Anti Corruption Commission (CONAC) wrapped in corruption scandal

The Cameroon Anti- Corruption Commission-CONAC, a one-time enviable structure created by government to combat white-collar economic gangsters is wallowing in the pool of corrupt practices. Panic is reported at CONAC head office in Yaounde over what observers say is the beginning of the end of a long established corrupt in-house network which has chopped its foundation silently for years. Not only are Cameroonians expecting heads to roll but the public demand suggest that that the entire staff and management should be dismissed.

The fêted Chinua Achebe once likened the world to mask. But with the present conspiracy at CONAC, Cameroonians have contextualize it by adding that the world is not only a mask but some sort of mystery that if you want to see it well, you shouldn’t strategically position yourself.

When CONAC was created, everyone around it wanted to be seen as an exceptional replica in the fight against corruption. Some of them, including the clergies transformed selves over nights to demi-gods behaving like people who have never dipped hands into their mother’s soup at prime age.

Yet recent happenings have proven that it was a make-belief to rig the country of its resources. Seemingly, they were goats in sheep skins. To understand, it is crucial to scrutinize how people function with different people in different circumstances. Dieudonne Massi Gam, the head of the Government anti-corruption Commission-CONAC is at the same time acting as a Board Member of Elections Cameroon-ELECAM. The question as to whether Rev. Dieudonne Massi Gam is not benefiting from two salaries abound high. But that is not the main worry for now. The worry is that this structure which was created to clean Cameroon of the mess of corrupt practices is seemingly the most corrupt.

In fact, Aristotle is considered one of the most luminous thinkers of all times, given that he had one hypothesis which made the intellectual community very uncomfortable. He believed that if two different weights of the same material were dropped from the same height they will fall at different speeds. The weight of the Supreme State Audit seems to be more than that of CONAC when it concern auditing.

The question is: What is CONAC panicking and why is Dieudonne Massi Gam shivering when Supreme State Audit auditors came in to check the management of resource at CONAC? Was CONAC preaching virtue and practicing vice? In fact, that is why I am questioning everything. CONAC has been a nightmare to corrupt Cameroonians. Many have used just the name to enrich themselves, others have flown out of the country when told CONAC was about to visit them and now it seem many have enrich themselves fraudulently by putting their hands deep into the resources destined to combat corruption.

The issue is that the hunter is now the hunted. Allegations are rife at that the Supreme State Audit is about to uncover the mighty corruption practices at CONAC. Newspaper reports say salaries of some workers at CONAC secretariat have been held for obvious reasons. Did they stretch hands deep into the coffers to collect what was not for them? If yes, how much have been stolen? The question is whether this is not embezzlement. If it is not, what do we call such an act? Can Reverend Dieudonne Massi Gam give a clear balance sheet on the expenses of resources allocated from state coffers to this structure? These are the multi- million FCFA questions that Cameroonians are expecting Massi Gam give convincing answers.

The Bible teaches us that the prodigal son was received with enthusiasm by his father, but there is no indication in the Bible, that he was later treated with more trust and reverence than his eldest brother who stayed by his father, the fatted calf was not slaughtered for him on a daily basis or even after the reception.

The Supreme State Audit has a role and it is only her scrutiny that will expose how CONAC has been transformed into a sinkhole of taxpayers’ money? No police interrogation, many have observed given that CONAC is expected to serve as a model for others to copy. Every human being is pushy, but when ambitions is unchecked, like the one exhibited at CONAC in the management of funds allocated to them to fight corruption; it cannot but preface a crash.

Alas, natural blindness of mockery to or for power is always short of the instincts that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Pitiable that Rev. Dieudonne Massi Gam is one of the “clergies” who passes for anything and everything in world but quickly finds fault in everyone. What explains that he has decided to hold the salary of some workers for the month of June? Is the Man of God trying to play the ostrich before Supreme Audit Report unveils the malpractices in the structure which he heads?

It is often said in English that you can be hanged for a lamb as well for a sheep. The assumption is that you stole the lamb because there was no access to the sheep. But the nature of man remains a mystery, Thomas Hubbs also puts it. Now that CONAC is being wrapped in a corruption saga, it is clear that some human beings have proven that God must be a composite creature who is able to fulfill his mission of creation in diverse manners without making a mistake.

And if God made man in his image, then I find fault in the state not punishing CONAC thieves. Chief Nangah one of the characters in Man of the people used the term ungrateful ingrate to described Odile. Such is the trust that Cameroonians gave to Rev. Massi Gam and his crew at CONAC.