Letter from Yaounde to Buea

Dear Mbella,

I read you with some laughter because I discovered that you are too naïve to savour the intrigues of the people’s call. The call, Sir, is a divine thing. Joining the people’s call is total obedience to God. If He did not want it, our enlightened despot would not be there for close to three and half decades.

Yes, we should live by the principle of the divine rights of the kings. If you have a bad king that is also a political methuselah, it is a good thing, because his long reign will be punishment for all the sins that we have committed here on earth. So, saying anything now that runs counter to the people’s call is blatant blasphemy. We have to show unflinching loyalty to the king, whether we like him or not. You don’t even have a right to be neutral as far as the ongoing bid to eternalise his stay in power is concerned. Either you are with us or against us.

The virtue here is blind loyalty to the Octogenarian. No one should be indifferent to the call. By the way Mbella, why do you want him to quit the stage so early? Changing a winning team can only be equal to madness. Who knows, the big man also dreads retirement just like his compatriots do. Tell me one person here that goes on retirement with a smile. Retirement here means you are sentenced to hell because even your closest colleague will no longer recognise you in times of need.

Imagine this: you work for over 30 years and as soon as you retire, you become an unknown devil. Otherwise why are you compelled to compile documents about your career anew? Is it that once you retire every document about your career in the public service disappears? You start afresh and you need to give kola to the man who is following it up.

This explains why a good lot of people are using Fiango, Mile 4 or Bonamoussadi to cut down their ages. There was once a policeman in Ongola who was five years younger than his first son. What this means is that he sired that son of his when he was still in his father’s loins.

Talk is rife about another amendment Mola. But what kind of Amendment? Should it be ‘a la Senegalese or a la Camerounaise?’ The former’s own is tailored to enable the man there quit the stage soon. Our man here can only laugh out his lungs because Sall seems to be afraid of power. May be he is not enjoying much because he is at the helm of a country that sells only groundnuts to survive.

There is almost everything here, Mbella. Oil, forests, minerals, fertile soils and what have you? Added to these gifts by providence you also have a docile lot that can only ask how high when you tell them to jump. If you were the one here, will you leave this paradise for something else, Mbella?

I hear you have been screaming for change. What change? The real change is the statusquo. There has never been change because power is no longer to the people. It is now power to my pot-belly and unequal opportunities, Mola. You see, the soapbox game here is just an eating arrangement. Once you start filling your pockets, you start playing to the gallery, and taking care of the people. Who are the people? They are your immediate family, friends and concubines.

If I am elected into Parliament, I will ensure that they carve out special constituencies for me in Bonamoussadi, Molyko and Bambili so that I can fully serve my constituents who are the “android concubines”. Once elected, you must bring change. You must change your car, dresses, house and even your wife so you get an android one to suit your new status.

You see differences in ideology are only a twilight that separates the left from the right. The ultimate game of the soapbox is to say one thing and do the other. It is to play “coni” while filling your pockets.

Mola, do not be fooled that any leftist soap-boxer can be a Jesus Christ here. My regards to Enangs and the kids.

Yours Sincerely, Ngwa