God is gravely upset with Cameroon’s leaders - Christian Cardinal Tumi

The recent conference of Catholic bishops in Cameroon that took place in Maroua, was something the Yaounde authorities would have stopped had they been able to.

More than anything that conference exposed the Biya regime as a way of informing the Papal Pontiff as he prepares his journey to Cameroon in mid-March.

Christian Cardinal Tumi, used his homily during New Year’s Day mass at the Douala cathedral to attack the government on a wide-ranging number of policy issues. The cardinal concluded: God is gravely upset with Cameroon’s leaders.

Tumi’s onslaught, harrowing as it was, was easily dismissed as the ranting of an implacable enemy. But when in the next few days the volleys began raining down from Maroua the church’s anger against the regime was no more in doubt.
Yaounde huffed and began the blame game. Why are they so hostile? Don’t they see that they are damaging the regime just when the Pope is preparing to come to Cameroon? What image do they want to portray of Cameroon to the world.

Victor Tonye Bakot, the Yaounde archbishop who missed the first days of the conference to represent the church at the New Year’s wishes ceremonies that took place at Unity Palace was literally taken hostage. As a friend of the regime, he found himself in the awkward position of taking the unending queries by Paul Biya’s aides.

The unspoken message was an indictment. You are our friend and chair of the Catholic Episcopal conference, why do you allow your colleagues to attack us with such hostility?
In that mind frame Paul Biya surely nurses a deep grudge against the church. What does not even occur to the president to do is some introspection?
He would, for instance, ask himself why the hostility? How true are the criticisms? Are there things I can do to remedy the things they are disappointed about?

Should the president allow himself only a little opening through which to dare to see possible responses to such inward looking that could be a welcome first step that leads on to a few more shifts in policy and personal style.
One major point made by the bishops is that of neglect or inaction. Something wrong happens and generates wide public disapproval.
Normally you would expect the government to take a firm policy position on the matter, banning it, or banning behaviour that led to it; or stating a clear line of action that should minimise the effect of that happening. But Yaounde authorities typically remain silent and not say a thing.

For instance, why has the government been unable to say anything about the Indian aid tractors that public officials helped themselves to at the high cost of the underprivileged farmers to whom the equipment was truly given?
In the same light why has the government been unable to make a statement on the huge controversy surrounding the ELECAM appointments or the scandal implicating Samuel Fonkam Asu’u, its board chair? That is most surely not competence nor leadership.

Absence of leadership is the main cause of drift. Of course the country does not move forward. It problems multiply and become complex. Isn’t that the present state of Cameroon, sinking under the weight of poverty, underdevelopment and social ills?
In all fairness the exact expression that describes what has happened to Cameroon is leadership failure. It is surely painful for Paul Biya to have someone say this but the answer is not in thinking that people are enemies.

The regime will help itself a lot more by looking within itself for answers to the criticisms that it faces.