Celebrating Youth Day with spilling of blood!.

Just a few hours before President Paul Biya made his traditional Youth Day speech on Friday evening, some six workers of the government-owned Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, were murdered in Tiko, Fako Division of the South West Region.

Gabriel Mbene Vefonge, president of the Cameroon Agricultural and Allied Workers Trade Union, CAAWOTU, told reporters later that the workers, all youth, were ambushed at around 5:30p.m. after they had finished work and were returning home in a truck.

"They first shot the driver to immobilise the vehicle. They killed three other workers who were sitting in front, before shooting sporadically," Vefonge said, confirming that five were killed in total.

Other reports said one of the several workers, often packed in trucks like sardines, later died at the CDC hospital in Tiko where they were rushed to.

No group has claimed responsibility for the dastardly murder. But it is widely suspected that it might have been carried out by one of the separatist groups that have in the last six years been at war with government defence and security forces in the North West and South West regions.

Before the Friday attack, separatist warlords had imposed "ghost town", opposing the celebration of the day, which historically was when the people of the two regions voted to have independence by "joining their brothers and sisters" of French Cameroon in a federation.

President Biya did not mention the murder, which took place before his address and would have in normal circumstances in other countries, been declared a day of mourning. But these are no normal times especially in the two regions. He, however, in his opening sentence, conceded concerns for a "context marked by a series of crises affecting virtually all sectors of activity" and every State. As in previous speeches, President Biya attributed the challenges to "exogenous shocks as well as lingering internal threats disrupting the pace of implementation of some of our public policies".

He played down the "lingering internal threats" posed by the conflict in the two regions and Boko Haram, but aptly outlined the consequence "which drives some of you to the perilous path of illegal immigration, or the illusion of easy solutions that only lead to a dead end".

But what solutions were proffered to solve those problems?

The Head of State found the answers in education. He told the young people to "continue getting educated... You should also continue nurturing the love for discipline and hard work, while allowing yourself to be guided by the virtues of creativity and audacity".

He told the youth further that he “...will continue making the requisite efforts to create, together with the Government and other social partners, an environment conducive to your education as well as your professional integration and development of your full potential”.

"To that end, I will, as in the past, prioritise the development of our educational system, with further emphasis on professionalisation," he added.

Paradoxically, he expressed regrets that "in schools incivility, substance abuse, assault and many other excesses are increasingly becoming commonplace. Such behaviours should be prohibited as they do not serve your best interests". 

Why are Cameroonian youth engaged in such satanic behaviour, including murder?  Isn't it said that an "idle man", like most Cameroonian young people find themselves in pervasive unemployment, "is the devil's workshop"?

President Biya is very much abreast with the daunting problem facing Cameroonian youth. He understands he needs their cooperation and collaboration to succeed in solving their problems, whose solutions is not only in providing "opportunities available in areas such as agriculture, handicrafts, and digital economy".

It is not in the three-year development plan or opening universities in each region or "to fast-track the creation of a Guarantee Fund for Young Entrepreneurs, with a special window for financing projects promoted by youth of the Cameroonian Diaspora" that will be used to appease disgruntled youth.

There is a governance and political problem. Youth are disenfranchised as regards voting for those who govern them, especially in a context where their grandparents refuse to go on retirement and some even keep multiple jobs after going on retirement.

President Biya should reduce voting age from 20 to 18 years. This is to enable young people to have a say in who governs them to ensure they have their fair share in the various reams of state, as true future leaders.

The commander-in-chief of the armed forces urged youth not to be "tempted to yield to doubt and fear about the future". But in a context where they leave under the shadow of death as witnessed in Tiko on Youth Day's eve, it is hard to convince them that they are "partners" of the goals the Biya regime set for "building a strong Nation, a prosperous economy and a country that is proud, free and united in its diversity".