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Cameroon: Days of Reckoning?
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The Post (Buea)
OPINION
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Neba-Fuh
Nature is a complicated aide because it helps you trace your path when you take the route to evil and later leads evil shooters to your hideout when the day of reckoning comes.
The recent usurpation of the people's right to determine a government in the future that will reflect the changing times and aspirations of a people who have been held hostage for so long, was a stab on the back.
I admire with reservation the honourable gentleman from Akwaya- Mr Paul Ayah (MP for Akwaya constituency) who came to a gun fight with his knife. He publicly opposed the recent constitutional manipulation. For some of us who have followed up his political career for a while, he seems to be a fellow with some character.
I believe he hangs out with those RDPC guys hoping that they will one day release funds to construct the road to his constituency. What a dream! Or else, what is a 'priest' doing in a brothel? Moreover, how serious was his reason not to be present in Parliament during the voting of the constitutional manipulation bill?
Since the arrests of some of the suicide embezzlers who have brought untold sufferings to the populace, I have sometimes wondered whether all those individuals of Southern Cameroonian origin, who worked or are working with the Biya regime, have all come out 'clean' of the corruption scandals.
As of two days ago, no major Director or Minister of Southern Cameroonian origin had been arrested. I laughed at myself, because I had forgotten to remember that very few of them have held or are now holding any significant posts in the Biya regime-Very few governors, directors, ministers etc.
Mr Zachaeus Forjindom, an engineer of high repute, who marshalled a highly technical engineering company-'Chantier Naval', for over 20years has just been arrested on charges of corruption. Those who have followed up his performance all these years claimed he was highly professional and that the company he led all this while is said to be a success story.
Today, it is alleged that he is involved in one thousand million CFA francs scandal. What a disgrace! If we truly uphold that justice should not spare any transgressor, especially those who misuse commonwealth of the people for selfish purposes, then there is no use coming up with hypotheses to downplay 'a one billion francs CFA theft'.
One billion is relatively small compared to Ondong Ndong's 11 billion francs CFA or the Mounchipou's billions scandals, but if you think that, that money can effortlessly maintain the bush path to Akwaya or provide potable water to the people of Wabane or Ikwerri, then you need to reflect again.
At that time when we all wept, St Zachaeus, St Simon, St John and a lot of others from uphill Santa prayed for Biya to manipulate the Constitution to rule till death. Today, we are clinging to a lame idea like a Beti conspiracy to implicate Zachaeus, to explain the trend of events. Beti conspiracy or not, the writing had been on the wall for a long time.
It is naive to think Mr Forjindom could not read it. It is even more naive to believe that in a country where accountability is so lazed, a General Manager who headed a company for over two decades, has been so 'saint-like' never to have stolen a franc. Cameroon actually needs a mass trial for embezzlers. Those who thought that by asking Biya to cling to power till death were safeguarding their ill gotten wealth should think again.
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Biya is now like a driver of a truck whose brakes are faulty on a down slope road. He cannot stop. He is ready to crush other fellow road users- vehicles and pedestrians alike, along the road with the hope that his truck comes to a halt, so that he can emerge unscathed. But little does he know that he too is doomed to crash with the truck.
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