BIYA at 32: Positives & Negatives (Part I)

His Excellency Paul Biya, President of the Republic, Commander-in-Chief, Chief Judge, Fon of Fons, Chief of Chiefs, ‘Nnom Ngui’, and so on and so forth, clocked 32 in power on November 6, 2014.

Long live His Excellency. Unfortunately for the Catholic faithful, celebrations marking his 32 years in power came at a time when the wind of change is blowing so fast that the anus of the fowl could not be spared.

Fortunately, too, the day came to pass like any other day. As the French say: “rien à signaller.”

Cameroonians in the Diaspora welcomed the celebration with much choler. According to these fence-sitters, the Mvomeka-kid has been paying rents in Etoudi for so long that the GCE Board did not deem it necessary to change the syllabus for Cameroon History since its inception.

Funny enough, these Cameroonians who have changed ancestors (According to Section 31 of the Cameroon Nationality Code), took to the social media to ask the ‘Nnom Ngui’ to go. Many quoted the case of Sankara’s Upper Volta as a model for Cameroonians to emulate.

Cameroonians are not fools. They took their keyboards, rested it on their laps, gulping rare fruit drinks and eating junk food, sending their children to white-packed schools and sending us under the Cameroon merciless sun to go and oust Biya. No, my friends, we shall not be bullet proofs while you use the social media to revolt. No, thank you. Let us sieve the 32 years of Brenda’s father at the helm of our country Cameroon.

Concerning management: as President of the Republic, here as some of the companies that have died, almost died or are about to die under the Biya regime; Intelar, SOTUC, CAMSHIP, SOCAR, SONEL, REGIFERCAM, Lotterie Nationale, CAMBANK, ONCPB, Crédit Agricole, OCB, SCB, FOGAPE, CAMAIR, BIAO, SNEC, LABOGENIE, among others.

It is evident that Mvondo has not always made the best decisions when it pertained to appointing the good managers to steer the affairs of State corporations. If some are still on their feet, it is as a result of the cash injected in them without any reasonable outcome. Even when it comes to setting up structures responsible for the management of State concerns - can someone tell me the importance of the Chamber of Agriculture, when we already have a Ministry responsible for agricultural matters?

Late Philemon Ajibolo swallowed all the resources of the Chamber. The regional delegations of the Chamber looked like huts where palm wine was sold. In Buea, they still use a type-writer, in this dot.com era. That means, while we are trying to move forward, some people are dragging us behind. That also means that, because of the Chamber, we may not attain the MGDs by 2015. The new President, Mongi, has appeared and is trying to defibrillate the Chamber. Needless, talking about the creator of ‘La Voix du Cenacle’. The amount of money Mendo Ze masticated at the CRTV could have helped in setting up a new TV station.

Transportation under Biya has been a luxury. It is like giving cornflakes to a pygmy. In 2012, Yang was whisked to the East to go and bless the people there with a road linking Yaounde to Bertoua. After 30 years of motions of support, 100 percent in all elections and all that, the people of the East had not tasted tar in 30 years of the Biya regime. The district airport in Bertoua was swallowed by termites and greenery. Thank God it was refurbished when Biya last visited the area. But the termites are back and ready to eat the airport at a faster pace.

The airport in Tiko witnessed the same fate. We pray the living gods and dead ones that this airport should keep shining.

If you visit the Northwest and mention Ring Road, you may lose a tooth. When Albert Njie Mbonde visited Wum with his ‘Hello’ team, the word on the tongue of all Wum inhabitants was ROAD! One inhabitant, aged 40, even said the first time he heard about Ring Road, he was five years old, and today, it is still a mystery.

The Limbe deep seaport that Fornjindam was designing is now in the cupboards of the people who never wanted to see it realised. The roads of Yaounde have claimed more exhausts pipes than mechanics can count. Some pot holes have even graduated to lakes and some have led to the naming of streets and junctions (Carrefour Caca in Biyem-Assi). The stretch from Tonga in the West Region to Bafia is like playing a racing game on a Play Station console.

Every centimetre of the road is pot hole plagued. At Ndikimeniki, there is a lake-like pot hole at the exit; even the most skilled driver cannot avoid it. Concerning the railway, I rest my case. Ask the Kumba man the last time he saw a train, then you will understand.

Politics in Cameroon is like playing scrabble at the expert level with the computer, you will never win. The CPDM is the computer, while the SDF and the rest are humans. No matter what they do, they will never win. Yes, yes, Biya is the father of democracy in Cameroon; no one will remove that read feather from his hat.

Ask Kah Wallah; she is already tired of the damn thing called politics. The last time Kah Wallah spoke in Cameroon, she was congratulating Burkina Faso, but before that, her voice was voiceless.

Call Paul Ayah, he will tell you that facebook is the only forum where he can speak and people listen to him. How many Cameroonians use the internet? When Ayah decided to cross carpets, one Lekié MP said; “la course de l’enfant c’est le matin.” Ayah now is tapping for oxygen, in a race that just started.

Counting the number of political parties in Cameroon is like counting rice in a 5kgs bag. You will never know the exact figure. The latest political party to be set up is the CRAC (Croire au Cameroun/Believe in Cameroon) of Bernard Djonga. He was so tired of farming that he decided to test his politicking skills. We pray he does not give up like the others.

Biya has won all the elections in Cameroon. As a matter of fact, he is undefeated. The Chairman of Ntarinkon came closer in 1992, unfortunately for him, Cameroonians were not yet ready to listen to prime time speeches in English and a Peter Essoka-like rendition in French.