Politics seems to be the most common arena where under pressure of scoring points, people easily yield to immorality. They deliberately promise the thing they cannot give or do not intend to give. Where several candidates contest for one position matters can become so bad that individuals attack themselves using malicious lies.
Those who watch the current presidential contest in the US most have noticed the flourishing of a truth verification industry. This is the emergence of individuals and groups across the nation whose business is to check the truth value of statements made by candidates and their associates to win the electorate or to discredit their rivals.
But it is not with the 2008 presidential campaign that the use of lies began. Herbert Bush, George Bush’s father is famously remembered for his campaign promise not to raise taxes, which he did once in the White House. “Watch my lips”, he said placing his forefinger against his lips, “I will not raise taxes.”
In Cameroon this culture of manipulation of the electorate is well-known. On the eve of important elections elite of the ruling party drag in earth moving equipment to give the impression of some road work about to begin. Work never begins, of course. At the next election another trick comes up.
At the October 1992 presidential election former Prime Minister Simon Achidi Achu did something similar to Herbert Bush. “See my head,” pointing to his baldness as a sign of old age and trust, “I cannot tell you a lie.” The government, he vowed, would tar the road to Nkambe. That road to this day remains untarred.
Cameroonians have become weary and indifferent to these lies that they take every opportunity to tell them. More and more they are to be pitied. The problem is not of their making.
Imagine, for instance, that in nearly 50 years of independence Cameroon has only 5,000 kms of tarred roads. Presently 2,000 kms of the 5,000 are unusable due to maintenance neglect.
Angola, for instance, that ended its 30-year civil war in 2002, has today developed 2,600 kms of modern all-seasonal roads, building in the process about 235 bridges!
In the face of that kind of a record the Biya regime can be accused of criminal neglect of the development of Cameroon! No bitterness! That is why when Ephraim Inoni went home recently and began blowing those same lies he has told repeatedly his audience was patient with him. When it was over he took his seat and, not surprisingly, there was no applause, not even for the politeness of it.
South Westerners should not fool themselves about the Limbe deep sea port. That announcement came up only to appease SW discontent after Biya took the project to Kribi. Inoni also failed to explain why Biya forced the Chinese to take away their cement factory from Limbe which they preferred to anywhere else even when they knew of the South Korean project?
As for the shipping yard, the question is why it stopped after the 2004 election for which it was intended to get votes? Instead of telling the truth that sets people free we were entertained to even more promises. What become of all that long list of projects that were promised at Inoni’s homecoming in 2005? Where is the road to Ndian division that was high on the list?
Let us give Inoni the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t fooling the people this time around and that all those projects he announced will see the light of day. The question is why they were limited to only Fako and (a stadium) in Kumba? Nothing at all for Ndian, Kupe Muanenguba, Manyu and Lebialem? Is Ephraim Inoni redrawing the map of the South West province?
Happily for the (Fako?) PM this debate is uncalled for, for the simple reason that this regime is a failure. It has nothing for anybody other themselves. That is why its elite like Ephraim Inoni cleverly put projects in the budget in order to continue telling their shameless lies to their own people. Who is fooling who?
The irony in all this is that Paul Biya still expects Inoni to deliver the SW to the CPDM. But the great lesson of Muyuka is that the SW has for too long been taken for a ride. The people have trusted and given full-hearted support to the Biya regime but have in turn received too little, if anything at all. They will no longer be taken for granted.
Source: The Observer
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