Ndongs were docked and Cameroonians waited reverently for the verdict. Ondo Ndong and co. were eventually caged.
It was strange, this new move, because the government had excelled in lubricating the corruption mill by rewarding greed, which became a corrupting motivator even to join the ruling party (CPDM) and the civil service. But the way the arrests were executed - sudden and unexpected - it exemplified the subtlety of the force behind the action.
Cameroonians thought it was elephantine mockery to pick a few of the befuddled hexa/septuagenarian white collar thieves after two decades and only when they might have already laid wasted the stolen money. Nonetheless, things seem to be taking on a different picture altogether. More white collar thieves seem to be coming under the hammer.
The end of the road is coming swiftly for Cameroon's creatures of lucrative larceny. Rumours had been swirling about Polycarpe Abah Abah's (ex-Finance Minister's) arrest. Cameroonians had held their breath. Nothing then could have been timelier than his arrest and that of Olanguena Awono (ex-Public Health Minister).
The bestial vagrants, like their ilk, had all found a criminal paradise and a boomtown called Yaounde. Living in clover, they did not see their luck playing out and that they were beginning to come to the end of their ropes. Some of them (Atangana Mebara and Abah Abah) as soon as they were axed, danced decorously into a seminary - a feeling of sudden powerlessness and guilt?
The tide turned against Abah Abah and Olanguena just after dawn on Monday, March 31, a day before Fools Day, when the god of justice stirred at 5.30 am for Abah Abah and 6 am for Olanguena. Although this was a commendable move albeit belated, people should stop pretending that President Paul Biya has not gathered vexatious unpopularity.
There has never been a leader with a bark as hard as Biya's, often without will, insensitive to anything and everything. People like Peter Mfany Musonge helped to harden his heart when Transparency International (TI) rated Cameroon as the most corrupt nation in the world. Of course, Musonge was a product of the deleterious structure with intricate knowledge of the inner workings of the CPDM government.
And it is only natural that no criminal is willing to expose their evil deeds to the public. With a lot of blind courage he invited TI to come show where corruption was in the country. Even when Akame Mfoumou, ex-Finance Minister, was "caught with suitcases of money in his house," Biya did not say a word.
Why was he always looking the other way even when strong rumours abounded about the rape of the public till by top government officials? Why, after 25 years of overseeing institutionalised corruption and graft, is he suddenly fostering an illusion of sophistication? It is likely pressure from donors and lenders, the international community and the threat of a coup from embezzlers and G11 (Generation 2011) champions. Or has he woken up from a reverie like Rip Van Winkle?
We say this because, Biya, on his own, didn't seem to mind his cohorts pillaging the treasury. He seemed to excel in breeding more corrupt government officials and politicians than any other country in the sub-region. His whole system and philosophy seem to be predicated on the regularity of the corruption mill. Biya should have stopped the Ondo Ndongs from ransacking the treasury (the booty of Ondo Ndong, Etonde and Siyam Siewe) could easily tar the Kumba-Mamfe-Ekok road for a mere FCFA 150 billion.
Wouldn't it only be reasonable to subpoena the President to tell Cameroonians why he turned his back while his ministers pilfered public money and squandered much more than what went unrecorded? Biya is in the front row in this corruption and embezzlement business. And we think that he should go beyond just picking the thieves; the courts must recover the stolen money. Nigeria has done it. Houphouet Boigny did it. Biya can do it.
For the Abah Abahs, greater than their material sufferings are those of a kind which new jail birds are familiar with; the sudden loss of trivial distinction and illogical privilege, the enormous chateau with its lavish rooms with dazzling fittings bought with stolen money; the embarrassments and agonies a wealthy thief has never dreamt of - public shame and biting rebuke coupled with no servants, no watchmen, no drivers and people kow-towing in front of you. It serves them right for being the vilest pick of a thieving tribe. Their regime will fall like the rotten fruit that it is.
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