2016 Youth Day address:

Biya, the Cristiano Ronaldo of Cameroon politics

In his 2016 Youth Day Message, President Biya once again outwitted the youths of Cameroon. He made no announcement by making an announcement. He announced a three-year special youth plan and urged the youth to embrace agriculture. He said the plan would cost 102 billion FCFA to implement but failed to say exactly what the plan is about and how it would proceed.

By Lord Havöc in Yaounde

Have you observed the deftly ease with which Real Madrid’s Portuguese megastar, Cristiano Ronaldo, chases the ball? Have you witnessed the awe-inspiring technique with which he dismisses his opponents, the modish manner in which he gives passes and the inscrutable way in which he ‘enters the net’? If you have, then, of course, you know how Cameroon’s 84-year-old, 33-year-serving President plays politics.

                Keen watchers of our country’s political scene will tell you that there are politicians and there are politicians. For more than a quarter of a century now, they have shown us different colours: Bello BoubaMaigari posing as a green snake in the green grass; John FruNdi and IssaTchiromaBakari adopting chameleonic postures; Jean Jacques Ekindi playing the incurious ‘Lion chaser’; Ben Muna being mute, deaf, and evasive; Kah Walla proving to be hot-blooded yet inconsequentially garrulous; and Paul Ayah Abine trading his political intrepidity for beguiling legal perks.

                Of course, the undeniable master and maestro in Cameroon, politically speaking, remains the old fox, the one and only Paul Biya bi Mvondo. Not only has this overbearing heavyweight pocketed the above-mentioned political midgets, he is sprawling over the entire body politic of Cameroon with a disguised intention to suffocate them. Some of his greatest victims are undoubtedly the youths whom he dribbled once again, Ronaldo-like, in his 11 February address to them last week.

                After the announcement of the recruitment of 25 000 young certificate holders a few years ago, which came to pass leaving so much unsettled dust in the air, the youths of Cameroon were all ears this year for another ‘landmark’ project for them. If the scenario were to be transposed to a football field, the youth would be presented as sealing their midfield and goal areas as a way of preventing the Etoudi Lion from penetrating their defence, except he proclaimed the good news.

                But the fleet-footed Mr. Biya was not daunted by their human defensive wall. Once he had the ball, he turned and twisted his body like the veritable maestro that he is, flying past his adversaries who, to quote ace football commentator, Zachary Nkwo, “stood at akimbo like traffic policemen.”

                Before the youths could realize, President Biya had outwitted them again. He made no announcement by making an announcement. His three-year special youth plan means absolutely nothing. He gave no clues of what the plan would look like or how it is going to be carried out. The amount he gave as cost of the plan is unconscionable and enticing, but the content of the plan is nought.

                As it were, uncurious and bovine youths, hearing the astronomical sum attached to the ‘ghost’ plan, applauded the announcer sheepishly, as if to say the 102 billion FCFA is already in their collective pocket. However, those youths whose eyes penetrate surfaces have been quick to dismiss the announcement as sheer rhetoric and a blatant hoax. If they were to ask the President to do the speech again, they would surely urge him to delete the section carrying the fake promise.

                When indeed will President Biya stop taking Cameroonians for a ride? When will he veritably give the youths of Cameroon a chance to bloom and blossom? Did the people of his generation and those before him like the Ahidjos, the Fonchas, the Munas, the Endeleys and Egbes, etc. not get to the frontline in their 20s? Given that he and other ageing blokes are still sitting tight, when can he say is the tomorrow of our today’s youths?

                To conclude, the President must read the penultimate stanza of a poem titled ‘Letter to Big Daddy’ drawn from the book “Before I Die”. It goes thus:

                For decades, we’ve held you in reverence

We’ve watched you for long with patience

Leave the stage when the applause is loudest

Don’t be the bird that crumbles with his nest

Count yourself lucky for being counselled

Others in their sleep have been pummelled