(INSIGHT NEWSMAGAZINE, No. 005, December 2003)
You may have missed a ‘Christmas special’ article in the December 21st 2002 edition of the European news magazine The Economist. I had also missed it, but Professor Yunkap Kwankam of the National Polytechnic, Yaounde, (presently with the WHO in Geneva), drew my attention to it and, when I could not lay my hands on a copy, he kindly sent me a photocopy of the article. The article, entitled ‘The Road to Hell is Unpaved’ is a veritable mirror held up close before the face of Cameroon, before the face of any Cameroonian for whom this rough triangle means anything. The article is not personally signed and is simply sub-titled ‘The Economist rides an African beer truck – and gets a lesson in development economics.
It is, however, quite evident from the article itself that the author is a non-Cameroonian, probably an expatriate white. The article is a graphic description of a trip in a Guinness Cameroon beer lorry, from Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital, to Bertoua, provincial capital of the East Province - a distance of about 500 kilometres, which eventually took four whole days to cover, after stopping at 47 road-blocks!
The first thing that forcefully struck the author of this article is the fact that Douala, one of Africa’s busiest port cities, has incredibly poor infrastructure, particularly the road infrastructure.
“The roads are resurfaced from time to time, but the soil is soft and the foundations typically too shallow. Small cracks yawn quickly into wide potholes. Street boys fill them with sand or rubble, and then beg for tips from motorists. But their amateur repair work rarely survives the first rainstorm. …Besides the potholes, motorists must dodge the wrecks of cars that have crashed. Under Cameroonian law, these may not be moved until the police, who are in no hurry, have arrived.”
The second were the numerous road-blocks. The road blockers, alias police, performed their ‘duties’ in a number of varied but similar and consistent ways.
“Sometimes, they merely gawped into the cab or glanced at the driver’s papers for a few seconds before waving him on. But the more aggressive ones detained us somewhat longer. Some asked for beer. Some complained that they were hungry, often patting their huge stomachs to emphasise the point. One asked for pills… But most wanted hard cash, and figured that the best way to get it was to harass motorists until bribed to lay off.”
Sometimes the policemen, comfortably reclining under the shade of a tree, would ask for the fire extinguisher, which would be taken to them and they would
“pore over the instructions on the side. Similar scrutiny was lavished on tail-lights, axles, wing-mirrors and tyres, all in the name of road safety. Oddly, no one asked about seat belts, which Cameroonians wear about as often as fur coats.”
Our author noticed that at some road blocks the police went through the papers word by word, in the hope of finding some error. At some point they inspected his passport and declared that the visa was on the wrong page! At another point, they declared that the driver of the truck did not have enough permits, but were ready to sell one for 8,000 francs CFA. The economist author was wondering how and why Cameroonians could put up with so much nonsense when the answer came at road-block number 31. At that point, the police had
“invented a new law about carrying passengers in trucks, found the driver guilty of breaking it, and confiscated his driving licence. When it was put to him that the law he was citing did not, in fact, exist, he patted his holster and replied: ‘Do you have a gun? No. I have a gun, so I know the rules.’”
Our author does in passing notice some of our blessings, like the ‘staggering’ scenery, the lush vegetation, thick forests, agricultural produce and even rare bush meats, such as pythons, and the incredibly efficient distribution of bottled drinks. (The other day, a young school girl innocently but seriously wondered why AES-SONEL could not hand over to Brasssaries for more efficient distribution of electricity). But he was particularly shocked by the lack of road infrastructure, the deteriorated state of the little that exists and the fact that the government does not seem to realize that good roads and easy loco-motive communication are the first step towards fighting poverty.
He concludes: “…the governments of poor countries ought to pay more attention to their roads. A good first step in Cameroon would be to lift those road-blocks and put the police to work repairing potholes.”
We can only murmur Amen! But, what if this very observant author, instead of taking his four-day trip to Bertoua, had instead visited the Ministry of Public Service, Finance, or the University of Yaounde 1 or Yaounde 2? What would he have observed? Your guess is as good as mine. And what if, instead of taking any trip at all, he had stayed in his 5-star hotel room in Douala, watching and listening to CRTV radio and television? Would he have found adequate words and images to describe 15 million people who, faced with such enormous man-made problems, seem to spend all their time and energies, at all levels, not addressing or redressing such problems, but rather chanting the praises, for ever thanking and sending interminable motions of support to a single potentate and his wife? Fifteen million non-angels in unending/eternal laudatory choruses, around the unholy throne of their non-divine divinity! From where did some of us inherit boredom?
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Posted by: pore minimizer reviews | December 29, 2012 at 12:31 AM
Gobata!
Are you still at it ? I do hope the potentate and his wife never lay hands on you because you will be sorry. You take serious matters and make us laugh and cry at the same time. Thank you for accepting to be our mirror and a very good one.
Posted by: Fon Akenji | December 22, 2004 at 08:01 AM