Emmanuel Konde
I just returned from my annual pilgrimage to the Fatherland where, in my hometown of Limbe, the unceasing torrential rains still flood the streets as well as a slew of neighborhoods.
Street scene in Limbe (c) Orock Eta
Pretentions of power and wealth still abound, while greed and graft are on the rise, even as social development lags behind. But the Green Revolution has ensured an eternal plenitude of food, so that there is hardly a single Cameroonian who spends the night with a hungry stomach.
Cameroonians have risen to unprecedented heights of industriousness, prompting me to imagine that the Bami-virus has infected nearly every person. Bush-butter and corn, planti and bush-butter, are roasted on street corners. So is fish. Internet cafés are everywhere, so that one pays only 300 FCFA for an hour of use. In some towns, especially Douala, one can find cafés where it is much cheaper to make international telephone calls than the calling card companies’ offer in America. Calls to America and Europe can be made for as cheap as 10 FCFA and 25 FCFA per minute.
Yes, there is any and everything in Cameroon. True, luxury items are expensive and hard to acquire for the majority. But the few swim in luxury as they ply the flooded streets of Limbe and the potholes of Bonaberi road in their SUVs. Yet the bare necessities of life are everywhere aplenty. Only the very lazy and un-inventive would go hungry in the Land of Promise; for, at the close of each market day ripe plantains, cocoyams, dry-fish, etc., are discarded by market women and any enterprising unemployed can make a great harvest for many an evening meal from picking up the leftovers at practically no cost whatsoever.

Everything is fine and dandy in Cameroon, excepting corruption, which is still pervasive and illusive. It has assumed the trappings of a national culture. Everyone, I think, encourages, if not participates, in it. The takers and givers, the powerful and the weak, are equally avid in this enterprise. It is a rare interloper from Mars like me who agonizes about this common cultural practice. The locals, friend and foe alike, laugh disdainfully in my face. They call me alien bushfaller, and ask: “Where you from come? Who you think you dey?”
A new form of corruption has intruded itself. It is new and confusing because it is irrational. I am not sure what its source is. It is insidious, threatening, and inhumane. One is confounded by its silence in unexpected places. The real story of this new phenomenon, this corruption of the worst kind, begins in the banks and offices of utility companies like SONEL and SNEC.
Here a customer, with millions of francs in his bank account, enters. Rather than welcome the customer with a smile, the bankers greet him with unwelcoming frowns. They size him up and bend their nostrils as if he was stinking. They look him up and down with penetrating eyes as if they are seeing through him, as if he were naked, even though he is clad in fine fabric. It is an uncomfortable sensation, a feeling that makes the alien customer dread the prospect of returning to the banks. But money is a kind of magnate. And where one’s money is, there also his mind lies. And so one goes back again and again, only to be insulted by those stares—those frowning and unhappy faces.
Why the frowns, I asked an acquaintance of old. He laughs ruefully as only a very knowledgeable person does and tells me that they want something from you. I am told that each time I withdraw I have to tip the teller, and that a tip of 5,000 FCFA or 10,000 FCFA would do the trick. It is indeed a strange logic of corruption that bad customer service should be rewarded to elicit good customer service. But alien bushfaller that I am, I cared less for their smile after-the-fact, let alone the urge to reward hostility. So I kept my money and they kept their frown, and we bide each other adieu.
At SONEL and SNEC the same treatment of customers is repeated as if both banker and utility office clerk graduated from the same School of Discourteousness. In these offices, no transaction is completely executed on the same day. “Go come tomorrow,” they tell you. On the morrow, they tell you to come back next week on Tuesday or Thursday. And so the same throng of customers is present at SONEL day after day, week after week, just to pay for a meter or meter-board. The clerks dribble and dribble, with some Anglophones, in their abject display of pretentiousness, refusing to speak English and preferring instead to speak only bad French in bilingual Cameroon.
Strange spectacles of self-negation and self-alienation I observed in my hometown. At the end of every day of torment, I would go home very tired and weep in silence and despair, in the solitary confines of my bedroom. Cameroonians are tormenting other Cameroonians for no reason at all. My heart bleeds internally and tears drip down the recesses of my soul. How does one explain what is happening? Why?
Excellent, Mr. Konde.
The country of Plenty has plenty of stench. Nothing but very poor leadership and has permeated the anglophone region like bad cancer with evry poor prognosis.
Posted by: Mr. Man | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 01:42 AM
Bribery has always been viewed from a two sided perspective where either the giver motivates the receiver in order to have some preferences or where the receiver obliges the giver to do so before some services are rendered. The case of Cameroon seems different. The giver has NO CHOICE. The receiver has the yam and the knife. If the giver complains to a superior, bribe is required for his complaint to be taken seriously.
We can curb this nightmare, by granting pardon to those who gave bribe and by motivating them to give information about those who obliged them to give bribe. Basically, we have to lecture public servants on the differences between their responsibilities and what most erroneously consider as favours.
Posted by: Bob Bristol | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 09:17 AM
Excellent piece, Mr. Konde. thanks for painting such a vivid picture of Cameroon.
Posted by: Emmanuel Egbe | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 11:31 AM
Good observation Mr. Konde on the bribery and corruption thing, but on the plenty to eat thing I would say that Cameroonians are malnourished. There is plenty to eat in Cameroon? YES! But Cameroonians fill the stomach with cocoyams, mami coco, planti etc but hardly organize a good balance diet to nourish the body despite the variety and abundance of vegetables, sea foods, etc. A Cameroonian will prefer a bottle of beer to a good diet.
Posted by: Kelvin Ross | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 01:22 PM
Rich reward, Konde for selling us to your frog cousins. Don't cry. That is what you got in return, a wholesale importation of venality, which take a generation of assiduous work to erase.
Posted by: Ma Mary | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 01:54 PM
No Cameroon for me. Never ever ever. I'll go nuts with that mentality and prolly start beating the crap outta people.
Posted by: Jive Turkey | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 02:04 PM
This what organizational psychologists call" a pathological state of a community" Yes, we are are sick in the mind. Cameroon is suffering from the pathology of coruption. Untill some one stands and help, the rest, the disease will only eat deaper into each one of us.
Posted by: Lasoka | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 02:04 PM
That was a good masterpiece Konde. This corruption issue is like viral meningitis. It has preety much become an acceptable way of life, and the thought of it can put fire in your guts. I wonder if this issue will ever be averted in this 21st century. Anyway there's still no place like home though..
Ivo Mbonde,
Seattle, Washington
United States.
Posted by: Ivo Mbonde | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 02:38 PM
its a shame,CIVIL SERVANTS.The transport ministry should be held accountable for every accident that occurs.In cameroon its easy to buy a drivers liscence without visiting a driving school
Posted by: ekowest | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 05:51 PM
Konde, i can quite relate to what you just narrated here. Eventhough i am not such a big fan of your articles, i must testify that i was overwhelmed by deep sadness by what i saw as soon as i touched down in my very own country. Well, i expected things to be bad, but the vexing and chaotic horror at the Douala so-called international airport really petrified me.
Shockingly, the police tried to stress me and i saw how worried my old woman was. But i knew what i had to do. Frankly, Cameroon is not for children any more. You must be MAN enough to survive in that place. I truly feel sorry for the average men and women back home who work so hard to make ends meet. But at the same time i really admire their courage to withstand such a horrendous challenge to eke out a living within such a tumultuous system that assails them incessantly.
Chariot town, my place of birth was as cool and serene as ever. But then, i could barely recognise the spirit of the same town that used to be so orderly and dutiful. At the bank to see the manager, i confronted one very lazy and whimsical so-called accountant who tried to prove to me that she too was somebody. But i knew what to do. Limbe, the place where i was raised had deteriorated immensely both physically and spiritually.
All in all, Cameroon is plenty fun when you breeze in with plenty green Konde. I am surprised that with all the bread that you say you had, you still had such a dismal time back home man. Maybe you simply didn't want to share?
Personally i think the moral decadence in Cameroon will simply exacerbate if we the children of that country continue to disengage ourselves from the travails that the country is plagued with as a result of egocentric and lacklustre leadership. Cameroon is still a nice place people.
Posted by: Ras Tuge | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 05:55 PM
Der Vaterland.
I like Motherlands better. More nuturing and kindly like.
A drunk father who does not take care of his kids rules.
Mothers are almost always better.
Posted by: ambe | Monday, 10 August 2009 at 11:40 PM
Masterpiece ma foot! Emmanuel Konde is a rotten piece of shit!
Posted by: Hahaha | Tuesday, 11 August 2009 at 03:33 PM
Konde ia an apologist for his kith and kin francophone cousins. His style is childish and in which Limbe did he see dry fish abandoned by the market which any decent west cameroonian can eat? Let him write about Bassa country also.
Posted by: joseph ngu | Wednesday, 19 August 2009 at 04:04 PM
ras tuge,
OH did you really touch down in your own country?
Any own from west of mungo. who did touch down in west of mungo touch down in a foreign country, i mean french cameroun or east cameroun, thats what the worldwide french culture, systeme,politics is, expect nothing better than that in 1000 years if not worse.
the only answe is complete un disturbed INDEPENDENCE FOR WEST CAMEROON AMBAZANIA
Posted by: DANGO TUMMA | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 02:32 AM
Dango, these are the same people who think since our parents (Foncha, Fonlon etc) gave us excrement to eat, we are doomed to continue to eat excrement. The experiment is over. It is dead. The only thing Fonlon did was that he idealistically believed in the possibilities of the union and toiled in his own way for it. His paper, "Will We Make of Mar?" needs to be excavated and republished so that people read what he was saying to people in power, including Ahidjo in 1967. He was expounded on what needed to be done to create a union between such dissimilar peoples. Clearly, we did not make. We marred.
Posted by: Ma Mary | Tuesday, 01 September 2009 at 05:21 AM
dwell on the issues without attacking others.
Posted by: Joe blo | Saturday, 05 September 2009 at 02:39 PM
We did not choose to be cameroonians. We do not always chosse our battles in life. We will fight for Cameroon, land of our birth. We will give blood to make it a better country for our children. We will exchange ideas and seek solutions on how we go about change.Enough speeches and criticisms.What can we actively start doing to bring change in Cameroon? How do we go about bringing an all out effective assault against biya,s regime?
Posted by: Joe blo | Saturday, 05 September 2009 at 03:06 PM
Do not be afraid to give your opinion on so hateful a subject matter for fear of being tagged a Bamenda Man with "Herd Mentality" . That is a tactic used to stifle debate. There is absolutely nothing wrong in pointing out evil no matter whose ox is grounded in the process. Allowing this fellow to his machinations is equally a crime of reckless dereliction of Duty and Non Assistance to someone in Danger. Konde is a total Weapon of Mass Distraction (WMD) and should be contained in his Tennessee Library.
Mishe Fon
SNIPPETS FROM FOUR OF HIS "FAMOUS" CYBER ANTI-GRAFFI...ISM
Monday April 14 2008….These Graffi people cannot deal with their village autocrats called cheifs-for-life but have the audacity born of blind ambition to challenge the workings of an evolving democracy headed by President Paul Biya. It is indeed strange that these men who embrace, carress, and worship primitive autocrats in their respective village communities, men who have no inkling about what democracy entails, should now rise to write shamelessly about President Biya
President Biya did not amend the Constitution. It is the elected representatives of the various political parties in the National Assembly--your brothers and sisters--who amended the Constitution. Indeed, at least the National Government has a Constitution that can be amended. Those your primitive and outdated autocracies presided over by village despots have neither constitutions nor laws. Your village polities are ruled by fear, fear that the all powerful village headmen you call chiefs will employ witchcraft to destroy any who dare to dissent.
What hypocrisy! What parasitism! Tell me, how can people like you ever rise to democratic political practice? SHAME on you! Shame on you!
April 17 2008…..There's nothing anti-Graffi in what I write but the truth.
FACT 1: The Graffi village-fondoms are autocratic.
FACT 2: Any Graffi person who aspires to establish democracy in Cameroon should first dismantle the autocratic institutions in his backyard.
FACT 3: Do not bother about the speck in my eye; peer in the mirror and remove the speck in your own eye first. The wisdom in that I offer you has nothing to do exclusively with Western education or culture. It holds true in every culture; it is universal.
FACT 4: Many of you are uneducated. You are simple functional illiterates who went through the motion of schooling: Register, buy and carry books around; sometimes read and perhaps understand nothing; go to class, listen to teacher/professor, perhaps engage in lofty discussion about which you know nothing; graduate with a worthless piece of paper in hand--diploma? Degree?
FACT 5: Confronted with reality, you Bamenda people simply fizzle....Please notice that I am lecturing and not debating with you. How can any right thinking person honestly support Graffi autocracy and advocate democracy for all of Cameroon? That logic is essentially truncated. Go back to school, and, this time, a real school and learn at least to think properly.
Dec 28 2007 Konde wrote…
Go back and review the resumes of those at the helm of the KNDP Government. The prime minister had no previous experience of administering anything but pupils in his classroom. The KNDP (a Graffi party) completely cut off Dr. Endeley from the administration of the affairs of state. The historical record is not mine to make. If you will, please prove me wrong. I do not care much for your sentimentality.
What I have written is not nonsense but the result of long years of study that culminated with my Ph.D. I am applying the cold and rigorous analytical skills I acquired.
Dec 25 2007, Konde….”The Francophones not only rescued West Cameroonians from the Igbos but saw West Cameroonians as totally incapable of administering their State, and thus undertook to transform the entire country to ensure that developments everywhere were running apace. It should surprise none whatsoever that Foncha and his entire entourage of Anglophone political elite gleefully moved to Yaounde in 1965, leaving foggy and dreary Buea to the political chaff.
Posted by: VA Boy | Tuesday, 08 September 2009 at 08:37 PM
Next time I'll put on some lederhose and sing "Adelvice". That should shatter the Captain Von Trapp illusions most thoroughly..
Posted by: Moncler jackets | Friday, 30 September 2011 at 02:42 AM
The narrative about the banks is unfortunately true. What the writer has mentioned is just a tip of the iceberg! Banks actually impose very strange charges and can wipe out an account and leave it in the red. How a dormant account attracts so much interest charges beats my brains. Why customers should be treated as if ATMs are compulsory defies logic and I actually witnessed a poor elderly lady forced to part with 2,000 francs for not using the ATM card withdraw her money from her account. We owe it to our lederly relatives who put us through school, to be nice and reasonable. ATMs are just another method of withdrawing money from the bank; they are not the only means. Extorting money as punishment for a customer not having an ATM card is just like taking bribe from persons who do not have ID cards on them.
Posted by: J. S. Dinga | Friday, 30 September 2011 at 06:57 AM