Media debate on the president’s 26 years in office is raging. He is a god who has done a perfect job, say partisans, while enemies think he is a tragic villain who brought misery to Cameroon. He has shone very well in some regards and failed woefully in others, we think. The mandate extension ambition is certainly an error because of the many problems ahead. We think the president should leave it and make sure there is a transparent transition permitting Cameroonians to elect another leader of their choice.
Dear Mr President,
Last week was the 26th anniversary of your stay in office. Your party the CPDM has been celebrating it across the country. Sorry, you did not invite us, your non-CPDM friends.
That notwithstanding we are much delighted to write and extend you our hearty congratulations on your long stay in power. We can assure you there is something special in this because it is given only to a few. So we wish you well.
As you are aware anniversaries are a time to look back down the years to draw the lessons of success and failure in order to see better in going forward. That is what the media have been doing. Some of the radio and television debates have been heated. Some speakers have raised you to the status of a god who did everything right to develop and modernise Cameroon, while others swear that you are a tragic villain who brought misery to Cameroonians.
From our own perspective, Mr President, we do not see your long tenure exactly in terms of white or black. You do have your shortcomings, some of them really terrible, as you will see further below but you also have some very remarkable achievements. Every cloud has its silver lining, they say.
Let us admit right away, Mr President, that the very fact that these discussions are taking place in the media and in public places without anyone fearing to be arrested is testimony of one of your very important legacies i.e freedom of the press and free speech. Ahmadou Ahidjo your predecessor did not allow any of that. That is a mighty plus for you!
Give and take occasional abuses by public officials, it is factually correct to say that in practice the press in Cameroon is free. The proliferation of newspapers and audio-visual media is laudable evidence of this. Though the criminalisation of libel remains a problem, still the president earns good credit for a reasonably free press and for free speech. So three cheers for the president!
Next comes peace, which CPDM spokesmen have flogged and flogged, not without good reason, though. Peace is a sine-qua-non of all development. Civil wars destroy any country and also hold back its development. That Cameroon has so far been spared any such armed conflict is a blessing that Cameroonians cannot be sufficiently thankful for. Three more cheers to the president!
Bakassi Peninsula
Another of your star achievements, Mr President, is the return only three months ago of the Bakassi Peninsula. It was the result of successful diplomacy backed by enormous patience and trust in other people on your part.
The fact that Cameroon and Nigeria agreed to resolve the conflict without armed confrontation has become a big lesson to a war-torn world. The president earns another high mark for this achievement. We are truly delighted with the way you have yourself, Mr President, savoured this victory. We admire your non-triumphant attitude to it.
Mr President, there are several other achievements of yours but you do not score very high marks for them because though their idea was good, their intended effects have been much watered down.
We take the expansion of the state university system. Inadequate infrastructure, severe under-funding, staff inadequacy, and other shortcomings do not help the universities rise to the instructional quality expected of them. Lecturers are also unnecessarily politicised. The result is everybody’s guess.
We take health-care delivery as another example. We can also credit you with the two modern reference hospitals in Yaounde and Douala as well as the child and maternal health hospital in Yaounde. But because these urban and elitist units do not sit upon an under-structure of extensive health-care system covering the vast rural masses across Cameroon, they are like wrong priorities. We hope you’ll take this as fair criticism.
We can also comment in a similar manner about your original intention to open up the political system and liberalise the creation of political parties. The decision was received with popular enthusiasm. We recall especially when in a speech in 1990 you warned the CPDM, then the only party, to get ready for competition.
Now, eighteen years after, you know, Mr President, competitive partisan politics has not worked. The reason is there for everyone to see. You did not correspondingly create strong and independent institutions to act as umpires to the operation of partisan politics.
An empowered and free court system and an empowered and independent electoral organisation were absolutely necessary accompaniments to the new political system. What you did, Mr President, was to ‘put new wine into old wineskins!’ It doesn’t work.
All of that was foreseeable and the opposition cried foul, warning that elections could not continue in the new context to be organised and managed by a government ministry as had been the case with the one party system. Nothing changed to this day. The long history of flawed elections in Cameroon is well known and documented to enter into it here. This is widely considered to be one of the darkest spots of your long tenure, Mr President. What a shame!
And so, Mr President, there are many initiatives of yours which failed to achieve the beneficial effect originally intended or did not become the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Such failure, intended or unintended, has cast doubt on your goodwill. That’s not too good.
Good governance
While you have shone very well in some areas and not quite so well in other respects, Mr President, you must find the humility to admit that you have done quite poorly, perhaps even failed, in some other respects. We have just talked about elections.
So it is that you lose marks when it comes to good governance, democratisation, human rights, human, social and economic development. Even in diplomacy, Mr President, you do not stand tall; that is when we exclude Bakassi.
In more recent times you have tried to attend important international gatherings, but your record over the years has been to keep away from such meetings. Absence at those occasions has been a lost opportunity to selling the brand Cameroon abroad, isn’t it?
You have also not been quite friendly to your neighbours, which has not helped sub-regional integration. You are presently in a covert war with Equatorial Guinea. We are sure this neighbourly unfriendliness does not help. That is what pushed Sani Abacha to pounce upon Bakassi in December, 1993.
On the huge problem of corruption, Mr President, Cameroonians are coming to believe that you are unable or unwilling to deal with it effectively. Many people think that going about it personally as you are doing will never address the problem well enough.
They think you should hand over the matter to an independent and judicial body to approach the matter systematically in such a way that you have no more say in it. Also free the public audit ministry to work independently and turn in their reports to such a judicial body to investigate, establish a case and prosecute.
Mr President, the independence of the courts is another key area that many do not think you have done well in. You must accept that once the courts are not free the quality of justice they dispense is questionable. The courts are chambers of arbitration that must be free to decide on conflicts that usually arise in pluralistic and segmented societies which democracy is about.
Courts controlled by the state frighten foreign investors. The proof is that Cameroon receives very little direct foreign investment. In this connection, Mr President, the basic administrative inefficiency of the government has become a huge handicap to doing business, even for Cameroonians. Hasn’t this been the song of the GICAM?
On the human rights issue, the prisons betray you more than anything. Four in five of inmates in all the prisons of Cameroon are detainees awaiting a charge and a court trial. That never seems to come because these detainees remain held for years, uncharged and untried! Why not create a commission that looks into such a simple problem and frees people from such wanton abuse of their freedom?
Economic development
On the very important question of economic development, one has the impression, Mr President, that you since gave up on it. Only last week there was a meeting of the national council on roads. It was confirmed that of a national road network of about 50,000 kms in Cameroon only about 5,000 kms of roads had been tarred since independence in 1960! And even then about 2,000 kms of these had through neglect degenerated to the point of not being anymore usable.
Surprisingly, the national road council met to discuss, not road development, but maintenance of existing roads! Shocking! Isn’t that the word?
In the same way, there is very little money going into building and equipping schools and health centres.
We now hear experts talk of the failure of health-care delivery and of illiteracy in schools. Already, the government has failed to cope with the ever growing unemployment rate which today could stand at 70%. We hope, Mr President, you won’t say we are being unkind to you? We don’t think so, if you will take the time to examine the facts provided by the different ministries.
Beyond these issues of development, the issue of your personal style is now very much in debate. Mr President, why don’t you speak up on issues? Even your official agenda remains a secret to the public, something that should belong to the public domain.
We pick up snippets of information leaked to the foreign press and that’s what guides the action of the government! Shall there be an ordinary convention of the CPDM? When? Shall there be a government reshuffle? When?
We have been told repeatedly by sources close to your entourage and also from palace people that you cannot declare your agenda partly because you sometimes wait until too late for the input of marabouts, quite a handful of whom work with you regularly. They eat and sleep with you, we are told.
We hope you don’t feel embarrassed at this, Mr President. We believe you are in good company. Jeune Afrique says most African leaders deal with marabouts. In Senegal it is well-known that the president doesn’t take an important decision without consulting with his marabouts.
Isn’t it also common in Asia? This week the king of Bhutan was crowned after waiting two years on the advice of marabouts who themselves had to wait for a certain movement of the stars, among other things. Don’t feel embarrassed if we have to say what everyone who visits your residence says.
But we are sorry, Mr President, our suspicion is that you don’t work with good or truly gifted marabouts. Cameroon should not be as poor as it is and its people as miserable as they are.
Moreover, why do marabouts not help shore up your self-confidence? Why do you sometimes appear so unsure of yourself, even confused? Also why don’t the marabouts make you likeable to Cameroonians? Your approval rating over the years has been very, very low! Gallup, the American, put it at a catastrophic 14% by a poll taken early this year.
Once again, Mr President, we hope you don’t think we have become nasty. We don’t mean it. You must admit it is not easy to make a close assessment of your long years in office, as we have tried to do. We thank you for allowing free speech and a free press which permits us to write you this open letter. As we stated earlier that is one of your star and lasting legacies.
As friends, we pardon you for your many shortcomings. But many there are who have vowed that they will never forgive you for your long history of flawed elections because it deprived Cameroonians of the right of changing their president. Isn’t that unfortunate?
On our part we must say again, as we have stated several times before that your decision to try another term is an error. The odds are so heavily stacked against that ambition that it does not take a marabout to advise you to leave it.
What you owe Cameroonians now is to make sure the transition to the next president is transparent and successful. If you do that we are confident that even your worst enemies will forgive you. You truly need that pardon of Cameroonians in order to enjoy a peaceful retirement
Again, we extend you our hearty congratulations on achieving more than a quarter century as head of state. Isn’t that special!
Yours sincerely,
Boniface Forbin
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