Mrs. Chantal Biya, Please Repay the Favor of our Prayers!

 

Many Cameroonians prayed for Chantal Biya’s recovery during her prolonged absence. She has an opportunity and a duty, to return the favor. At night, alone with her husband, she must tell him that Cameroonians deserve something approaching the quality of medical care she received abroad.

 

                         By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai*

 

     Although information managers at the Presidency bungled the issue of the whereabouts of the First Lady; fuelling speculations that bordered on the hysterical, many Cameroonians prayed for her full recovery, when they learnt that she had taken ill, after convalescing from an undisclosed ailment. The unprecedented crowd turnout at the Yaoundé Nsimalen International Airport to give the first couple a grandiose and hectic welcome was indicative of the love the people have for their First Lady.

      When Mrs. Biya suddenly vanished from public view, rather than issue an official statement on her whereabouts, the Presidency went into a dumb mode. One Presidential spin doctor told me off record that the president’s wife had merely traveled abroad “to rest.” This spin was amateurish and an insult on the Cameroonian people. Which raises the question: is there any address in Cameroon more luxurious than Unity Palace, the official residence of the president and his family?

      The Cameroonian presidency, it must be admitted, is one of the swankiest palaces in Africa, if not the world. Yet, one of the President’s men wanted us to believe that the Etoudi palace is too chaotic a place for the president’s wife’s rest. That’s bunkum. And it’s the kind of nonsense that exposes the deep inferiority complex of those who have arrogated to themselves the unenviable task of “moving Cameroon backwards.” Here was a senior aide of the president telling the world that Cameroon is hell-on-earth, and that his boss’ wife must go to some European capital city when she needs a respite.

      The sad truth, of course, is that Cameroon is hell. Most Cameroonians have been condemned to live in conditions that are often unfit even for animals. Our cities lack electricity and water; the roads are washed up, the gutters overflow with brackish, flea-infested sewage, the air reeks of excreta, and stinking refuse; hospitals are non-existent or are bereft of even such rudimentary tools as syringes and bandage, and school children share their buildings with mosquitoes, rodents, lizards, and cockroaches.

      Even so, there are a few exceptions to this animal state. By most standards, our political elite live in splendor. The public pays for their elaborate meals, choice drinks and conspicuous consumption. They have access to numerous official cars, with free drivers and fuel. If they, or their wives, have the slightest hint of a headache, they buy first class tickets to some European or North American nation for a medical check-up at first-rate, fully equipped hospitals. Their children are never sentenced to so-called Cameroonian schools where any real learning is by accident. Public funds are used to send their over-lucky children to the best private schools and universities abroad.

      Cameroonian political elite and rent-seeking bureaucrats enjoy many privileges, but if you happen to be the president, then the perks are infinite. The Cameroonian presidency is, above all, a gourmandizing experience. That the same set of men and women most responsible for leaving Cameroon in its ghastly shape should get away with royal privileges is, to state it simply, anomalous. Cameroonian “leaders” not only cause misery in their country; they also reap profit from their perfidy. As if their treachery were not enough provocation, they have the temerity to tell us that they must abscond to more organized societies in order to rest.

     The effrontery is so galling that, sometimes, the response is to play up the ludicrousness of it. Imagine one instance where the husband of the German chancellor or a serving French minister comes to this tragedy-in-progress that is Cameroon to rest, treat stress, and enjoy our excellent medical facilities – at the expense of the German and French taxpayers. Such an unlikely scenario is laughable and should attract no further comment!

     Back to Mrs. Chantal Biya; while she was undergoing treatment in France, many Cameroonians prayed for her recovery. She has an opportunity and a duty, quite frankly to return the favor. But she need not go down on her knees to pray for suffering Cameroonians. More than anybody else in Cameroon, she has the ears of her husband, our president. She would do well to whisper into those ears. She should tell her husband that Cameroonians are just as human as members of the First Family. And that other Cameroonians deserve something approaching the quality of care she received in France. At night, alone with her husband, she must share with him a few thoughts that crossed her mind as she recuperated in that French hospital. Here’s what I hope she realized during her stay in France.

      One, that no amount of wealth can purchase immunity from sickness and death. Installed in a place like Unity Palace, it’s all too easy to forget one’s vulnerability and feebleness, one’s mortal ordinariness. The First Lady is surrounded by a coterie of men and women who hail her as “mummy.” Such adulation can easily provoke a divine complex. 

      Two, that the extraordinary quality of France’s healthcare is a product of the French people’s vision and enterprise. With the right kind of leaders, such vision, inventiveness and enterprise can be stimulated in Cameroonians– with similar fantastic results.
 
     Three, that Cameroon’s privileged few cannot justify being flown abroad to enjoy medical facilities that are not available to the vast majority of fellow citizens, equal stakeholders in Cameroon.

     And, four, that in the final reckoning, history will judge a leader, not by the size of his material accumulation in office, but by the transformative quality of his leadership.

      I also hope Mrs. Biya won’t trifle with her duty to have a heart-to-heart with her husband as an advocate for millions of misfortunate Cameroonians. She must nudge her husband to rise, to the challenge of personal example which is the hallmark of true leadership. She ought to counsel him to focus on what is truly important; not merely ephemeral gains and meaningless goals.

      We should watch what lessons Mrs. Biya draws from this episode of ill health. Let’s hope she becomes a voice that constantly cajoles her husband to roll up his sleeves and go to work for all Cameroonians, not the special, privileged interests whose company he keeps. That’s the best way to repay those who beseeched heaven during her ailment. Let’s hope she hasn’t return to Yaoundé to wallow afresh in self-aggrandizement. That would be a terrible, sorry outcome. Mrs. Chantal Biya, please repay the favor of our prayers. Amen!

 

 *Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai is a public intellectual and graduate of Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government where he was Managing Editor of the Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. A former Research Analyst for Central Africa with Freedom House, he is a consultant and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Talk back at ekinneh@yahoo.com