Dear Ngwa,

You are right, Ngwa. If filth, sleaze and moral turpitude could be exported, Cameroon would be very rich. Corruption in all its ramifications has become a way of life in this so-called land of promise; a modus Vivendi, to say the very least.

People steal without blinking. One could even dare state that it only suffices for one to buy one’s way all the way, after stealing, to avoid sharing premises with the likes of the sanctimonious hypocrite who transformed part of the patrimony into national choir house and lorded over it for eighteen years, “dry-cleaning” the place the way locust would, before being reluctantly ditched.

I disagree with you, when you aver that the lion man cannot take the censure for every odd thing happening in this country. The boastful leader, or should we say “dealer”, ought to take vicarious responsibility for everything wrong with the system. By the way, that is part of the burden of political office. Besides, isn’t it the African sage, Chinua Achebe, who commented that the kid is bound to watch the mother goat as it chews the cud?

This is a man who is known to pay us courtesy visits from time to time. Where he lives in Europe boasts well paved roads and lanes. Public utilities work here with the precision of a Swiss watch. The airports are spick and span. The mass transit system works… electric power supply is reliable and water is not only potable but also affordable. The healthcare delivery system is in tune with modern day technological advances.

They are way beyond mere consulting clinics, as the late Nigerian tyrant, Sanni Abacha once said of his country’s medical care system. Yes, our visiting lion man sees, appreciates and benefits from all of these, where he resides in Europe; yet, when he visits us back here, he hardly considers “transferring” the modern technology which his minders provide for him out there for us, lesser mortals to benefit from. What a shame?

Ngwa, do you remember that the West is in this bad habit of selling death to the rest of us for a small fee, courtesy of our puppet leaders? Yes, they do. And of recent, the Chinese, with their gluttonous appetite, even for the baby’s food have swooped upon the land, pretending to be spoon-feeding us to economic maturity. But I tell you that in the journalism profession, we say that there is no free lunch.

I call their vicious act “White-mail”. Mark my words! I didn’t say “blackmail”. Yes, it amounts to sheer white-mail, when these Mulattos give us one disposable Chinese product or cosmetic machinery and grab huge parcels of our land, huge tons of minerals and other priceless valuables in return. I call this diplomatic rape.

In diplomatic rape, you are decently raped and told of how all the rapist did was confer upon you the status of a ripe damsel, qualified to be taken down the aisles by a flaming Romeo in shining armour. Just wait and see; I am already imagining the time when these modern day Merchants of Venice will resort to giving us disposable children in exchange for our precious minerals... and sperms.

Ngwa, I made it to the land of the Pharaohs and you could have knocked me down with a feather after I saw the level of development in this origin of civilization. The airport, the roads, the harnessing of the Nile waterways, the huge investment in housing and other infrastructures simply bewildered me.

In fact, our so called Nsimalen Airport pales into an “Amour Mezam” park in Mile Two, Bamenda, when compared with Cairo. When shall we start effective construction without the idiotic fanfare of shutting down the entire nation and splashing the whole town with pictures of the lion man, all because of a second footbridge over the Wouri?

Talk of professing more Catholicism than the Pope! The Professor who failed in political engineering like a lazy schoolboy that failed his exams has recently joined the ranks of unsolicited do-gooders. He now has enough time in his hands to venture into domains, to comment on issues about which he possesses a little less than a nodding knowledge…

The devil truly has this uncanny habit of providing jobs for idle hands. Kindly remember to greet your body for me.

Sincerely, Mbella