Message to the Youth:

Biya’s 15 Minutes of Controversies & Platitudes

President Paul Biya on Saturday 10 February 2018 made his traditional address to the youths of Cameroon, as the latter braced up to commemorate Youth Day on 11 February

By Ojong Steven Ayukogem in Yaounde

President Biya’s 10th February message to the youth has been variously described by Cameroonians as full of controversies, contradictions, platitudes and déjà entendu. Though the president opened his speech by admitting that the country was going through enormous challenges, he however, neither took responsibility for the government’s inability to adequately face the challenges nor did he indict his government for bringing about some of the problems.

                For instance, the president said thanks to the combined efforts of the defence forces and the population of Cameroon, the Boko Haram phenomenon in the Far North has been curbed. But President Biya did not blame his government for failing to alleviate the social and economic hardship that is the lot of the population of the Far North region and which is blamed for the easy infiltration that Boko Haram makes in that part of the country.

                About the refugee situation, President Biya mentioned only the situation of foreign refugees in Eastern Cameroon and how supportive measures by government and other donor agencies have helped some of the refugees to be resettled or to return to their homes. But one would have expected the President to also harp on the issue of Cameroonians displaced due to the ongoing crisis in NW and SW regions of the country. And this was in spite of reports from the UN refugee Agency that about 40.000 Cameroonians refugees risk starvation and epidemic in Eastern Nigeria and that many more are fleeing the country by the day.

                It was intriguing when the president mentioned the crisis in NW and SW, saying “the situation is stabilizing”. Many who commented after the speech wondered aloud how the president could say the situation is stabilizing when sporadic violence has become recurrent and with many casualties recorded daily in the two regions. The DO of Batibo was reportedly abducted by unknown men on 11 Febuary, stalling Youth Day festivities in the NW town.

                The President also said the stabilization that is coming to the NW and SW would pave the way for the Bilingualism Commission to start looking at the grievances of the Anglophone populations. But it is understood that a solution to the crisis can hardly be found by the Bilingualism commission, which many including even some members of the commission have dismissed as irrelevant to the present crisis, hastily created and constituted and ‘a loud sounding nothing’.

                Commentators were also surprised at the president’s “indifference and insensitivity” to the plight of ‘innocent school-going children’ in the two Anglophone regions, whom because of the ongoing crisis have remained out of school for the second successive academic year running. The commentators said they had expected the president to reassure these children by saying exactly what he plans to do about their particular situation in the soonest future. But he did not.

                Many also said they were intrigued that the president instead of chastising the Higher Education Minister over the scandalous ‘one student-one computer project, he rather hailed the project as successful and saying it will be pursued. Many wondered if the president is sufficiently informed about the disappointments and criticisms that have greeted the distribution of the 32G computers. 

                About the internet, the president heralded its virtues, cautioning the youths not to use it as a tool to propagate vice and/or unpatriotic rhetoric. But the president at once forgot that internet has been denied the youths of the NW and SW regions for several months running, with the attendant closure of businesses, loss of jobs and violation of the peoples’ right to information.

                Then the President presented ‘impressive figures’ of jobs created for youths in 2017, saying over 470.000 jobs were created by 31 December 2017. But many hastened to dismiss the president’s employment figures as fictitious and misleading. Some noted that unemployment in Cameroon has assumed runaway proportions, with thousands of university graduates roaming the streets while others have become bike riders and hawkers (sauveteurs), just because they cannot find befitting jobs and lack the requisite financing and/or training to create self employment.

                The president also blamed young Cameroonians for embarking on risky and perilous emigration abroad to seek greener pasture but failed to admit that this is because the youths have lost hope in the government that has failed to provide them with jobs or reassure them about their future.

                Also, the president hailed the implementation of the GESP-based development program and the special three-year youth plan. But observers noted that these two projects have failed woefully, if at all they ever took-off in the first place.

                All in all, even as the president sounded confident and reassuring about the future of Cameroonian youths, keen listeners of the address, especially informed commentators, noted that the president made no concrete statements on strategies to turnaround the bad socio-economic situation the country is facing.

                Many were of the opinion that if anything, President Biya’s message to the youths on 10 February, like in similar instances in the past, was loaded with empty platitudes and déjà entendu.