Paul Biya at twenty-five: A lost for opportunity for Cameroon’s development

It used to be a delicate task to make an assessment of the government short of praise-singing. The regime and its partisans would quickly dismiss the effort as the work of ill-willed partisan sycophants. Now that task is enthusiastically done by international watchdogs. Those who want to know about the standing of the Biya regime over the last twenty-five years only need to call up the regular reports of Transparency International, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Amnesty International, World Bank, UNDP, etc. With soberness the government has learnt to accept reports of its mediocrity in key respects. But on this 25th anniversary of the regime Paul Biya and his men may rightly celebrate “the peace that reigns in Cameroon” – and some other note-worthy achievements of the distant past

Paul Biya was given only twelve hours to answer a rather strange and wholly unexpected question put to him by his political overlord, Ahmadou Ahijo. “Would you be interested to assume the functions of Head of State and take over from me?”

More suspicious than excited, Biya, then Prime Minister, remained unbelieving as he watched a scene of political drama suddenly begin and unfold within the next few days with the rapidity and surrealism of a motion picture. It took the grandiose ceremony of 6 November 1982 when Ahidjo actually handed him the reins of power on a platter of gold for the mild-mannered and unassuming Biya to believe his infinite luck and immeasurable good fortune.

Today makes the 25th anniversary of Biya’s accession to power. In activities that already began at the week-end state media and organs of the ruling CPDM are highlighting the achievements of the regime over a quarter century.Incredible inheritance. The celebrations have only provoked debate. What has Paul Biya done with his incredible inheritance over so long a period?

Going by the universally accepted understanding that socioeconomic development and general prosperity are among the more important and urgent tasks of governments, the regime’s score-card is definitely somber, Far more so than the enthusiasm of partisans would have us believe. Yet the beginning was promising. The mood of the nation was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Cameroonians had become dead weary of the same president for twenty-two years without much to show for it.

It was this popular enthusiasm for change that the new president cashed in on. He preached change; change especially in public morality and social justice. Now, twenty-five years later, the story is very different, to say the least. Cameroon is in a crisis of modernization. The economy has instead shrunken; political institutions are archaic and awfully in want of reform. Social justice and basic administrative efficiency are all major problem areas. All the same the picture is all bleak. The Biya cloud has its silver lining. Under Biya Cameroon has so far avoided the armed conflicts that have ruined many other African countries. Only recently, OXFAM the British NGO, published a report which estimated that more than 300 billion dollars was the cost of wars in African countries in the last fifteen years.

That was money that could otherwise have been invested in development. Another bright spot of the Biya regime is freedom of speech and of the press. With the return to the multiparty politics in 1990, the government freed the newspapers. The audio-visual media has also been progressively liberalized. Movement in and out of Cameroon was also freed thanks to the easy obtainment of a Cameroonian passport which was previously near impossible to get. General amnesty The state of emergency under all of Ahijo’s twenty two years was lifted and a general amnesty granted, thus permitting Cameroonian exiles abroad to return home.

These measures were widely acclaimed as harbingers of political change and socioeconomic development. But alas the much-awaited change did not come, and now looks ever more unlikely to come before 2011 when Biya leaves office? The promise of democratization especially failed woefully even when it had the most favorable conditions of success. After a three year effort by the government, partly fighting strong forces at home that opposed it, Cameroon obtained membership of the commonwealth on condition of key democratic reforms that it willingly pledged.

It was widely believed and openly said at commonwealth chancelleries in Yaounde that membership would play the trick by bringing enormous pressure to bear on the Yaounde authorities. Probably the most disappointing aspect of democratic failure is the long history of flawed and acrimonious elections. The failure of democratization could somehow have been made up for by impressive economic growth just like the authoritarian regimes of South-East Asian countries generated miracle socioeconomic development.

Not so with the Biya concept of power whereby there is a strong nexus between politics and economics. Almost all of the Biya tenure has been mired in an economic slump. After a long decade of recession the economy has not been given the necessary bold incentives to bush it back up. All possible gains of the present 3.5% growth rate are instantly swallowed up by the negative effects of recession.

Education, health and roads due to long years of investment neglect are in their worst possible condition. The government has also been neglectful over the yearly rise in prices of essential commodities. Far from generating prosperity and pulling the masses out of poverty through economic expansion, the Biya regime has instead in its twenty-five years visited unemployment, penury disease and crime at an unprecedented scale upon Cameroonians.

For a government that has as its flag-ship policy poverty reduction (officially called “the fight against poverty”) this pronounced anti-social behavior makes it a contradiction in terms. The recent boost in public finances, thanks to debt relief, has yet to trickle down to the masses if and when the government concedes to some important social spending. Until then the money remains in the indelicate hands of corrupt bureaucrats who swindle it with impunity.

Like poverty, disease, crime and other endemic ills of the Biya regime, corruption has grown so huge that fighting it threatens the regime itself. Biya is still using the escapist argument of wanting to take his time for tangible proofs. In analyzing the mediocre performance of the Biya regime, a few factors do not work in his favour. Cameroon, for instance, is not a poor country by any means. For its population of 17 million its natural resources of oil, timber, cocoa, coffee and banana could have been a great boon in its development. Critics hold this failure to poor management.

There is clear evidence that Paul Biya lacks the will to change Cameroon for the better. The government’s failed relationship with the commonwealth as indicated earlier is evidence enough. Furthermore the government’s indifference to the yearly assessment of credible watchdogs does not help to believe the president’s speeches to the country.

The third factor that wipes off any pretence by Biya to being a democrat is his obscurity over the issue of succession. No democrat would want to be in office for twenty-nine years and still nurse ambitions to continue. And to seek a life presidency by crook (no hook about that)! Understandably, partisans of the regime view its failures forgiving; some even want to ignore them. Also Cameroonian critics of the government are very often dismissed as partisan trouble-makers.

But it is doubtful that even the most enthusiastic supporters of the regime would ignore the very un-cheerful assessment of the Biya performance by international watchdogs and multilateral institutions. Who wants to ague with Transparency International on corruption; the World Bank on the economy and business climate; the UNDP on human development; Amnesty International on human rights or the Mo Ibrahim Foundation on governance?Courtesy The Herald CameroonIn Buea where most government offices were closed for the whole day, anniversary celebrations took place at the independence (Mbongo’s) square. Is there reason to celebrate?

Yemti Harry Ndienla Esq