Cameroon Echoes {Echos Camerounais}

50 Years After: Cameroon’s History Witnesses More Distortions

By Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

 Is it not rape of the intellect of even the ordinary Cameroonian that the story of Cameroon is being thwarted even by those who lived it? Otherwise how do we interpret the growing misrepresentation and interpretation of Cameroon’s history, making the facts as unrealistic as every other happening in Cameroon’s daily life?

How would any right-thinking Cameroonian, except those who have no conscience say Cameroon reunited in 1972?

It might be seen just as another slap on the face of the docile Anglophone, but it is a harder slap on the conscience and history of the whole Cameroon nation.
The history of the nation may be distorted by a clique of unpatriotic citizens, but it stands to be scrutinised and corrected by the international community.

The Commonwealth Secretary General, Kamalesh Sharma, was one of President Biya’s special guests at the 20th May celebration and the official launching of the 50th anniversary may have done just that.

The Secretary General and his delegation during an audience after the march past on 20th May at the Unity Palace in Yaounde presented to President Paul Biya two maps, the one representing West Cameroon and the other representing East Cameroon before reunification.

Though the Secretary General said after the audience that the two maps were a symbolic gift that depicts the two regions before reunification, many observers believe it was a vivid reminisce of the historical facts of the country that should be respected and under no circumstances be adulterated.

Throughout the activities marking the 50th anniversary celebrations, pictures or maps of this nature painting the history of the country before reunification were absent, indicative of some calculated intent to conceal certain historical facts.

It should be recalled that President Paul Biya in his message to the nation in prelude to the official launching of the 50th anniversary celebrations said the event will span throughout the year to culminate in the celebration of the reunification of East and West Cameroon on 1 October 2011.

This, accordingly, implies that Cameroon, next year, will be celebrating reunification and not the independence of West Cameroon.

Historically, however, the Western part of Cameroon got its independence on 1 October 1961 one year after their brothers of East Cameroon on 1 January 1960. So while East Cameroon has 50 years of freedom from their French colonial master in 2010, West Cameroon will have its own 50 years of freedom from their English colonial lords in 2011.

Biya Receive Other Guests
The 38 edition of Cameroon’s National Day that also coincided with the 50th anniversary celebration was a moment of honour and pride for the country and its leader, President Paul Biya who for the first time since taking over power in 1982 saw such quality VIP visitors in a single event.

After the over three hours march past, each of the special guests took turns to discuss with their host on some salient issues dear to them.

Beginning with neighbouring Nigeria where two past presidents, Yakubu Gowon and Olosegun Obasanjo and the newly sworn in, Goodluck Jonathan, all had friendly tete-a tete with him, Paul Biya was apparently quite at ease with the over 20 special guests including 10 current Heads of State in the continent: 
Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, Sasso Ngueso of Congo, Idris Deby of Tchad, Francoise Bozize of Central African Republic, Joseph Kabila of DR Congo, Ali Bongo of Gabon, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Fradrique De Menezes of Sao Tome and Principe.

Other dignitaries included former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamlesh Sharma, Ali Treki, President of the 64th UN General Assembly, Jean Ping, Chairman of the African Union Commission, Cai Wu, Chinese Minister of Culture, etc.

‘Poorism’ the new tourism as the well-heeled visit Africa’s shanties

American tennis star Serena Williams watches as local junior tennis players train at the Kibera slums in Kenya's capital 

Scenes of foreign camera and soundmen strolling through filthy alleyways, chatting with locals, buying trinkets and pretending not to mind the garbage and open sewers are common in Nairobi, Cairo and other African cities.It looks like Africa-bound tourists have had enough of the typical fare of resorts and game parks. Seeing how the world’s downtrodden live is the new tourism.A two-sided argument has been raging between proponents and opponents of this controversial forex earner known as poverty tourism – or poorism.

The scramble for Africa’s treasures

The history of the African continent is littered with the exploits of plunderers. Slave traders - local and foreign - held sway for centuries, carting multitudes of Africans across the Atlantic, to plantations in the Americas and elsewhere. When the slave trade went out of fashion, the land grab followed. In Berlin in 1885, the colonial warriors carved Africa up into bits - represented on the map as brightly coloured slices - which they then proceeded to administer and exploit, until the wave of independence that arrived with the 1950s. Following that phase, the scramble has largely taken on an economic dimension, with Africa’s oil and minerals and farmlands up for grabs.

VEXED IN THE CITY: Liabilities of democracy

By Dayo Elusakin

Democracy, they say, is government of the people, for the people, and by the people. I feel certain that it is not for a lack of a better choice of words that the word "people" appears three times in the definition. By this definition, the proponent, I believe, intended to state clearly, leaving out shadows of doubt, as to what constituted the most important ingredient of a democracy - people!

Unfortunately, a negative trend is rocking my society, an evil cloud is hovering over the land blocking out the light. The result, a dullness, a situation where the people have forgotten that they are all that matter in a democracy, and everything is of them and by them. By implication, proponents in our society today would very likely define democracy as: government of the leaders, for the leaders, and by the leaders.

The failure you can`t avoid

Failure is in the process of making success. Those who avoid failure also avoid success - Robert Kiyosaki. The one thing nobody wants to hear is failure. The one thing everybody wants to hold is success. Life ushers us this cheerful desire to keep fuelling our efforts of attaining an enviable summit.

But how many of you really know that success and failure are sisters clothed in identical garment, only with differing colours and fragrance?

These two forces abide in same household and mostly step out onto the street with same rhythm of stride. They ride in tandem, calling out to clients at the same time, but with unbalanced volume of sound.

Success screams louder and lures more people into her wagon, whereas failure endures her unpopularity waiting to recover those who will eventually drop off the wagon of success. These two sisters love themselves as much as their clients hate to be seen together.

Do white Africans exist?

Photo from EPA

By Musa Haratu

It depends on which side of the fence one is standing on – and it’s a topic that’s become very pertinent in Zimbabwe.

President Robert Mugabe wants all businesses operating in the country to be 51 per cent owned by black Zimbabweans, not white. It seems being white and African is a foreign concept.

Terrorism can sometimes do good – by accident

KENYA HAS GOT ITSELF IN- to an impossible position with Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, the Jamaican Islamic preacher it deported last week, but is now back in the country — because no country (including Tanzania, from which he came to Kenya) will take him.

Short of putting him on a charter flight to Jamaica, Faisal looks doomed to live many weeks at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Faisal’s problems (he actually looks like a reggae musician), seem to stem from the suspicion that he might be a religious extremist.

What can money not buy?

 

"It is good, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things money can't buy" - LORIMER. Have you ever asked yourself to know really the things money can't buy? I have, but couldn't readily find any - maybe I didn't ponder deeply enough or I was being overwhelmed by the power of money - I'm sorry!

Drugs Vendor : Nuisance in Public Buses

 A drug vendor raised anxiety last weekend when he was grossly irritated by one of his own drugs. 

A middle-aged folk, who retails both generic and traditional drugs in most interurban buses that ply the Douala-Yaounde highway, last Sunday, suffered an unprecedented attack of dysentery in a 70 seats bus, while he advertised one of his newly branded products, purportedly designed to purge the adults’ digestive track of junk. The trader, known to passengers as Dr. Ling Ti Ling, was supposedly churned by a teaspoon of some brown powdered stuff which he daringly gulped to vindicate its safety and efficacy. 

Zuma: I'm sorry. Opposition:His sexual advances to the children of his friends... go to the heart of his moral bankruptcy,"

1. President Jacob Zuma has apologized to the nation for fathering a child out of wedlock with the daughter of soccer boss Irvin Khoza. There is great danger the scandal would overshadow his state of the nation speech on Thursday evening amid accusations that his administration is in a state of torpor.

   

   After vigorously defending himself, Zuma bowed to pressure at the weekend and apologized - his second apology in recent years for similar acts.
   
   Ruling African National Congress officials are due this week to commemorate the 20th anniversary of former president Nelson Mandela's release from prison at various ceremonies in the Western Cape, culminating in Zuma's state of the nation speech on the actual day Mandela was freed in 1990.