A Scandal, A President Paul Biya, And The Soul Of A Nation

The alleged intervention of President Paul Biya to resolve an examination scandal which his Minister of High education publicly stated he perpetrated pursuant to government policy is not just a pity but an anxious interpretation of the signs of times.

Higher Education Minister, Professor Fame Ndongo accurately explained that he was executing the policies established by Paul Biya which have been in place for the past 32 years. For this, purpose, there may no reason for Paul Biya to fire him which he hasn't.

There is also no reason for him to resign since he merely did the job he was appointed to do. On the contrary, the manner of Presidential intervention tacitly approves of the Minister actions.

Removing the Minister alone will not adequately redress a systemic wrong which has caused so much pain and suffering on so many over three decades. Honour requires that the formulator of this policies that led to this and other scandals must resign. That person is the President himself.

The conduct of the Minister in this scandal was but a faithful interpretation and implementation of policies that have sustained the crime syndicate in power and through which it buys consciences and compel allegiance.

That Fame Ndongo acted the way he did and later justified it, is not news. What is news and should attract public attention and scrutiny is the fact some of those who were complicit in the execution of this policy in the past, this time around, challenged it by publishing the list of successful candidates which the examiners retained.

The publication of the political list came only to alert the conscience of a captive and docile nation. The commendable action of the examination panel in publishing the genuine list of successful candidates, damning the consequences, is an indication that finally some people within the crime syndicate are anticipating a future without Paul Biya and his coterie of corrupt Ministers.

True to a nation of cowards, Paul Biya is being praised for decreeing an admission list which includes candidates whose names were corruptly removed.

The question is not asked, how the panel arrived at the first list before it was tampered with. It may well have been the product of corruption at another level, political, nepotic and tribal influence. Disturbing as that may be, that should not preoccupy us now. It suffices that they published the list; a bold act in a regime whose staying power is inbuilt corruption and cultic allegiance to its corrupt entreprise.

Fame Ndongo rebuked the panel for not applying the policy of regional balance in their deliberations. But this policy has hardly ever been applied in any sector of this perverse neo-colonial contraption as Ntemfac Ofege has brilliantly demonstrated elsewhere. The CPDM has a policy of so-called "back scratching" in which corruption as a political tool of governance is celebrated and vigorously applied.

Regional balance has nothing to do with this corrupting policy of allegiance, mental compulsion, political blackmail, patronage and intimidation. The case of the captive colonial territory of the Southern Cameroons where the escalation of the policy of cultural genocide is ongoing makes the situation of its colonial citizenry worse.

Paul Biya has acted the way he has because the unprecedented action of the examination panel and national/international public reaction took him off guard at a time he is abroad. No one should be surprised that members of this panel rather than Fame Ndongo may be sanctioned. If ever Fame Ndongo is sanctioned or moved around to a senior or strategic position to oversee this policy, that will still be within the hallmark of the policies of corrupt governance.

The conduct of Paul Biya as well as that of his foot soldier Fame Ndongo in this case must be critically analysed within the context of the failed policies that 32 years of misrule has pushed this sinking boat. The conduct of the examiners may herald the emergence or beginning of a positive trend among persons who at long last have acknowledged the approach of a Noah's Arc of political survival at the shores of a desperate polity fighting for its soul.

The reality of a future at some point in time, without Biya and without the many Fame Ndongo's who elevated him to a demi-god, may at long last be reaching the confines of the conscience of some people. For those who were complicit in the many crimes, one which has alarmed the conscience of the nation and beyond, their Saul to Paul moment may be now.

Reasonable persons should therefore be celebrating the courage of those who published the genuine list no matter their motivation, and encourage others to do the same.

Heaping misplayed praises on Paul Biya whose policies led to the pain, humiliation, anxiety and shame of a nation held hostage by Aujoulatist neo-colonial vampiric rule, strengthens the hand of tyranny, criminality and political rascality. Only a cowardly people applaud their own victimization. That is what those praising Paul Biya rather than those who exposed the fraud are doing. And that is worse than the crime itself.