Perception soothes … Reality is Rotten.

“…where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous”. (Tacitus – Rome AD56-AD117)

The latest report from Transparency International (TI) breezed through Cameroon with the obvious criminal silence that is characteristic of the guilty. Highly ranked at 9.3 on 10, are Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore. Cameroon ranks 146 on 178 alongside Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Nepal, Paraguay and Yemen with a score of 2.2 on 10. As a rule-of-thumb in Cameroon, such reports are spun by apparatchiks to demonstrate external conspiracies to destabilize Cameroon. They prove a point unintentionally! Institutionally unreliable and structurally weak states do get easily manipulated by external reports. What is TI’s methodology and which countries rank alongside Cameroon? 

Scope: The World Bank describes corruption as the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development. As such attracting foreign investment requires perceptions of a healthy business environment, and information on levels of corruption influences the willingness of donors to assist or relate overtly with developing countries. First published in 1995, the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has gained prominence over the years as a leading indicator on institutional corruption. Through these years, Cameroon’s consistency is apparent at the bottom ranks. This grim picture contrasts recent spectacular arrests of potentially corrupt public sector officials in Cameroon. Evidently these arrests have a reverse effect on Cameroon’s CPI rating. Rather than pulling Cameroon up the rankings, they stay low because these selective arrests prove that corruption in Cameroon  affects even the means to fight corruption. Perception finally caught up with reality. 

Limitations: The CPI is a cumulative indicator that ranks countries on the degree to which corruption is perceived among public officials and politicians. TI defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain” and relies on thirteen resident and non-resident surveys from ten independent organizations. A minimum of three sources must be available for a country to be included in the CPI. Variations in the number of sources used for each country certainly occur. For example, while Singapore’s 2010 CPI rating was based on nine sources, only three were available for Iraq. The final source averages, score each country. Calling the report a perception index, betrays the difficulty in quantifying corruption absolutely. The major difficulty may stem from a non-universally agreed definition for corruption. Where is the line drawn between lobbying and bribery? 

TI defines corruption as “abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Is this definition reasonable for a kleptocratic bureaucracy whose elite confiscate power by fraud, intimidation and tailor-made constitutions? “Abuse of entrusted power” does not therefore exist where power was never entrusted! Does this mean authoritarian regimes are not corrupt? Rather, it would be plausible to suggest that all the activities of ruling elites are corrupt, since their primary motivation is to hold on to power for private gain at all cost. Regardless, there exist striking similarities between Cameroon and the countries scoring 2.2 on CPI 2010:

• Heavy reliance on external financial aid,
• General disregard for human rights,
• A diplomacy that neither has determinants nor objectives,
• Constantly changing constitutions,
• A youthful but largely unemployed population,
• And an increasingly ageing and isolated ruling elite.

Yemen for example is convulsing with Islamic extremism; Haiti completely depends on emergency aid relief and witchcraft; Cote d’Ivoire is yet to recover from an identity crisis that sparked a civil war. Iran is trapped between technological blackmail and religious bigotry, while Libya is yet to differentiate between the state and the Gaddaffi clan. Nepal just emerged from regicidal carnage to parliamentary democracy won by Maoists in 2008 although Mao or Maoism never tolerates more than one party. Among these country’s rulers, President Ali Abdullah Saleh is president of North Yemen since 1978 and unified Yemen since 1990. Muammar Gaddaffi, Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution, presides Libya since 1969 while Paul Biya remote controls Cameroon  since 1982. The resulting picture is a group of institutionally weak states who maintain these same low ratings on HDI (Human Development Index) and MDG (Millennium Development Goals). 

Reality: Paul Biya’s increasingly long absences from Cameroon prove that he neither has the intention nor is he capable of fighting corruption effectively, because it is a tool he uses to control a cohort of c0-opted accomplices. This explains why “Operation Epervier” is carried out “with direct instructions from the Head of State”! The judiciary and the police end up playing stage-managed roles in a tragedy that will go down with a loud bang. 

“…clearing the mess should never be entrusted to the one who created the mess…” (Anonymous – Indian Traditional)

 

 

 

Battle Lines

Power alternation in Cameroon among presidential hopefuls ignores a crucial observation. Incumbency should be applicable to the opposition as it is to the party in power because since 1997, the actors and consequent results are the same. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then absolute powerlessness surely renders imbecile.

 All political parties are good enough! There is no difference between UPC, UNDP, CDU, CPDM or SDF, but there is a huge difference between the people whose ideas and objectives dominate these parties. No ethical criterion exists to qualify the CPDM or the SDF as good or bad. Morality is not a political exercise. Parties are made of men, who promote dreams and nightmares. These men may be extremely bad and are found everywhere. Backtrack to Nuremberg Trials (1945): the Nazi Party was never put on trial. Individuals, albeit all Nazi, where tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their similarity was not Nazi allegiance, but crimes carried out in the exercise of the functions in a Nazi state. Individual responsibility does not dissolve in the aggregate. The individual has moral and ethical obligations that the party may not have. The individual must be defined! Legally, you can neither protect nor confront what you cannot define.

In Cameroon there is no distinction between the party and the individual. Basically, the individual is not defined. Failure to define the individual in a potentially frenzied environment gives room for all forms of abuse and misconceptions about power. Beyond goat-herding slogans like “Great Ambitions” and “Power to the people”, what do political parties in Cameroon stand for? What does John Fru Ndi offer? Non-voter registration? A boycott? John Fru Ndi definitely wants to be the next president of Cameroon, but he has never planned to be one. Absence to recognize what an individual stands for explains why the SDF develops epileptic seizures because Kah Walla has a firm opinion about issues, especially voter registration. Voting is the ultimate political activity and eventually “those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber” (Plato, Athens 427 BC - 347 BC)

Paul Biya won the last presidential election by just over 2million votes. This means state machinery, sovereign institutions, a faulty electoral system and pre-determined malfunctions were put into contribution for an output of just over 20% of the electorate or 10% of the total population. The CPDM is not a formidable beast after all! Paul Biya counts on silence. That choice may be explained by the incapacity to misquote silence. His cohorts and opponents invest huge amounts of mental energy trying to second-guess him at the expense of building an effective electorate.

If you bellowed “SDF!” in 1991, the response was “power to the people”. By the turn of the century, the response was “power”. Presently there is no response since there is no rally call.  From “power to the people” to “power”: was that a simple contraction, or a psychological overhaul from the quest of a group, to an individual’s quest?

Power is essentially speculative. We think we are powerful because we compare ourselves to adversaries, potential and actual. Confrontation on the other hand is empirical and absolute. Only through confrontation can power be realized. Cameroon is on a collision-course to a generational confrontation whose victims are obvious. Challenging with novel ideas, plausible goals, verifiable solutions and an average age of 45years are Dr. Matthias Eric Owona Nguini, Kah Walla, Joshua Osih, Prof. Pius Ottou, Charles Ateba Eyene, Dr. Fomunyoh and Hilaire Kamgang. On the incumbent bench are Paul Biya and  Augustin Koddock (born at beginning of WW2 - 1933), John Fru Ndi and Adamou Ndam Njoya (born in 1941 and 1942 respectively), Bello Bouba (born in 1947) and cronies with an average age of 70years. These are the battle lines for 2011. A whole generation may not be sacrified for the personal comforts of a gerontocracy.

As in chess game, a threat is more formidable than its realization. The messages from the younger generation herald the first shot in this epic battle. Where do you stand?

John Fru Dilema

Charisma is a temporal political asset serving a strategy which in itself is temporal. Riding on the crest of political gains acquired between 1992 and 1997, the Social Democratic Front (S.D.F.) and its Chairman have clearly never evaluated the scope of gains made in the mid 90’s nor really identified how the S.D.F. achieved those gains. If not, why does the S.D.F. not encourage Cameroonians to participate in voter registration when the party’s clout depends on massive voter registration in the mid 90’s ? I identify two reasons which reveal the mindset of John Fru Ndi.

Firstly, incompetence. Fru Ndi is yet to adopt nor is capable of understanding the internal dynamics of a democratic party. Failure in politics is a sign of ageing. Absolute failure is a clarion for change. Politically, we do not fail because we have aged; but we age and become irredeemably “old” because we fail. This translates as the politicians’ inability to propose novel ideas and solutions, or when he becomes the raison d'être for reform. President Abdoulaye Wade, though aged 81 is “younger” than Thabo Mbeki (16yrs younger) because the latter could not propose solutions to South Africa’s problems. In Cameroon, disagreeing with Paul Biya is no longer enough! You need to propose actionable solutions. Fru Ndi is Chairman and Presidential candidate of the S.D.F. since 1990. He has never won an election in which he is a candidate. Statistically, it is the highest failure rate: 100%. Therefore, along with the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement(C.P.D.M.) and an incompetent Supreme Court, Fru Ndi shares the responsibility for Cameroon being subjected to the Biya regime till date. 

Secondly, Fru Ndi has no notion that equal opportunity is the underlying principle in democracy. Dictators are made of same stuff. A dictator often thinks his god-given mandate excludes all other contemporaries from decision-making. “Me or nobody” is the familiar statement. Fru Ndi and cronies think only he may be presidential candidate. As such they create ideal conditions for the exclusion of S.D.F. sympathizers from the voting process. If Fru Ndi genuinely believes there can be another candidate (apart from himself), he will have no problem encouraging S.D.F. sympathizers to register and vote. A bad strategy is better than no strategy at all. Fru Ndi must take a stand about voter registration. Nonetheless, Fru Ndi will maintain ambiguity between not calling a boycott and not calling for voter registration till it is too late to choose any. Thereafter, he’ll fake “democratic re-awakening” by losing to another candidate at S.D.F. primaries. But the candidate will campaign in vain, since there may be no S.D.F. sympathizers registered to vote.

Like Yasser Arafat in his last days, Fru Ndi clings to a potential charisma which serves only his personal political survival. Arafat never attempted to stop Hamas firing rockets into Israel from Palestinian controlled territories for two reasons: had he done so, and Hamas refused to oblige it would have proven he lacks complete control over Gaza. On the other hand, if he did, and Hamas complied, then Arafat assumes responsibility for Kassam rockets targeting Israeli frontline settlements. The political survivor confuses his destiny with that of the people he leads. Fru Ndi realizing that he lacks the mettle to dislodge Biya regime, has resorted to ultimate survival tactics. If S.D.F. sympathizers register and vote, he’ll still lose, so he prefers blaming the score on non-voter registration.

This situation raises a question that plagues African multiparty politics in general. What is the profile of a potential head of state? A bigot? An egotist? An illiterate incompetent? A monolingual demagogue? An Industrialist? An enlightened despot? No rule applies across-the-board. But there is a huge difference between putting oneself at the service of politics, and putting politics at the service of oneself. Fru Ndi fails both ways. He cannot win and his time is up!