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157 12 Corruption Fights Cameroon T here is a famous Nigerian cartoonist named Josy Ajiboye who, for decades, has been cartooning regularly for the Sunday Times of Nigeria. Many people find it hard to miss an issue of the Sunday Times of Nigeria, not because of its news content, stories and write-ups, but because of the little front page corner reserved for Ajiboye’s Sunday cartoon. Some of Josy Ajiboye’s cartoons can make you laugh until you cry. In 1982 or thereabouts one appeared with the caption CORRUPTION FIGHTS NIGERIA. The cartoon was a boxing ring in which a really frightful ‘‘Goliath” named Corruption was warming up and waiting for the bell to take on a malnourished and rickety-looking “David” named Nigeria. Even the referee was looking quite frightened. This cartoon appeared at a time when Nigeria’s kleptocratic leaders were making a lot of noise all over the place about Nigeria fighting corruption. With a simple cartoon, Ajiboye said all that needed to be said about the bold pretence of the shameless kleptocrats: “Nigeria” was not fighting any corruption: it was corruption fighting Nigeria. That cartoon, so apt for Nigeria in 1982, is even apter (if you would permit) for Cameroon in 1996. Today, indomitable corruption is fighting Cameroon. For over a decade now the vampires have been dancing their macabre dance (ask the playwright, Bole Butake). But, instead of caging them and taking them, in disgrace, to the market-place, the rest of us have instead joined in the dance, each at his/her own pace and tempo, at all levels and sectors of our national life. The rhythm of the vampires has become the life beat to which every Cameroonian dances, willynilly . It is amazing that some Cameroonians were surprised, (some even offended!), by a recent American survey which listed Cameroon among the seven most corrupt countries on earth. In Cameroon corruption hits you on the face, like a trained boxer’s punch, the moment you set foot on Cameroon territory, whether via land, sea or air. The myriad uniformed officers who perform entry formalities as well as those who stand idly on the roads (you call this a road?) are all shameless extortionists. This is a 158 Road Companion to Democracy and Meritocracy country where you can watch your own car being off-loaded from the ship at the port and, before you finish stamping your certificate of ownership in the nearby office, it would have been emptied of all its contents and stripped of all strippable parts, right there inside the fenced port under the idle gaze of customs officers, gendarmes and police officers. You would be told that if you return there regularly you might be lucky to buy your own very missing property at a “good price.” If you use the public means of transportation, whether intra or inter any of our cities provinces or regions, you would surely think that the only normal and regular function of our armed forces is controlling transportation vehicles. In any case, there is nothing else they seem to do with such enthusiasm and punctuality as stopping vehicles on the road. You see them there, no matter how early in the morning or late at night, under the sun or in the rain. They would then demand the “pieces de vehicule” and start walking towards the back of the car where the driver of the vehicle would follow them, quickly give some money and promptly regain the documents. If on checking “cartes d’idenitités” you happen not to have yours, they would order the driver to put down your bag and start handcuffing you saying that you are a “Biafrais.” But when a bill changes hands, you would be released without any further ado. The malady has spread to and engulfed all sections and aspects of our public life. In our educational institutions today students pay raw cash to the teachers or administrators to pass their exams. Go and have a chat with, say, the Rector of the University of Yaounde I and you wouldn’t believe the corrupt practices that have been going on there with the culpable connivance of those in charge. At our public hospitals today, after paying all the usual fees, patients have to put a two thousand francs bill inside their “carnet” before it is passed on to the doctor, or else s/he would not consult. If an injection is prescribed, 500 francs would have to be...

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