Crown of shame: Cameroon amongst worse governed African countries.

The good governance ranking, The Guardian Post gathered, is assessed through four main indexes. 

The indexes include corruption perception, rule of law, press freedom and political rights.

The governance index as set by World Economics, gives equal weight to all four criteria set by the researchers.

In its report released over the weekend, the global body noted that the pursuit of good governance in Africa remains a persistent challenge, with many countries facing political instability, corruption, economic hurdles, and social unrest. 

They explained that the said nations confront significant governance obstacles, including political repression, human rights abuses, economic mismanagement and conflict. 

The governance index, as established by World Economics, assigns equal weight to all four criteria outlined by the researchers. 

This means that governance, corruption perception, rule of law, press freedom, and political rights are all considered equally important factors in determining the overall governance score for a country, it noted.

According to the ranking institution, Cameroon has faced decades of governance challenges marked by allegations of electoral fraud, human rights abuses and a crackdown on political opposition. 

Additionally, the Anglophone crisis, fueled by grievances over marginalisation and discrimination, has further destabilised the country, leading to widespread violence, the report said.

The index numbers provided are all rebased and presented on a scale from 0 to 100, with higher values indicating better conditions. 

For governance, a score of 0 represents poor governance, while 100 signifies the highest level achievable. 

Similarly, corruption perception is rated on a scale where 0 indicates a negative perception and 100 reflects a positive perception.

The rule of law is measured from 0 to 100, with lower values indicating a lower rule of law and higher values indicating a stronger rule of law. 

Press freedom is assessed on a scale where 0 represents limited press freedom and 100 signifies high press freedom. 

Political rights are graded from 0 to 100, with higher values indicating greater political rights. 

The grade definitions include A: Very good, B: Good, C: Average, D: Poor, and E: Very poor. 

Based on the ranking, Cameroon received a grade of E, indicating very poor conditions, with a governance index score of 27.2. 

On the rule of law, Cameroon scored a grade of 27.7 meanwhile it got 31.3 for the respect of press freedom. 

Similarly, Cameroon scored 20.9 for respect of political rights and got a score 30.0 for corruption.

According to the World Economics governance index, Libya emerged the worst-governed country in Africa. The North African nation is trailed by the Democratic Republic Congo (21.6) with Chad (23.2) occupying the third position. 

Burundi (24.4), Central African Republic (25.1) and Cameroon (27.2) are ranked 4th, 5th and 6th respectively. 

Congo Republic (28.4), Egypt (28.8), Zimbabwe (29.0) and Eswatini (30.5) tailed the chart on the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th positions respectively.