Last week devotees of President Biya took to public squares around the country celebrating what history shall sooner or later describe as years of national insolvency.
They were forewarned by the Secretary General of the ruling party to observe the celebrations in low-key, in honour of the fallen in the war against Boko Haram insurgents instead of Biya’s 33 years in power.
We recall that Mr. Biya’s 33rd anniversary in power is coming at the time he is arbitrary arresting and throwing citizens, members of his ruling cabal in jail without trial in a so call fight against corruption.
For real, some of them have wrecked the nation of billions of FCFA to personal coffers. The Fotsos, Atanga Njis and Forjindams come to mind easily. However, they did it under the President’s direct or indirect patronage. While The Cameroon Journal thinks they deserve such jail time, howbeit, at least, after a fair trial.
That isn’t the main problem here. Biya’s CONAC and Special Criminal Court are quick to tell Cameroonians how many FCFA billions and millions they stole or embezzled. We are told of the huge bank accounts they keep in Paris, Switzerland, New York and Boston. Theirs we know, what about the President’s?
Like most Cameroonians, we at The Cameroon Journal hold the view that President Biya himself, constitutes the one biggest perpetrator of fraud, corruption and mismanagement of Cameroon resources. Unfortunately, there isn’t any mechanism that can bring him under the same scrutiny that he has meted out to his contemporaries who are now behind bars.
For 33 year, many Cameroonians born when Biya became President have gone through primary, Secondary and higher education and graduated. But they still see the same broken-down roads, same electricity outages and water shortages they saw growing up. They still see the same dilapidated public structures they were born in. They still hear of the same fraud and corruption that they heard as they grew up with the President’s administration. They still hear Biya repeating promises he made even when they were yet unborn, – remember the promise to tar the Bamenda ring road barely three years after becoming President? The road is still untarred.
Try googling Cameroon city skylines on the Internet and they look in the eyes of the world like cities/towns emerging from a major hurricane – no roads, no streets, housing, drainage, no planning, no electricity etc., etc.
Then, google say Rwanda, Angola, Ethiopia, – countries emerging from civil wars, not to talk of say Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Ghana etc., and the difference you see in infrastructural development in their cities is as clear as day and night when compared to Cameroon.
President Biya can go on blaming and imprisoning his ministers for the regressive state of the country after 33 years. What he is not accounting for are the billions in foreign accounts that Chantal his wife, Frank his son, his girls and himself are hoarding abroad when average Cameroonians live in squalors.
After 33 years you did expect a good leader to come before his people to number his accomplishments. Biya can’t do so. And it’s not that he lacks the courage to do so, it’s that he has essentially nothing to boast about after 33 years.
Imagine what President Biya is peddling as his achievements for 33 years! – The Bakassi accord with Nigeria, Lom Pangar and Memve’ele dam projects; Kribi Seaport; Logbaba Gas Plant, bridge over the Wouri River and an incomplete stadium in Limbe!! – For 33 years? It’s a shame.