Monday, November 6, 2017, marks His Excellency, President Paul Biya,s thirty-fifth year at the helm of the country. A long time indeed that has earned him the credit of being one of Africa’s longest ruling president. This same period has also distinguished him among very few of his contemporaries, particularly on the African continent, who have sought to make the world a better place for mankind through his untiring search for peace.
It has been and will always be remembered as a disposition which fetched him a peace award side-by-side his Nigerian counterpart, the former President Olusegun Obassanjo. The stakes were the Bakassi oil-rich Peninsular. It was certainly a crisis situation that could have escalated to a point where world peace would be threatened.
The rest of the years during which President Biya has been in power, Cameroon has been viewed both within its borders and outside its borders with the perception of relative peace. Relative in the sense that the kind of crisis that have rocked other countries of the world and Africa in particular, have never been witnessed within the borders of this country. There might have been such cases as the civil disobedience that erupted and almost rocked the country in the early nineties, which in his wisdom he succeeded to bring things under control without much violence.
We may also recall the 2008 transporters strike which was quickly also brought under control. But all these did not seem to have depleted what all along, had encouraged the population to repose their confidence in him, which therefore meant that the perennial commemorations of his years in power in Cameroon had followed the same pattern, one that wished him well, one that acknowledged the seemingly peace and unity that was seen to reign in the country.
But this year’s anniversary marking his thirty-fifth year in power is one unlike the others. The truth is that the country is caught up in a web of a crisis such as the country has never experienced and it would be sheer hypocrisy for anyone to think that the President, from the bottom of his heart, will reckon this year’s well wishes with the same guiding spirit as it had always been in the previous years.
Such a perception simply amounts to deception. We must not forget that the country is at the cross-roads and no right thinking mind can feel contented with such flattery that paints a black picture white, simply to tell the president that all is well and that he should rest on his high seat, satisfied that all is well.. Let us be honest to ourselves. All is certainly not well, and this we need to tell our leadership, lest we be seen as workers in a garden that nurses the seed of hypocrisy.
We are, however, not saying that this year’s anniversary is worthless. Instead, to us, it is one that calls for deep reflection not only from the president, and his adviser, so too from the international community, who have since been showing their concern for the situation in the country, and from all Cameroonians, more so Cameroonians of the two English speaking regions of the country, who have felt the heat of the crisis more.
If we are therefore joining in this year’s commemoration of the President’s thirty-fifth anniversary, it is to remind him that the task ahead in finding a lasting solution to the present crisis is more dignifying and praise worthy than the sweet words that flatterers are used to sending across to him on this occasion. We would also want to emphasise that not all well wishes actually bear the true inner intentions of whosoever is doing the wishing, so long as such wishes do not actually take into consideration the situation under which they are being expressed.
The bottom line here is that we are appealing to the President to look back at his thirty-five years that he has been at the helm of things in this country, from which we believe he has drawn much experience in crisis resolutions so that he uses this experience with a humane touch.
We believe that under the present circumstances, the full meaning of this year’s commemoration hangs on the conviction that staying in power for long is a blessing, but in most cases one faulty step can easily destroy the efforts of the past rosy years. This is obviously what we are craving to avoid.