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
