Shortly after the last presidential election was held on the 9th of October 2011 in which the leader of the PAP party, Ayah Paul Abine, was one of the 23 opposition party candidates who ran against Incumbent President Paul Biya of the CPDM, Ayah published pictures of women demonstrating at the Cameroon Tea Estate (CTE) for nonpayment of dues.

When the elections were announced, Ayah surprised everyone by coming fifth among the 24 candidates who vied for the post.

When he published the images, he also pointed out that the women's demonstration had been broken up by local administrators. Ayah did well by bringing this “social injustice” to the attention of the world.

However, he could have gone further. But he stopped short. By reporting the event, Ayah did the job of a journalist which is to “expose”. He did not do that of the politician which is to “correct”.

Where Ayah erred is that as a politician and especially a presidential candidate who literally came from nowhere to find himself so high up on the league table of presidential candidates, he should have exploited the incident of the striking women to his own advantage.

Instead of just reporting, the former parliamentarian could have acted by either personally marching up to the regional governor's office and asking him some tough questions, or driving to Yaounde to demand an explanation from the minister in charge. If he did that then he would have been parading a solution to the public, not the problem.

Right now, Ayah has tremendous power and political clout which he does not seem to realize. So from that viewpoint, he is like the proverbial man who earned five thousand francs a day but lived poorly on only five hundred francs.

Ayah after all did comparatively well in the recent presidential election. In fact, after Paul Biya with a 77.9 score; Ni John Fru Ndi came second with 10.7; Garga Haman Adji came third with 3.2, it is Ayah who followed in the fifth place with 1.2 percent. Ayah is to be commended because, unlike the other candidates, he was a first-timer to the presidential race.

From that perspective, Walla Edith Kabang (popularly known as ‘Ka Walla’) another newcomer and the woman with the best score at the election, deserves some praise for coming closely behind Ayah at number 6th place with 0.71 per cent of the votes.

Henceforth, it is in Ayah's political interest to learn that in order to grow stronger in politics and be able to stand the test of time, a politician should seek to show what he can do for the people rather than just show that he can demonstrate that his adversary is ruling poorly.

(NOTE: This article was first published on my blog, Amazing Grace www.tmazonga.blogspot.com on the 11th of October 2011.)