In spite of the recent overwhelming success in the placement of Cameroon Government Investment Bonds, better known in French as 'Emprunt Obligataire', to the tune of 200 billion CFA francs, the Financial Markets Commission of Cameroon led by Chief Theodore Edjangue, is not satisfied with the overall performance of the market. - Another issue is generalized ignorance on the existence of a structured financial market in Cameroon. The poor reporting of financial news in the country’s media organs, including newspapers, radio and television, web blogs and web sites, further creates confusion in the minds of Investors. The market has quickly slipped into a vicious cycle of inadequ…

- After toying with multi party politics for twenty years since 1990, the Republic of Cameroon is fast becoming a “democracy” with no political parties. The trend at which political parties are disappearing, coupled with the fact that the two or three that have weathered the storms have lost key members in publicized and low-keyed resignations is clearly pushing Cameroon towards a “no party democracy”. The other day I was in my office around 08:00am trying to organize the different News assignments when a tired looking man stumbled in with a dog-eared folder. He said he wanted to see the Station Manager but both the office and the secretariat were still locked. The…

- Don't blame a he-goat in heat! Its attitude is only natural. And the aroma is part of the "deal". The taste of the pudding is in the eating. Who can make out a raw deal from the old “New Deal”? That aside, the dog had already been hanged and the Minister of Communication only had to give it a befitting “burial”? You got it all wrong, a befitting “bad name”. The system has taken a dog to the gallows and the “honourable” thing for a “patriotic” minister to do is to give it a befitting bad name. The journalist Bibi Ngota Ngota died of “opportunistic infections” given that he was “HIV positive, bla…

- When one critically looks at the Cameroonian society since November 1982, it is not immediately clear whether the citizens have doubted 27 years of benefits or whether their leaders have benefited from 27 years of doubt. One way or the other, there has been benefits and doubts. A dispassionate examination of the business and organizational leadership sectors in the country clearly points to 27 years of managerial failure. One can consider management as the ability to plan, organise, and coordinate an organisation’s financial, human, material and other resources in order to achieve its objectives. You don’t need to study the management classics, or delve into “Scientifi…

- The entire world mourns! The world of culture and the Social Sciences pays tribute! A giant Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss is dead at the age of 101! The French Social Scientist born in 1908 died on Tuesday the 3rd of November 2009. The man whose age sounds like the Code of a basic Course in any university discipline will most be remembered in academic circles. Any scholar with a firm grounding in Anthropological Theory, or anybody who has explored the Main Currents of Anthropological Thinking will clearly remember Claude Lévi-Strauss and his enormous contributions to the Social Sciences. A rigorous study of Sociological Theory, notably the works of Professor George Ritzer grouped u…

- During his first media outing Cameroon’s Minister of Communication Issa Tchiroma invited journalists particularly those of the private press to be more responsible and patriotic. Reasoning along the lines “all roads lead to Johannesburg” the minister said the Cameroon government can help the private press to make money if such press becomes responsible and patriotic. And to show the seriousness of his argument the minister parted with tradition and made the press outing simultaneously on state and private television stations. This is not the first time that the press in Cameroon is classified as either loyal or rebel, patriotic or insurgent, well-fed or hungry, state o…

- On the 12th of July 2007, I said that if those who were scheming to manipulate Cameroon’s constitution succeed in making President Paul Biya a presidential candidate again in 2011, I too will run for the office of President of the Republic. My fear then was that we could end up with the same political actors, and a déja vu scenario in 2011 or a replica of the 1997 and 2004 presidential elections. And since 1990, there has never been any doubt in my mind that a new head of state will manage this country differently and lead it towards progress and development. What we obtain so cheap, we esteem so lightly, and that is how some people found themselves in the Unity Palace. The wrong…

Cameroon's popular musician Lapiro de Mbanga now has to go to the Supreme Court, in his search for justice in the case of looting and complicity in the destruction of property in the town of Mbanga during the February 2008 riots. His nine month old appeal case at the Littoral Court of Appeal in Douala has not turned out in favour of the popular musician. - The Appeal Court on Wednesday upheld the decision of the Moungo High Court in Nkongsamba, sentencing Lambo Sandjo Pierre Roger, popularly known as Lapiro de Mbanga to three years in prison. The 52 year old musician, who is also a third class traditional ruler in Mbanga, and a staunch militant of the opposition Social Democratic Fr…

- In the face of rampant corruption, attaining the status of a legal tender within the Cameroonian society, the government has resorted to desperate tactics to contain the phenomenon. The reactionary measures range from denying the reality of corruption, justifying corrupt practices, and attempting to combat individuals who have installed bastions of corruption within different spheres of national life. One of the most publicized and most heralded reactions to corruption, particularly the mismanagement and embezzlement of public funds in Cameroon is referred to as “Opération Epervier”. The “épervier” is a sparrow hawk, scientifically known as Accipiter nisus, a bir…

- Douala could be described as a “dormant volcano” in the build-up to the massive popular uprisings and violent protest demonstrations that engulfed Cameroon on the 25th of February 2008. The city with the highest number of political parties was engaged in heated debates over the modification of the country’s constitution, muffled by a suffocating ban on public rallies and political activity, angered by the closure of a public opinion oriented radio and television station, and above all embittered by the widespread youth unemployment and the ever increasing cost of living. When transport workers announced a strike action for that fateful Monday 25th February 2008, to pro…

A fire disaster at the Douala Central Market has destroyed a 2500 metres squared section reserved for woodwork, textiles, and mattresses, popularly referred to as "Marché Congo." Initial material damage was estimated at hundreds of millions of CFA francs but no human lives were lost. - The fierce flames erupted at a few minutes to 1:00 am on Saturday 13th December 2008, attacking the Camp Bertaud entrance of Marché Congo. By 4:30 am, the Douala 20th Fire Fighting Company, led by Lieutenant Colonel Owono Nlend, was still battling the raging flames. Backup units from the Douala Autonomous Seaport also joined efforts in putting out the fire. Several traders and workshop owners whos…

The North West region of Cameroon is one of the most highly scholarized provinces in the country. The absence of a state owned university remains an object of speculation. The no nonsense politically conscious people think that their region is being marginalized because they vomited the Biya regime since 1990 and are not willing to "repent". - If not, how then can one justify that the region with the most successful lay private colleges; the most brilliant mission colleges in Mankon, Nso, Bali, Bafut, and Ashing Kom; and above all, the province with the most highly populated government colleges (Bamenda, Bambili and Mbengwi) has been deprived of a state university for this long? …

The impact of the world financial crisis on African economies has been the subject of much debate in academic, business and popular circles on the African continent. Economic professors, financial analysts, ministers of finance, political scientists, journalists, and even opinion leaders in drinking spots, are all volunteering explanations like the six blind men describing an elephant. - Some are parroting CNN without quotation marks, others are plagiarizing economic textbooks or financial journals but the question on what impact the crisis will have on African economies remains. It is often taken for granted that Africa accounts for an insignificant proportion of world financial transact…

Africans across the board have celebrated the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America with an over dose of frenzy and euphoria. This is not just another African way of mourning louder than the bereaved but the excitement of the moment has blinded "everybody" to a sad African reality. If Barack Hussein Obama were an Africa, he will never be president! - Inspite of the prestigious education at Harvard Law School, the Bachelors degree in Political Science, the meticulous planning, the popularity, the great oratory, and the unparalled articulation of burning issues, Obama is not qualified to be president in Africa. And the one thing that disqualif…

- The inhabitants of the city of Douala, Cameroon's economic capital are still digesting the story in which a senior gendarmerie officer gunned down a police inspector. The incident occured on the night of Thursday November 13 when Gendarmerie Major Joel Emile Bankoui came home and discovered Police Inspector Herve Mapuro Njifon in his home at the Gendarmerie Barracks in Mboppi. In the confusion that followed, the inspector was shot several times, and he eventually died of the gun-shot wounds. It is not clear what the police inspector who stays in the neighbourhood of Makepe was doing in the Gendarmerie Camp with the wife of the gendarmerie officer during the unholy hours of that nig…