Snapshots: An X-ray of Cameroon�s Democracy, Governance and Unification

30. CDC And the Privatisation Palaver (II)

113 30 CDC And the Privatisation Palaver (II) Monday November 5, 2001 Land in Africa is communal property and there is no such thing as ‘no man’s land’ whether or not such land is actively occupied. African traditional wisdom commended the reservation of undeveloped land for the purpose of grazing livestock and to provide fuel and raw material for building, carving, weaving textile, medicinal plants etc. and above all, for posterity. The introduction of a capitalist mode of production brought about a painful social revolution and injected an imponderable element into the social fabric of the indigenous communities. The Bakweri people, who have been unfairly regarded as lukewarm (lazy), have a traumatic story to tell. The venerable Southern Cameroons statesman and Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Honourable P.M. Kale, in his youthful days as Secretary of the Cameroon Youth League he co-founded in Lagos with Southern Cameroons’ first Prime Minister, EML Endeley in 1940, dispatched a petition to the colonial office depicting the plight of the indigenous population when Germany confiscated their land. “[Indigenes] who refused to work for the Germans were expelled from the fertile plains to try farming for themselves on the rocky slopes about 6000 to 8000 feet above sea level. No economic crops can thrive well at such heights except probably coffee. All the former native food stuffs, which were yams of all species, gourds of all species etc. cannot in any case do well at such heights.” The 1946 petition, written on behalf of the chiefs, was renewed the following year, reiterating demands for the restitution [at least] of all unoccupied land ceded to missionary bodies. Extracts of the petition published by George Padmore (Africa: Britain’s Third Empire, 1950) noted that “As a last resort to eke out a living, we fell on planting 114 foreign foodstuff which is coco-yam. But unfortunately this is not suitable foodstuff as the medical authorities testify and it forms the chief foodstuff here because of sheer necessity. Therefore, it makes it obvious that malnutrition is rampant. Our women, who by custom are the planters of locally consumed foodstuff, have to climb to above mentioned heights… and on their return from the farms, they carry heavy loads. This causes our women to have early breakdown in health. The climbing of heights by mothers is also responsible for great infant mortality…” To add insult to injury, natives who wanted to plant some economic crops had to rent land from missionary bodies thus paying for what, to all intents and purposes, belongs to them. Who would resist plunging into a state of confused lethargy when the means of subsistence is taken away and procreation become hazardous? If the above do not constitute enough reason for the government to consider the peculiarities of the CDC in Southern Cameroons and that it ought to listen to the indigenous stake holders, through the well-established Bakweri Lands Claim Commission and the labour union and set aside a quota of the share holdings for the benefit of same, then it should be bluntly reminded that by privatizing the CDC, the regime merely wants to continue reaping where it did not sow. After a decade of carting way benefits accruing from the original CDC for the wellbeing of French Cameroon, the Yaounde government has no qualms auctioning it. While time is still on their side, it could be said with no margin of error that, knowing full well that the days of the two decades- old kleptocracy that has presided over the fate of Cameroon are numbered, the regime has embarked on a looting exercise called privatization; an economy based on private enterprise, but which in reality is not an open-market system. John D. Sullivan refers to this type of behaviour as “rent-seeking”. If indeed the government is serious about a policy of state nonintervention in the economy, then it should give priority to indigenous private participation or else stand the challenge of taking 115 the policy to its logical end; namely a total abdication, not only from the economy, but also from power. S-N F. 116 ...