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185 19 On Behalf of a College Room-mate I have once remarked in this column that the bond between school class-mates is much stronger than any tribal bond. People are never so ready to bend or even break the rules of any game as when it is on behalf of a class-mate or school mate. Some of the most formidable mafias you are likely ever to come across are alumni mafias, composed of former students of a particular educational institution. You would, no doubt, have heard of the “Kaduna mafia,” the “Ibandanites” and the “Lions” in Nigeria. You are surely aware of “Sobans,” “Bobans,” “Shesans,” “Opsans,” “Sakerittes” etc., and what they are capable of doing, right here in Cameroon. One sure way of fighting tribalism is to encourage the flourishing of Old Boys Associations, Old (or is it Past?) Girls Associations, Former Students Groups etc., provided, of course, that admission into our educational institutions is not tribalised from the onset with the result that the alumni associations become composed exclusively or predominantly of people speaking one contri-talk. These are sensitive issues with me because I am a de-tribalised anti-tribalist and an ardent apostle of meritocracy. Very soon, under a different alias from that of this column, you will be able to read all my essays on the subjects of Democracy and Meritocracy, published by Galda and Wilch Verlag, Glienicke-Berlin. But that is a different issue. I was talking about the power of alumni associations. But even stronger than alumni bonds are the bonds which bind members of a particular class. Among Sobans, for instance, witness the “Pioneers,” “Record Class,” “Mbo Boys,” “Spirits,” “Transition Class,” “Cunningham Class,” “Brothers of the Coast,” “Damian Renovatory Class,” etc. Here the bond is much stronger than that between siblings from the same womb. The only bond that is probably even stronger than that between former classmates is the bond between former College room-mates. It is easy to understand. The High School or College period is the most turbulent, reckless, carefree and experimentive in anybody’s life. It coincides with the adolescent/early adulthood period, during 186 Road Companion to Democracy and Meritocracy which, if you don’t try any venture, you will never try it again. Now, it so happens that a room-mate is one person who knows all your most intimate secrets, even those your mother doesn’t know, from whom you can hide absolutely nothing-from the fact that you snore like a drunkard at night through the fact that you are in the habit of promising marriage to six different girls at the same time, to your occasional epileptic fainting fits. And for each of your roommate ’s six fiancées you have to pretend that she is the only coconut in your good friend’s locker, instead of frankly and honestly telling her that another one left two days before her arrival, after 7 hilarious and ecstatic days. It is amazing what otherwise very principled persons can bring themselves to do on behalf of a former room-mate. You can do for you room-mate what you cannot even do for yourself. In fact, quite recently, I found myself doing for my former room-mate at the University of Ife, Nigeria, what I had long given up doing for myself. I condescended to go to the Ministry of Finance here in Yaounde and follow-up the payment of his salary arrears and unpaid allowances. Now, this is something that I had tried for myself throughout 1993/4 and, after wasting precious time, money and energy to no avail, had given up and vowed never, never to set my foot again in that desolate place called “Minfi” or “Finance.” But I was unable to resist breaking my solemn vow on behalf of my former University room-mate when he called from Buea asking me to do him the favour of breaking my solemn vow and doing for him what I could not do for myself. It is only along this explanatory hypothesis or theory (I dare even say “law”) that one can understand His Excellency, Honourable Ouattara, Deputy President of the IMF, who came calling the other day to lie shamelessly about Cameroon’s situation vis-à-vis the IMF. There is no African or third-world country undergoing the harsh structural adjustment conditionalities of the IMF that can be said to be doing well. They are not meant to do well. The real...

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