2025 Presidentials: What Cameroon of tomorrow!.

International community, as International Relations scholar at Oxford University, Hedley Bull, writes, "plays out in an anarchical way with each nation-state advancing its strategic interests via international cooperation in a multilateral context. Keeping external factor excuses aside, each nation strives for its own interest, especially in a context of geopolitical rivalry for an Edoardo; determined by a strong national economic growth in an enabling environment of peace and security”. 

Cameroon, which some eight years back, used to be described as an "Island of peace in a troubled Central African Sub region", has in the past seven years been mired in insecurity.

The conflict in the North West and South West Regions as well as the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North Region, have significantly been at a lull, but the remnants of sporadic killings, kidnapping for ransom, ghost Mondays etc., remain reminders that there is still a yawning vacuum of peace and security.

On the heel of a crucial presidential election, the nation finds itself in another hinge moment in history, grappling with the fundamental question of strategic policy.

Cameroon politics is basically harboured on tribalism. It promotes violence and triggers hate speech. Some ‘leaders’ exploit resentments and stoke fears; erode fair play, enrich cronies, crack down on civil society, media and political rivals. All that should be avoided.

For a Cameroon of tomorrow, we need to campaign on issues such as a "national quota" in appointment to top public office, allocation of investment projects and social amenities based on area of derivation of natural resources, population density and land mass.

Another fundamental issue for a Cameroon of tomorrow is the "the rule of law". Without a just judiciary, there will be an impunity of the rule of the strongest with illicit wealth used in buying justice and displaying their arrogance with an infectious aura of panache and glamour.

Does the Cameroon judiciary offer the justice of equality and equity guided by "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"?

The African Commission for Peoples and Human Rights in Banjul, to which Cameroon is a member, is on record to have ruled that the Cameroon judiciary is far from being independent.

It argued that with President Paul Biya being head of the Higher Judicial Council and the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals as his vice in a body that appoints, promotes and disciplines corrupt magistrates; was at variance with an independent body, even though enshrined with the constitution as a power on its own.

In many democracies, such functions are handled by a parliamentary judicial commission and top justices screened by the Senate before appointment. Once appointed, they cannot be fired except by impeachment.

That is the judiciary which Cameroon needs for tomorrow; which should for instance question why General Managers of State corporations continue to serve for more than 10 years when a presidential decree limits them to a maximum of nine years?

Why do top government officials continue to hold multiple posts in violation of the law in an environment pregnant with unemployment?

Why, with all the spin about "Grand Ambition" and "Grand Achievements", major urban and semi-urban communities can be without electricity for weeks, insufficient drinking water and roads that are ruined with mud in the rainy season and suffocating dust in the dry season?

Why is there an educational system that churns out thousands of graduates yearly who look up only to the government for jobs when no country can employ up to one percent of its population?

Those are issues of how we can get from where we are today to where we want to be, without being struck by violence along the way.

As President Biya said to the youth on February 10, who are the majority of Cameroonians, they should "...take advantage of digital technology to create self-employment opportunities and to address the challenges of your time". 

"I would also encourage you to participate in the moral, civic and entrepreneurial rearmament programme that the Government has designed to strengthen your civic engagement," Biya added. 

These challenges are addressed through politics by politicians who make decisions that solve problems. We can get to the Eldorado we want to be without complaining about external forces which are just minute challenges. 

But there should be a playing field of justice and fair play for the people, to whom real power emanates to make their choices without being influenced by intimidation, corruption of the electorate, exclusion or tribalism. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3368 of Monday February 17, 2025