Cameroon's Pioneer Senate President

"Hyper-democracy" in Cameroon - Niat's Rise to "Second Personality" in Cameroon

 

True to type the flag of Cameroon's advanced democracy soared once more in the Glass House in Ngoakele yesterday when Niat Njifenji Marcel (79), former Minister of Mines and Power and Former General Manager of te Cameroon's Electricity Corporation known by its French acronym SONEL, defeated himself in a one man derby election for the President of the Cameroon Senate. Once the octogenarian Mafany Musonge, Senatorial Group Leader for the CPDM Senators, earlier on predicted by newspapers as earmarked for the post, surprised everyone with the nomination of Niat Njifenji Marcel. Not even a single newspaper had speculated on Niat.

In their usual style the rhetorical question "Any other candidate?" .... silence "Applause".

then followed the time-wasting spree of voting one candidate. The results were obvious - Niat (86 votes - all undoubtedly CPDM, FSNC, MDR, ANDP and UNDP ballots). The 14 abstentions were unmistakably those of the disgruntled SDF Senators who even came in late for the session. 

The same scenario followed for the Lamido (Traditional ruler) of Rey Bouba in the Northern Region of Cameroon. He challenged himself and won the position of Senior First Vice President of the Senate. HRH Aboubakari Abdoulaye, alias Lamido of Rey Bouba was congratulated up to his new seat, shaking hands with all even women! That is strange to the North Westerner. How does a traditional ruler shake hands with commoners?

The rest of the story could not have been different. Niat in his first address, expressed "surprise" at his elections, although he was reading a prepared speech from a piece of paper. No one saw when he prepared this speech. Where then does the surprise come from? Why pretend? Unfortunately he could not hide the truth. He thanked H.E. President Paul Biya for "having that confidence in him" to give him that post ... yet he was surprised at being elected. "Hyper democracy" in Cameroon isn't it?

Then 95-year-old Nfon Victor Mukete was tremblingly supported down to his seat. He had fulfilled his mission of Kingmaker, after, a kingmaker can never be a king. Once more this was a demonstration that English-speaking Cameroonians deserve just a sinecure in Cameroon to give a semblance of national unity. Instances abound to prove the point. When Biya was Prime Minister, there was no Vice Prime Minister! When Ayang Luc was Prime Minister, there was no Vice Prime Minister, When Bello Bouba was Prime Minister, there was no Vice Prime Minister, when Sardou Hayatou was Prime Minster, there was no Vice Prime Minister. They were all francophones. When Achidi Achu was appointed Prime Minister, Niat Njefenji from Bangangte in the West region of Cameroon was Minister of Mines and Power and Vice Prime Minister, and so it followed, Amadou Ali and the rest. Musonge, Inoni and now Yang all have Vice Prime Minsters who are autonomous, not answerable to the PM but to the Presidency. Yes, this is Cameroon.

It would have been obvious that an English-speaking Cameroonian should occupy the second most important position in Cameroon, if truly it was a united Cameroon as parroted on eCRTV everyday. This goes to fullfil the unwritten law that "NO Anglophone in Cameroon has the right to any important post".

Let's keep smiling and suffering.

A Senate of Fossils

By Nke Valentine

"L'impossible n'est pas Camerounais" goes a Camerounian popular saying, meaning 'nothing is impossible in Cameroon'. You do not need to stretch far to verify the veracity of this adage. No! Neither complications of cumbersome laboratory experiments, nor some cumbersome research methodology, attempting to formulate research questions, reviewing theories and literature, etc. No! Not all!

And so it came to pass that the long-awaited 30 Senators to be appointed was done. Wednesday May 8, 2013, left at least 30 families in a jubilant mood. Some unpopular stewards of the regime had been appointed Senators! The manner was similar to that of the Ahidjo One Party days where Parliamentarians were appointed. That is how the likes of Hon Fuguo James Djam found themselves in parliament. Some of the starkest raving illiterates went in - their duty: sleep during parliamentary sessions, get up when you hear handclaps and join in the clapping; even clapping louder than those who were awake. It was the period when the likes of Hon John Tatah will tell a journalist in reply to a question on what he was going to do with the condoms he had been offered as a Parliamentarian "I will teach my people about the AIDS 'philomena'" (instead of phenomenon).

A perfunctory look into the nascent Cameroonian Senate will reveal that more than 80 of the 100 Senators (86 CPDM and 14 SDF) are either sexagenarians or octogenarians whom some nefarious tongues describe as 'tottering on the borders of senile decay. Given that the majority of them are ex-ministers, ex-general mangers, ex-treasurers, ex-farmers, ex-embezzlers, ex-homosexuals and the Scavenger is sure there are ex-convicts (obviously representing the 'Kondengui Cabinet' it may not be wrong to conclude that it is a 'Senate of Fossils'.

Who can imagine that any of these can withstand the long hours Bepanda Mouelle, for example, will sit to read the results of carefully tailored Presidential, Senatorial, Parliamentary or Municipal elections! Not to talk of listening to some dictatorial yarn, prepared from the cosy confines of luxurious hotels being, spilled down on  him or her, without drifting off to a slumber, while dreaming of the extra heaps of devalued notes that will go to swell his/her bank account, full of l'argent mal-acquis? Of his les biens mal-acquis and pondering over which of his/her sons will be able to manage such a huge estate after his demise, especially given that they are living their bonus lives on earth.

Ah! An "Emergent Economy in 2035" indeed! An economy without economists or with voodoo economists! Who says 'l'impossible est Camerounais'?  Jamais! La caravane passe, les chiens aboient, et … le chat est jaloux ". Well, it may occur in some few individuals' pockets. For while we, the children of a lesser god, will be rummaging in the mud, seeking for earthworms and plankton, or why not scavenging in the multitude of mountains of refuse dumps that may characterise the scenery, to feed ourselves and children, they will be using helicopters to go to their farms and markets. The new technology or rather the latest will be theirs while we sink deeper and deeper into abysmal poverty irrespective of the lofty goal No 1 of the Millennium Development Goals.

Their offspring, even the fifth and sixth, or nth filial generation will never know the spelling of poverty. Maybe by then our species would have been extinct, for even in the present, we are an endangered species.

Jonathan Swift, famous for his Gulliver's Travels, said this in his treatise, A Modest Proposal:.

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old the most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

"I do therefore offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow for sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That he remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter".

Listen to Biya's Senators: Achidi Achu Simon (above 80 years), Rene Ze Nguele (above 80 years), etc. In primary school we learned about these people in civics or current events. They were minsters. I am 53 now! Yet they are still in government, while I am almost going on retirement.

There is an unwritten law in Cameroon: "Once a big man you'll remain a big man forever, even your children's children's children's children …" Keep your hair dyed black and you will always be appointed. Do not bother what the people say; they are simply jealous. You can even marry your great-granddaughter who can always renew your blood.

Of what use would a Senate, made of men and women all close to and above 90 years, be to a beleaguered Cameroon? Is it one of the measures that will be taken to attain the status of an Emerging Economy in 2035?

In every facet of life in Cameroon, except of course this my scavenging job, only fossils dominate with demented brains. Can this ever help us to progress? Even in the Army?

It is said in a traditional proverb that you can not build a new hut without using old bamboos. But if the majority of bamboos are old I am sure termites will attack them faster and cause the hut to crumble faster too! 

 

The fractured (Re)unification of the Cameroons’ Celebration

This is 2013. Three years ago or more, during one of his hollow end-of-year addresses to the Nation, Mr Biya, President of La République du Cameroun, drew applause from some sycophantic and gullible Cameroonians alike as he promised celebrating the Reunification of the Cameroons. Some protagonists of the independence of Southern Cameroons quickly concluded this was a tacit admission of that fact that they had been unjustly punished each 1^st October they were arrested and tortured for celebrating the independence of Southern Cameroons.

This promise keeps on approaching D-day as a hyperbolic curve reaches a straight line. Worst of all it has turned out to be a South West affair rather than an affair of the Cameroonian people. We all have heard time without number over the national radio that the South West elite or so has already contributed the sum of FCFA 100 million francs.

This procrastination has given room to the protagonists of Southern Cameroons independence to oil their rumour mills, which daily churn our tons of hope for the beleaguered Southern Cameroonians who are yearning for the day they shall be freed from the shackles of La République du Cameroun’s firm tyrannical grip. The various factions, each in their turn, give messages of hope to their anxious militants. For instance the group that advocates for British Cameroon UNO Territory have heightened the hopes of their militants by even going as far as proposing a date, August 14, 2013, for the UN final declaration of the independence. They even claim there are already some UN-peacekeeping forces lodging at the Bamenda Airport while some are lodged at Man’o’War Bay in Victoria. They assert that Biya’s continuous delay in going to Buea is caused by the UN that has stopped him from doing that. At one time they even claimed that SONARA, the oil refining company in Victoria was now manned by the UN. They even have their own ID cards now and also claim that the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has already assigned a telephone code for the territory.  

Their claims are mostly explained off using the Green Tree Accord and the works of the Cameroon-Nigeria Joint Boundary Commission. According to one of them the last but one meeting held recently in Yaoundé and the last, where the UN will declare the independence will be in Abuja on August 14, 2013. It is also based on the fact that during the 50^th Anniversary of La République’s independence, the President of the UN General Assembly, Ali Trika, presented two maps President Biya: one of the former British Cameroons that extended to Lake Chad i.e. the former Sardauna Region, now part of Nigeria, and then the map of La République prior to its independence on January 1, 1960.  Another fact the protagonists cling on is a document they claim Mr Biya signed. The document, which was asking Nigeria and La République du Cameroun to withdraw to their boundaries before independence by August 2013, was allegedly already signed by Obassanjo, then President of Nigeria, and later brought to Cameroon by Kofi Anan, the UN Secretary General. The terms of this document, they claim, have already been respected by Nigeria, i.e. by allowing the three States that make up the former Sardauna Region their freedom.

These and many more rumours and the continuous delay of the celebration of the (Re)Unification of the Cameroons, have kept many wondering where along the road the caravan carrying Biya’s much-parroted celebrations of (Re)Unification could have had an accident and in which hospital it is tending its fractures. The delay again further lends credence to some of the rumours that whatever developments La République is carrying out in Southern Cameroons territory has been forced down their throats by the UN. The rehabilitation of the long-abandoned Mountain Hotel and others in Buea is their case in point, the construction of the road from Mile 4 Limbe through Bonjongo to Buea, the Bamenda-Ekok Road, etc. it is even claimed that the road construction going on from Ndop to Kumbo is not the Ring-road but a trans-African highway that might go right to Ghana.

As the storm gathers we are anxiously waiting for the day the Celebration of the (Re)Unification of the two Cameroons shall take place; or whether on 14^th August the UN will declare the independence of British Cameroons Territory. Either way the wine will always flow.