Difficult Choices in a Failed Democracy:

PCC prelate hails Prof. Asonganyi’s forthrightness
The Right Rev. Nyansako Ni Nku was the chairman of Prof. Asonganyi’s book launch in Buea. He made the ff remarks on the occasion.
Cameroon: Difficult Choices In A Failed Democracy – A Memoir by Prof. Tazoacha Asonganyi. The eminent intellectual of ancient Rome, Seneca, observed that “things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.”
Politics, they say, is the art and science of government. This involves many actors with varying opinions on how government could be better organized to meet the needs of the people in a satisfactory manner. This is what gives rise to different political parties, each trying to supplant the others. This struggle by conflicting positions in the market place of ideas is what makes the waters of politics murky, and poor old politics becomes branded as a dirty game. So Henry Adams, writing on “The Education of Henry Adams” claims that “Politics, as a practice, whatever its profession, has always been the systematic organization of hatred.”
            I read about a politician who was so honest that he was never investigated – and a group of people got together to investigate that. As in other “professions,” the problem of politics is not with the activity, as it is with those who profess it. The pursuit of power, fame and money, sometimes leads some people to deliberately violate the rules of the game and still call it politics. As things are now I think the difference between a politician and a prostitute is simply in the spelling. Nikita Khrushchev, the erstwhile President of Russia during the heydays of the cold war told a group of American reporters that “Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.”
            Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, was the one who said “the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.” So I believe that all’s not yet lost. If you ask me, “Can we make politics clean?” My answer is a resounding “Yes!” If you ask me further where can we find an honest politician? My answer is “you tell me!” Now, suppose you ask me, is what we have here a failed democracy, of course, my answer is obvious “go and read Prof. Asonganyi’s book.” So yes, we’ve come a long way, but the best is still to be. So don’t give up hope.

            Prof. Asonganyi, himself a Christian affirms this when he says that, “successful human interaction depends on how strong human egos, divergent views and general feelings, motives, and desires of others are handled.” So let me say here again, what I have said so often, that nothing can be politically right when it is morally wrong. And as Hubert Humphrey, the eloquent American Senator declared, “the impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.”
            A surgeon, an engineer, and a politician were debating which of their professions was the oldest. The surgeon said “Eve was made from Adam’s rib, and that of course was a surgical procedure. Obviously surgery is the oldest profession.” The engineer countered with “Yes, but before that, order was created out of chaos, and that most certainly was an engineering job.” The politician smiled and said triumphantly, “Ah Ha! And just whom did you think created the chaos?” My friends, still there is hope!
“Cameroon: Difficult Choices In A Failed Democracy” by Professor Tazoacha Asonganyi – is a book that was waiting to be written. It is about the hurly-burly of the tangled times of the ‘90s.  And it could only be done so well by someone like Professor Asonganyi, who was one of the insiders where intricate decisions were being taken. It seems to me that if he had rushed home to eternity, God could have dispatched him to come back to clear off his unfinished business by offering us this brilliant treatise. The book is brilliant, the product of an energetic mind and a lucid memory that brings fresh to mind, the commotion, the shattered homes and broken dreams, the ingenuity and political craftsmanship and the foolery that constituted every passing day of those turbulent times of the early ‘90s.
Lions say that until they, the lions, have their own historians, the story of the hunt will continue to be told only from the point of view of men. Professor Asonganyi’s memoir is a personal history of the SDF and of Cameroon as he witnessed it. He has not written this book just from the lofty position of an armchair philosopher. Though a brilliant scholar, a London trained biochemist, where he obtained his PhD, he has waded into the muddy streams of politics, he was there in the tumult, and survived the storms. And like an infantry commander in times of war, he was commanding from the deep trenches while the ferocious battle for greater freedom was raging.
At the birth of the “Convention People’s Party” of Ghana, on the 12th of June 1949, Kwame Nkrumah said, “In all political struggles there come rare moments, hard to distinguish but fatal to let slip, when all must be set upon a hazard, and out of the simple man is ordained strength.” Was the problem of the SDF, the inability of the “simple man” to emerge and keep up the momentum of the revolution, or was it an evolution? Could Cameroon be considered “a failed democracy,” because the “simple man” could not arise to galvanize the nation? Or was the “simple man” simply turned around and became something else because of dishonesty and sycophancy that characterized the amazing times? True, the SDF was largely responsible for ushering in democracy in Cameroon, but they failed to cash in on it. Some have even observed that, while prescribing democracy for others, the SDF themselves couldn’t contain it, not to talk of utilizing it to grow their credibility. So they let their supporters down. Through the bickering and rivalry their performance was below expectation and their impact minimal. In the process, our nascent democracy was stillborn. I think this is what I glean from the Professor’s book.
The case of Professor Asonganyi raises a perennial question of what does political life gain or lose when it recruits intellectuals and what they the intellectuals gain or lose from the experience of the immersion in it. Lord Acton was a sound scholar, a professor of history who was lured by the appeal of politics and the desire to act as well as to reflect. He became an MP and was even a junior member of government. At the end, he made this dismal conclusion that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Prof. Mac Belloff, an Oxford scholar who was professor of government explores this question exhaustively in his book “The Intellectual In Politics.” He maintains that a scholar should be driven by his conscience. Otherwise how can we confidently talk of the separation of powers?
Once Abraham Lincoln was asked how he felt after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who has hit (stubbed) his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh. Our people say that a hen is not undermined over her incubating eggs. So my friends, never give up, it is said where there’s life there’s hope. And hope is the anchor of the soul that stimulates people into action and provides them the incentive to achieve. Abraham Lincoln never gave up. The more he failed, the more he was inspired to keep trying on and on until he became the 16th President of America.
We have here a solid cast of prominent intellectuals, and writers, whose common concern, like all of us, I guess, is the welfare of the nation of Cameroon and justice for all its people, irrespective of tribe or place of origin.  Everyone of them has been specially chosen, and their mix is such that, they will enable us to savour the beauty of this intellectual product. Through their reviews, they will expose to us the wealth of the information, knowledge (vision) and wisdom contained in Professor Asonganyi’s rich memoir. As we do so, let us keep on praying that God’s goodness, his mercy and compassion should reign in our land. Out of which a culture will emerge in which when the helpless call for help, the hearing can hear, the seeing can see, and the able must act. If you believe this and I believe it, Cameroon will indeed be the “land of glory, land of promise,” we proclaim to the world through our national anthem.
The poet S.F. Smith wrote this patriotic song, for all lovers of home and country.
My Country! Tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of there I sing;
Land where my father’s died!
Land of the pilgrim’s pride!
From every mountain-side
Let freedom ring!