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| President Paul Biya alone knows why he is maintaining Philemon Yang at the star building |
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| President Paul Biya alone knows why he is maintaining Philemon Yang at the star building |
As it has always been the case, President Paul Biya alone could tell his motivations for propelling this native of Jikejem-Oku to the high office of PM. And when he did so, he gave him four principal missions: To put a definitive end to inertia that Biya himself has repeatedly decried; to improve the living conditions of Cameroonians; to help speed up the execution of major development projects as well as notify hundreds of senior state functionaries of their time to go on retirement.
After five years of Yang’s stay at the Star Building, Cameroonians have come to know his method and technique of work only too well. The wind has blown and the anus of the fowl has been exposed! His balance sheet during this period can in all fairness be described as hugely unimpressive. And this is very sad especialy for someone who has had one of the most brilliant careers under Biya.
Uninspiring personality
A good and serious administrator enlivens those around him with an inspiring personality. Even when he is generally of a not-too-friendly disposition, he makes an effort to conceal it. But this is what Philemon Yang does not know how to do. For the five years that he has been Prime Minister, Head of Government he has proved to be irreversibly phlegmatic and ungraceful and exhibits an astounding dearth of perspicacity.
Those who work with him on a daily basis say he repels rather than attracts, unlike one or two of his predecessors. Senior government officials and those of the governing Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) who were supposed to be close to him rather avoid him on this account. Even members of Yang’s extended family stay away from him with some even praying that he should be removed or replaced with some other North Westerner who is more lively and open-handed. The Median learned that Yang’s ‘friends’ are his wife and children and nobody else.
Failure of ministerial road maps
In his book “The trouble with Nigeria” Africa’s most prolific and master story-teller Chinua Achebe says the trouble with Nigeria is truly and simply the lack of leadership. This assertion by Achebe resonates vividly with Cameroon. PM yang’s failure to propose models of road maps to government ministers is part of the reason for the failures and weaknesses that the head of state has continued to point out lamentably in his speeches to the public.
In effect, the Head of State, after reshuffling the government on 9 December, 2011, requested each member of the new team to produce their plan of work, the objectives to attain and the deadline for the attainment of the set objectives. He made it clear to the Prime Minister, Head of Government that it was his duty to suggest a blueprint to each of these ministers.
But this Yang did not do. He allowed each minister to draw up their road maps without any guide, giving room for most of them to fumble in the process. The result was total failure of the work plans, which were conceived in purely amateurish fashion.
President Biya, The Median was informed, was so bitter with Yang that he spent almost half an hour reprimanding him after the ministerial council meeting that held at the Unity Palace on 27 November, 2012. Word has it that the President’s unkind words to Yang were so shocking as to cause him to suffer a malaise soon after both men separated. Yang later travelled out of the country and spent many weeks receiving treatment in a foreign hospital.
The President was so disappointed with the exercise that he ordered the PM, we further learned, to organize a government seminar in order to school ministers on the drawing of road maps. The seminar effectively held on 9 January 2013. The main items on the agenda were the method of drawing up the ministerial road maps for 2013, the optimization of government contract procedures and the management of the treasury as well as the new program budget and its execution.
Today, more than a year after the holding of the government seminar, there is total silence about its outcome. And nothing is said again about the ministerial road maps.
Deepening socio-economic malaise
The socio-economic situation of Cameroonians since Yang was appointed PM, has hardly known any improvement. Rather, it keeps worsening by the day. This means that his mission of improving the living conditions of his compatriots as prescribed by the Head of State has failed and woefully so.
The prices of basic commodities continue to soar whereas the catechist’s salary situation of civil servants and state agents remain the same. In May this year, the syndicate of public sector workers, CSP, called for a 48-hour strike as a way of putting pressure on government to reinstate civil servants’ salaries to the pre-1992 level, harmonize retirement age to 60 for all state agents and increase family allowances which today stand at a paltry 1 800 FCFA a month per child.
Civil servants are not the only ones lamenting. Part-time teachers who were promised integration into the public service after two years but who were left to stay in the cold for too long, are equally crying foul against this injustice. When government gave the green light for their integration, many of them had exceeded the age limit to enter the public service, and so were only made contract workers. Their salaries are this much lower than those of their colleagues who were integrated.
Biya’s disdain for Yang
As bovine and insipid as PM Yang has proved to be, he has given his boss president Biya the impression that he is only good to be used as a toy in the former’s almighty hands. And so, even when President Biya now gives him an assignment, he hardly takes any consideration into the contents of Yang’s final report. At times the President does not even wait for such a report before making a decision in relation to the said assignment.
A glaring example is the case of the consultations Yang was made to have with the political class and the civil society on 27 February 2012, in view of the preparation of an electoral code. He effectively met with and collected the views of leaders of political parties, political activists, religious leaders, etc. and made proposals to the Head of State. But the bill that was tabled in parliament during the parliamentary session of March 2012 contained none of the proposals in question! The political leaders and civil society actors cried foul saying the PM had tricked them.
Similarly, Philemon Yang was charged with holding the same kind of consultations with the said classes of personalities ahead of the organization of the maiden senatorial election in Cameroon in 2013. But while he was still meeting with his guests, the President convened the electorate for the election. In fact, the decree convening the electorate was read when Yang was still consulting with the SDF chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi. Unable to stand the humiliation, Fru Ndi immediately ordered his followers to start sharpening their machetes in preparation for the ultimate battle against Biya’s bluff.
That is why it is believed that even though Yang has been ordered to probe into the disgraceful outing of the lions in Brazil, it is likely the president would not wait for the one month deadline to elapse before taking a decision. Unity Palace sources have hinted The Median that president Biya already knows what action to take; he is only pulling Yang’s leg to see if the PM would admit part of the responsibility for the lamentable situation of Cameroon football.
Lack of political savy
Yang has not only shown weaknesses as an administrator; he has equally proven to be a political novice. His supporters in Oku and the North West in general have since lost confidence in him, as they accuse him of being an absentee landlord. He does not visit his political base frequently to commune with his people like his predecessors used to do.
Philemon Yang does not seem to be interested in playing active politics, yet he does not want to empower grassroots supporters to play it too. He even reportedly refuses to cooperate with CPDM mayors and parliamentarians of his area, saying he is the prime minister of Cameroon, and not the North West region.
The PM is also accused by partisans of refusing to contribute financially for the growth of the CPDM in Bui division in particular and the North West in general. “It is difficult to tell that this region has a prime minister. During the tenures of Achidi Achu, Mafany Musonge and Ephraim Inoni, we received a lot of financial backing to support CPDM activities here in the North West. But since the appointment of Yang, party activities have taken a nosedive in this region,” a North West CPDM bigwig who pleaded for anonymity told the press not too long ago. A Bamenda-based newspaper described Yang as the ‘stingiest PM that Biya ever appointed’. The newspaper continued that it would have been better for Biya to appoint a Chadian as PM rather than Yang whose hands are stiffer than “Japanese hand brakes”.
Cameroon football at its lowest
It is also under Philemon Yang’s tenure as Prime Minister, Head of Government that Cameroon football has recorded its worst performances in recent times. Not only were the Indomitable Lions a mere shadow of themselves at the ongoing 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The lions were bundled out of the competition after the first round after losing all three matches, conceding 9 goals and scoring only one. They also occupied the last position on the classification table (32 on 32). Even the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was not better. Here the lions emerged 31st amongst the 32 participating teams. Then they also failed to qualify for the last two editions of the Africa Cup of Nations (2012 and 2013).
Indiscipline and poor organization have been blamed for the dwindling fortunes of the country’s football; yet the PM has failed to find a suitable formula to deal with the situation. Apparently at a loss of solutions to the worrying situation, he and successive ministers of sport have persistently moved from one folly to even greater lacunae, seeking at one point to appease some players and setting more confusion by controversially appointing doubtful coaches.
Recently Philemon Yang was paid in his own coins when the lions humiliated him at the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium just before their departure to Brazil. The players snubbed the PM’s offer of the national flag. Put before a fait accompli Philemon Yang was forced to hand the country’s flag to the foreign trainer of the lions. Cameroonians did not conceal their indignation at the PM’s faux pas.
“Since Biya came to power, he has always referred to the Indomitable Lions as models whose example the youth of Cameroon should emulate. But since Yang became the PM he has ceased to do so.This is because the PM, in his capacity as Head of Government, has not helped the team to shine,” Agbor Bakok, a Yaounde-based football analyst, explained to The Median.
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