Yaounde will have to admit that it is poorly advised and thank us for free, sincere, worthy technical advice. Advice is what helps decision-makers to know the plain truth of a situation and guides them to take the best decision with the fewest errors – avoidable repercussions. Information and views that comfort them in denial or trick them to see the wrong picture and take the wrong decision are trickeries by sycophants, driven by inferiority complex, knowing they do not merit their positions which they can only gain and maintain by creating false danger or false bliss.
Over Ngarbuh, Yaounde was in false bliss. Its sycophants told them falsehood. We told them the truth. Had they listened to us, they would not have had to swallow their vomit in admitting that the Ngarbuh massacre happened after all but (in what sounded somewhat elegant) that they were deceived to deny it by the false report from the Sergeant who led the operation. Not only Sergeant Babangida lied. “Big men” in Yaounde who are supposed to have an ear to the ground, were in a position to know beyond an “administrative report” by a soldier. Intelligence gathering goes beyond that.
So, many observers are dismissing Yaounde’s meaculpa, saying they knew they were lying and lied all the same. I want to give Yaounde the benefit of doubt, hoping they will apologise to us and learn their lesson going forward.
One of the loud mouths over the Ngarbuh denial is supposed to be close to state security files. He boasts that often. Yaounde ought to draw its conclusions over his qualifications for the job from the quality of his reports. Time is past for “Jangos” to ruin the city with muscles and hard talk at a time finesse is the recipe.
Yaounde – even Yaounde – needs better and can do better. Yaounde has many times realised even its crooked ways are further ruined by rusty guys. In the early 2000s, Paul Biya told a top state security Chief during his traditional airport audiences that he has come to realise his reports are often fake(d). That is the same day he told a former SGPR now in jail that his finger was often seen around money issues. “Why?” he asked the chap. Both men eventually lost their positions. Yes, Yaounde – even Yaounde – needs men who work straight and has disposed of men who take advantage of troubled waters to make their crooked ways the norm. Yaounde can fix up if it really means to. The times demand it. “Last fight” is often time to make amends lest the whistle blows, catching them pants down.
We give free thankless advice to Yaounde to the chagrin of sycophants and bootlickers who lie to the high horse that the day is bright and fair though their own very shoes are drenched and stuffy from wetness outside. That is the place of the watchdog press in a healthy democracy, now given away by a cheap lot within the ranks.
The “Republican Press”
Unfortunately, most of the watchdog private Press is bought, packaged and delivered to the devil. They have sold their pages for 20 pieces of silver. They parade their swelling (swollen) bellies and extra bottles of beer as their life achievements. Oh poor Press! How did we get to be so cheap?!
Well, that too depends on what or who is the Press. Is it everyone “pressing”? Should a line be drawn between Pressmen and press men – those whose eyes are on the money – which better money sef? – on a pittance, selling cheap, licking low. They are desperately pressing (squeezing) juice out of the unholy sh*t of vampires? They have arrogated to themselves the appellation, somewhat jocular though, of “Republican Press” as if just being the Press, that is ethical, serious, truthful journalists, makes anyone a rebel or anti-patriot. They mean by Republic Press that they are the loyalists, in the mold of “Le Patriot” newspaper of yore, propped by Jacques Fame Ndongo in the mid-1990s to serve as a counterforce to a supposed ethnic Press. Then, Le Patriot was kind of a pariah press. Today it is the way to go. Fully legitimised. It is the new realism. It is called survival journalism. Curiously, not only sneak-ins are licking low. Even some “respected” and “responsible” seniors since showed their licking capacity long before the present political impasse, blaming colleagues who were molested by the entourage of a visiting big man on an inspection mission to the South West some years back. It was a terrible effect of low-licking!
And colleagues who do not practice low-licking and happen not to own a car, are scorned and mocked. Yet, hardly do any of them own cars or build mansions like a handful who have become their role-models. Maybe they are building some kind of house but not mansions and driving some kind of car, not posh and that is not worth the pettiness. They can achieve that without selling their souls so cheap, licking so low, can’t they? They quaff extra bottles of beer to show off their new status as beneficiaries of the booty from Republican Journalism.
Twenty pieces of silver is too little gain for so much lost in their honour, job satisfaction and moral grounds of their future claim of any right to freedom of the Press. They are used by crooked men in Yaounde and elsewhere to legitimise lies over Ngarbuh and the like. Outside Editorial Policy which is a choice, they could, under treasury pressures (or survival journalism) rather do Special Reports, duly labelled not to deceive the public that such bloody lies were truth. But they sadly and shamelessly own the lies, and punch them on the front pages with hungry conviction to fool readers. What shall they say now? But some day, they hope to turn coat and be understood to have been doing this just for survival. Such a pity!
Kamto inducing Yaounde into error
Yaounde is in such panic over Maurice Kamto’s antics, yet unsure how to contain them. They are asunder among themselves how to proceed. The boisterous Paul Atanga Nji of MINAT wants the bank account for Survie-Cameroon-Survival Initiative (Kamto and co’s anti-Covid-19 crowd-funding) lodged at Afriland First Bank to be closed. But a statement attributed to Justice Minister Laurent Esso (not yet disclaimed nearly two weeks on, thus lending it credence) mocks Atanga Nji for requesting the closure of an account without providing the account number and without any understanding of the complicated procedure that could take, as well as the legal risks of engaging such a venture. Esso is also supposed to have said that was only under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Finance who has competence over banks.
Next, the MINAT requests action from MINFI and Louis Paul Motaze is supposed to have equally laughed it off. This filtered into social media, prompting Motaze to issue a disclaimer, denying he rejected Atanga Nji’s request. There are reports regime insiders are whispering that Atanga Nji was simply manifesting personal animosity against Kamto.
On the other hand, Kamto is threatening legal action should the account be tempered with. Connoisseurs understand what that implies and are backing off. The stubborn fly is diving head-on to hit the rock. Over don namboot!
Meanwhile, Cameroon-Info.Net is reporting that MTN has informed Maurice Kamto it has unfrozen the MTN MoMo account for the fundraiser, which it says was frozen on the orders of a state authority. Christian Penda Ekoka, head of the initiative, has thus called on Orange Cameroun to follow suit and unfreeze its Orange Money account where multitudes of Cameroonians have been contributing to its GoFundMe fundraiser.
Cameroon’s Chloroquine gullibility, Limbe mayor’s demise
The Mayor of Limbe I, Ro-Danny Mokako Mbua, reportedly died of a coronavirus-related ailment and had been under some chloroquine treatment. But those supposed to be close to him say while his coronavirus status had not been confirmed, he might have been killed by the chloroquine because, they say, he had earlier manifested signs of hypertension or heart disease and experts have warned that chloroquine could have such fatal after-effects.
Besides suspicions of other possible unorthodox causes of the mayor’s death, his sudden demise is strongly linked to chloroquine boomerang because he was reportedly on his feet when he was driven to Douala where he was referred. Great thus was the shock in Limbe when his death was reported only hours later.
The Yaounde government has enthusiastically embraced Chloroquine since Donald Trump amplified Didier Raoult’s claim that the malaria drug could solve Covid-19 and President Biya ordered its production locally. But scientists the world over have warned against rushing with chloroquine as an effective treatment and also of its dangerous after-effects. Last week, no greater puncture to the chloroquine enthusiasm could have come than from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In a statement at the end of last week, FDA warned: “It is important that health care providers are aware of the risks of serious and potentially life-threatening heart rhythm problems that can occur with these drugs.”
outside africa
COvid-19: China inducing the West into error
Western countries are apparently hastening to ease coronavirus lockdowns and confinements just not to be seen to be in distress while their ideological rival, China is making hay after overcoming the crisis in record time. They may not want China to be seen to have done better than them, faster than them.
Without a cure yet for Covid-19, though with relative decline in infections (thanks more to barrier measures), Western countries are relaxing measures helping them to break the chain of infection. Worse so, in the US where the infection curve is yet to flatten and the death toll according to John Hopkins Institute stood at nearly 51,500 at the weekend, the quest for Springtime fun is pushing many to protest against confinement measures and they are supported by President Donald Trump who has not hidden his embarrassment at the way China appears favoured through the malaise.
China, where the pandemic originated late last year, has since contained it and, after mourning its 4,642 dead on April 4, began returning to normalcy. That looks like a slap on the face of the “dominant West”. China is understood to have achieved this feat through discipline and legendary manifestation of organised mobilisation. For China, overcoming Covid-19 was a matter of national survival and national pride.
Envious of the Chinese success, many Western scholars and public officials began wondering aloud whether the “Chinese approach” was not better. “Chinese approach” could imply many things, including perhaps ideological considerations which could evoke a judgment of who is the real winner of the 1945-1990 Cold War.
But in inducing the West to rush out of confinement just to save face, China may be pushing them to commit errors that could be costly on their human resource, with socio-economic implications in the long run. It could result in a re-escalation of infections and deaths, especially in the United States where Trump fans are both in denial and in quest of freedom – freedom to die by Covid-19, it seems.