I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon

Further Lessons

179 Further Lessons I f you didn’t succeed in getting your copy of the CAMPOST last week, you may be wondering what “further lessons” I am talking about. Last week I was drawing some lessons from the GCE affair. Am I even sure this which I am writing now will reach you? Censorship is back in full force and the Cameroon Post is being seized from the vendors and newsstands almost regularly. For a while we thought we had put that era firmly behind us. But here we are again right back to square one. As with nearly every other thing about which we’ve had the illusion of having made some progress, we’ve simply been jogging on the same spot. We cannot close the first chapter of our GCE struggle without remarking about the level of sacrifice and endurance that people are usually willing to undergo for a cause they believe in. Do you know that some GCE markers were walking several kilometres (yes, on foot!) every day to and from the marking centres and also nearly starving? But that did not deter them from their determination to mark. Before the GCE markers reached here, Dr. Robert Mbella Mbappe and his small clique of frauds masquerading as public officials had already shared and squandered 290 million francs out of the 300 million allocated from public coffers for the marking of the GCE. So by the time the over 2000 real markers got here only 10 million francs was left in the GCE budget. Did we not suspect before that the bottom line beyond all the manoeuvres and gymnastics was a matter of cool raw cash? 180 Godfrey B. Tangwa (Rotcod Gobata) So, with only 10 million francs now left as the GCE budget, they proposed to pay each marker a flat rate of 10.000 francs for the entire marking exercise, as against the 25.000 per week plus free snacks they had been paying the fake markers. They thought that there were only two possible ways in which the GCE markers could react to this insult: accept the pittance in their desperation or reject it and riot. Their anti-riot zombies were even put on full alert that day. Had the markers fallen for the bait and in their destitution, taken the 10.000 francs that would have greatly assuaged their consciences and relieved them of the duty ever to explain what they did with 290 million francs before the GCE markers arrived. Had the markers, on the other hand, rioted, they would have brutalized them in typical fashion, dispersed them, and then proceeded to publish the fake results they had been preparing to publish before the arrival of the real markers. But the markers took a third opinion which they hadn’t foreseen: they firmly rejected the 10.000 francs insult but did not riot and calmly continued with the marking in their penury. All Cameroonians of good will, and all Southern Cameroonians of both good and bad will, owe the GCE markers a standing ovation for their demonstrable patriotism. The New Deal regime of Professor Paul Biya is indeed politically very short-sighted. Here is a regime that is full of professors. It’s supposed leader is even a professor himself. Check around the world. If you find any other regime, anywhere on earth, with half as many professors in its governmental ranks as the Biya regime, you should report to the son of Gobata. This regime of professors deserves multiple entries in the Guiness Book of Records for multiple reasons. One of them is that its professors are no match for primary and secondary school teachers. As those in contact with the grassroots, it is a wonderful thing that the GCE markers have come to Yaounde and seen and experienced 181 I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle for themselves what we are all up against. They will carry the message to all nooks and corners of Southern Cameroons. The next battle could be a walk-over. The son of Gobata is particularly gratified with the way the GCE struggle has gone. For the first time in the past three years, this was the only occasion that NO TRIFLING MATTER called for all hands on deck at approaching danger and nearly all hands really went on deck. In the last three years, I have spoken all the...