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xi Preface My first encounter with Rotcod Gobata’s writing was neither direct, immediate, nor intended. It came two issues after the debut of the column “No Trifling Matter”. He was recommended to me by HRH Fon Angwafor III of Mankon. I had brought back from town a couple of newspapers for the Fon. Skimming through one of them, Cameroon Post, his attention was caught by a headline which he read aloud: “No Trifling Matter: Those Billions in Foreign Banks. By Rotcod Gobata.” Then he exclaimed: “Rotcod Gobata! I like his writing. I enjoy his arguments. He doesn’t quibble!” Thereafter, I set out to bring the column home to myself. And when I noticed I had fallen in love with Rotcod Gobata’s weekly menu of enriching insight and alternative interpretations of topical issues, I sought to know the face behind the pen. For a long time I suspected Dr Tata Mentan, until the day I met with a TV producer, Kwasen Gwangwa’a, at his office. “Rotcod Gobata is a good friend of mine. He doesn’t know that I know his real identity,” said Mr Gwangwa’a in response to my question on the identity of Rotcod Gobata. A few days later, Shey Anthony Kimbi, a student journalist on internship with Cameroon Post, volunteered insider information. And so my curiosity got satisfaction. Perhaps some who have read Rotcod Gobata with attentive interest and scrutiny, might think that I took a rather roundabout way to narrow down my short list of possible “Rotcod Gobatas.” His writing is full of clues that point to his “Banso origin” they could claim, and proceed to substantiate by citing inter alia, his intimacy with the Nso and his more than cursory knowledge of what goes on in the Bui Division in particular. With such examples as eating “Kimbur” with Cardinal Christian Tumi in Garoua, the anecdotes by little Kiven and others, his Banso friends and his being generally very informed about the atrocities committed by the “foxes of loo and udder” in the Nso area, they could consider their case proven. And if one where to read into these clues that Rotcod Gobata is a tribalist, one would be going counter to the columnist’s ardent stance against tribalism. His views on the issue are without equivocation. He believes that any man of reason would have nothing to do with xii tribalism, which is principally a man-made problem created to promote “false consciousness”, and “sustained by politicians who are destitute of the sterling qualities of leadership or who want to cover up a hideous path of personal corruption.” He considers himself “completely detribalized”, not in the sense that he does not cherish his father’s name and place of birth, but that tribalism as the practice of granting or obtaining favours simply because you share the same ethnic origins, “cuts no ice” with him. Rotcod Gobata comes across as a man of courage and resolve; one ready to swim upstream in a manner of a desperate midwife eager to prevent a still birth (in this case, of democracy). His column is as daring an embarrassment to Biya’s “démocratie avancée” as the radio programme “Cameroon Report” (later “Cameroon Calling”), was to Presidents Ahidjo and Biya in the hey days of the “parti unique”. Rotcod Gobata believes the time has come for Cameroon to graduate from a country over milked by mediocrity and callous indifference, to the paradise that it was meant to be for the poor and downtrodden. In this regard, he belongs with that rare breed of intellectuals who are genuine in their pursuit of collective betterment, and who in consequence, have opted to distance themselves from the stomach and all its trappings. This position is to be commended and encouraged, especially in a system where explanation is often mistaken for subversion, a system where the stomach is about the only political path-finder - the sole compass in use, a country where the champions of falsehood want all at their beck and call, and where a handful of thirsting palates daily jostle to share with Count Dracula the blood of the common and forgotten. Rotcod Gobata wants the new Cameroon to be rid of the ills and failures of the past three decades that have made it impossible for Cameroonians in their millions to live productive and creative lives. The new Cameroon should therefore be free of political demagogy, double standards, stoogery and sycophancy. It should be a...

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