Clandestine immigration: Biya admits: no future for Cameroon youth

Many Cameroonian youths have no future here, President Paul Biya confessed to a visiting French minister Monday. He admitted that job prospects for the bulk of the country’s teeming youths are more than bleak which explains why they are taking such dangerous risks to leave the country

By Bainkong Godlove in Yaounde

It is rare for a government to admit its failures, but that is exactly what President Paul Biya did Monday at Unity Palace during a lunch offered visiting French minister of Immigration, Integration, National
Identity and Co-development, Brice Hortefeux.

President Paul Biya told his guest that hordes of youths were fleeing Cameroon to seek greener pastures abroad because they are unable to find jobs in the country.

He said the country’s economy is not strong enough to assure jobs for all youths, especially university graduates. This has discouraged many youths, Biya explained, who do not see any future in Cameroon.

The president admitted that there is widespread misery in Cameroon, adding that the February strikes that were “motivated by hunger” were a warning signal which should not be ignored.

It is the economic hardship suffered by the youth, Biya noted, that has favoured the massive migration to the West.

He said some of these youths use very unorthodox methods to escape the poverty here, with many of them losing their lives in the process.

To solve the problem of poverty in Africa and the subsequent curbing of migration to the West, Paul Biya advocated a Marshall Plan for Africa.

He told his French guest that poor Africans would continue to migrate to the West if the economic gap between the rich countries of the North and Africa is not significantly reduced.

Many economists have repeatedly pointed out that Cameroon is endowed with enormous human and material resources and it is bad governance that has kept the country on its economic knees. Often, aid from foreign donors is mismanaged or embezzled with impunity.

During the lunch at Unity Palace, Paul Biya offered a toast to Hortefeux, who extolled the warm relations between France and Cameroon.

The French minister arrived at Unity Palace at noon and spent about three and a half hours there. He later told the press that he found President Biya a good listener.

Hortefeux also handed a letter to President Paul Biya from French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The contents were not disclosed.