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                                                         𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐧: 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 

  
  

  The lead panelist in this video (below) touched on many of the problems that are crippling Cameroon. The country is crushed by a tawdry rot at the heart of its existence.

  
  

  

  BySamira N Edi-Mesumbe

  
  The first problem is 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩.  A relatively young nation of mostly youths, where the average citizen is between 25 and 30 years, being governed by a crop of geriatrics, at the helm of which is a leader in his 90s is absolutely outrageous. It is an alarming tragedy of immeasurable damage that the lives of a generation of youths are being atrophied by old men. 

  
  

  To gauge how deleterious this state of affairs is, think about the house of an old man who has dementia, is blind, and crippled by all ailments borne of  old age. That is how Cameroon is. A country captured by leadership that does not understand the value of something as fundamental as having a simple postal home-address system for its citizens and businesses, is a backward country. This is because it is controlled by people who either do not care, or don’t understand how modern life works. That’s why garbage heaps, public latrines or taps and isolated trees serve as the landmarks that indicate the nearest vicinity to people’s houses 

  
  

  Exponentially, the rest of the government  is in the same bad shape. It is in the ironclad grip of museum-ready  living fossils, who seem to have died on the jobs. Our institutions are headed by very old men who've been perching on the same posts, as if it was a family inheritance. Even at the provincial level, heads of parastatals are mostly people who I'll be sending for rehabilitation and re-education, if I was in a position of power.

  
  

  All the old governors appointed; now well past their retirement ages are still occupying their gubernatorial posts, like monarchs on a throne. Same with ministers. 

  
  

  I'm shocked that 81 years old Laurent Esso, the minister of justice, who has been deeply implicated in the corruption scandals over the MTN/Chococam versus Baba Danpullo's Bestinver case, in collusion with the governor of Littoral, is still in his post as a minister. Does Biya even know anything about what is going on around him—especially over that case? Laurent Esso was a minister when I was in secondary school—some 30 odd years ago. His involvement with the 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐭 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐨 who is trying to strangle the funds of Cameroonian MTN Momo users is a huge problem which Should've earned any public employee a sacking, in a nation that's not a banana republic.

  
  

  Then you examine the few 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 who're trying to unseat the status quo. Not only are they themselves deeply corrupt and incompetent, but by their actions, one is not inspired or hopeful to imagine that even a popular defenestration of our national sphinx at Etoudi, will usher in a better bunch of benevolent leadership. It has been a big disappointment to watch.

  
  

  Not only is "our home" an overcrowded smelly mess of neglect, it is overrun by dirt and old things which are no longer useful, just like the bric-a-brac in an old man’s house. In Cameroon, right from the nation's capital in Yaoundé, down to the remotest villages in Babessing, the country is heaving under the weight of humongous heaps of garbage. Dilapidated cars have been abandoned by the roadside for years. They add to the traffic jams as well as the gratuitous levels of  environmental pollution—and even the accidents in which many were involved. Huge piles of dirt by the roadside make up the mountains of maternities for mosquitoes, and other breeding vermin, where many of the diseases afflicting Cameroonians are incubating. 

  
  

  Many local councils are also headed  by mayors who’re profoundly corrupt kakistocrats. Not only are they just jobsworths who do not see their duties as the first citizens of their towns, responsible for their upkeep, but they're parasites who see their posts as their 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒇𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒔, on which they can enrich themselves. Maybe it is because many of them are useless and ill-qualified to do any other jobs outside of their roles as the 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲-𝐠𝐨𝐞𝐫𝐬 of the nation, whose only role is to attend ceremonies. They sit grand and stately on the high tables, like mausoleums, waiting to be decorated.

  
  

  Meanwhile, the people are dealing with crumbling infrastructure, muddy pigsties or  pothole ridden roads, garbage heaps everywhere, houses built willy-nilly on stolen land, as if they had been carelessly thrown together without any consideration for town planning, clogged-up gutters, poor drainage systems which facilitate landslides in some towns each time there's a tropical storm, their markets look like Augean Stables--- You have to wonder how on earth a person can claim to be the proud mayor of his town, when it is in such a state of utter disaster!

  
  

  They cannot even control something as basic as the level of the noise-pollution in their towns. No wonder Cameroonians are losing their hearing early. They allow loud speakers to blast loud noises in every corner. Whether it is those criminal churches where speakers boom, or by the roadside, where snake oil salesmen deceive passers-by with their fake panacea for all ails—as if they're the pharmacists and doctors of the nation, there is noise noise noise everywhere. You can't carry out a conversation even with a shopkeeper, while inside their premises where you're trying to buy. Let alone, stand on the street Al fresco to make a call.

  
  

  The infrastructure of the country are all creaking from poor quality and neglect. The roads and buildings remind us of life in the poorest times of Victorian era, where life was still in its primitive state. Hospitals are just  buildings - you may go into a hospital and come out sicker than you went in. Some of our university graduate doctors are just happy to be employed by the government. They're no more knowledgeable or useful to patients than their receptionists who sit behind desks eating groundnuts, and watching Tiktok videos on their phones. 

  
  

  As for the educational institutions, cry me a river for the state of our schools. It used to be that after every few houses in Cameroon, there was an off-license. Now, it is either a dilapidated Pentecostal church, run by a criminal prosperity gospel preacher, or some sinkhole calling itself a university. 

  
  

  The banners, advertising these so-called “universities” and church revivals are in steep competition with banners of funerals. It has been said that the proof of the presence of profound poverty, ignorance and superstitious beliefs in a country, lies in the number of churches that are erected, principally to deceive the impoverished population. Now, these Pentecostal pulpiteers are competing with the semi-literate businessmen, who are either renting crummy little buildings they call “universities” or constructing tasteless looking edifices on the outskirts of towns for their mushroom schools of miseducation and widespread idiocy. 

  
  

  The depth of the illiteracy that has set in the country and the tragic ignorance besetting the nation are  largely owed to these substandard mushroom institutions, which advertise themselves as universities offering MBAs, HNDs, etc. These are  criminal enterprises without any accreditation. They charge huge fees for certificates that will not be recognised outside, and many are owned by opportunists based out of the country who leave a few computers inside a classroom, and stick a robot to collect fees, while deceiving students that they’re there to study Project Management, MBA, get an HND, a B.Sc, and an M.A etc. The teaching in those places is done by persons who are themselves ill-qualified and neglectful of their duties. These teachers overreach themselves by taking up posts in different towns and institutions, and they can never give quality or satisfaction to any one teaching post. Whoever is in charge of issuing permits for some of these institutions is doing the nation a gross disservice. 

  
  

  Even the traditional schools are no better. Education is supposed to teach students how to think critically. I weep for the quality of the textbooks that our students are using in the classrooms. Gone are the days when students studied classic literature; well-written stories that improved the minds and expanded the reasoning faculties of the students. Nowadays, bad authors cobble poorly written doggerel—of the Onitsha Market  variety, and someone in charge of pedagogy in Yaoundé gets bribed, and allows the nonsense to be taught to students. Some of the teachers cannot even communicate in a language that instructs students about their subjects. 

  
  

  As for the proliferation of churches, if I were the president, I'll ensure that all those  tithes-imposing thieves and charlatans, responsible for spreading both ignorance and STDs through their noisy and tattered churches, get banned. 

  End of rant.