Cameroon On The Scanner In Julius Wamey’s Vulture Family Convention.

By Ajong Mbapndah L [caption id="attachment_108606" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The current state of Cameroon always dampens my optimism, says veteran Journalist Julius Wamey[/caption]  He may have been out of sight for a while, but Cameroon has not been out of mind and his recent book shows just how informed and connected veteran Journalist Julius Wamey is. Known for his frank talk, the trials, tribulations, of Cameroon are laid bare in the Vulture Family Convention which is his latest book. Fielding questions from PAV on the new book, the state owned CRTV he worked for, to the legacies of President Paul Biya, late opposition leader Fru Ndi, perspectives on the Anglophone crisis and more, Julius Wamey goes unfiltered with the same verve that endeared him to millions of Cameroons in his heyday at CRTV.  You are out with a new book “The Vulture Family Convention,” what is the book all about?  Julius Wamey: It is a story of Cameroon; where it was, where it is, and where it is likely to go if it continues on its current path. It is a story of the causes underlying the country’s dire circumstances. It’s a tale of boundless greed and deep, endemic corruption, which has been so woven into the fabric of our society that it has become a fact of daily life and ordinary people no longer recognize it for the evil that it is. Above all, it is the story of the ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire of the different crises afflicting the country; between the military and insurgent forces, between separatist forces competing for supremacy, and between the government war entrepreneurs who are profiting mightily from conflict on various fronts.  In the country’s culture of corruption and greed, the ruling elites are resented by the opposition, not for their corrupt ways, but for not giving their opponents the chance to feed at the national trough. It’s a culture in which the ruling classes do not know the meaning of the word ‘enough’ and do not care if the victims of their theft, the citizens, notice that they are being robbed of all their resources by their leaders.  The story is told from the perspective of a powerful Anglophone minister, with the Frenchified name of Marcel Pierre Efane, who dies of a mysterious illness, and his henchman and nephew, Colonel Protus Wi-Ekeli, who has to dispose of his master’s remains and the massive ill-gotten wealth the minister accumulated and has left behind.  What prompted you to come out with the book at this time?  Julius Wamey: Evidently, the current situation in Cameroon led me to write the book. It’s a fictional account of the many crises the country is suffering under at the moment. It is also a voice for those who have been deprived of the ability to state their opinion in the conflict between government forces and the insurgent separatist fighters, that is, the ordinary citizens who are suffering the brunt of the fighting. What prompted me to write the book was an incident that occurred during my last visit to Cameroon in 2021 for a friend’s funeral.  I had intended to stay in the country for a week after the funeral before returning to Abidjan where I was then working as a consultant at the African Development Bank. I finally stayed for almost a month because I didn’t understand that I had to pay a bribe to get the COVID result that would allow me to board my flight back to the Ivory Coast. I was not simply being naive. I had believed that COVID was so dangerous that the government would not allow for any corruption within the testing protocols, which in the other African countries I had traveled to during my stay at the AfDB, were fast, clean, and efficient. For example, before traveling to Cameroon, I had visited Rwanda on a short vacation, and the COVID results in Kigali were sent to my phone less than six hours after the test. In Yaounde, it took three days to get results that were sometimes negative, positive or no results at all.    What audience is the book destined for?  Julius Wamey: It is a general interest story for anyone interested in Cameroon. But Cameroonians in particular will recognize themselves in the many characters and subplots in the book.   What is your take on the present state of Cameroon?  Julius Wamey: I’m an optimist by nature, but the current state of Cameroon always dampens my optimism. It looks like nothing changes in the country unless it changes for the worse. I go back almost 30 years after I emigrated from there and I still recognize old streets and houses in the neighborhoods I used to live in Yaounde. I had the opportunity to live and work in Abidjan as a consultant with the AfDB from 2018 to 2021 and I saw more infrastructure changes in that city in two years than I had seen take place anywhere in Cameroon in a 20-year stretch.  Our developmental stagnation is simply incomprehensible.  Political life in Cameroon has stalled as well. This is not surprising in a country now run by people who seem like patients from the geriatric ward of a nursing home, and the despair of the young and ambitious is evident. The root cause of this stagnation is the insatiable greed and lust for power of the ruling elite, leading to endemic corruption. I’m also amazed by the success achieved by the entrepreneurs of hate in Cameroon society, who fan the flames of division and communal violence, especially among the young. In a country with more than 250 ethnic groups, this is very dangerous, and the results are becoming evident in the rising rate of murder or other extrajudicial killings. [caption id="attachment_108607" align="alignnone" width="768"] Most Cameroonians will easily identify themselves in the the Vulture Family Convention, says Julius Wamey[/caption]  You made your mark with the state-owned CRTV, do you still follow developments there and any changes you see now compared to your stint there in the 90s?   Julius Wamey: The country’s entire media landscape has changed completely, although not always for the better. Remember that back then CRTV was the only game in town, although I’m proud to remember that we worked as hard as if we had competition from other channels. I have the technology to watch all live TV shows from Cameroon and I usually find myself watching more of the independent ones, such as Equinox, than CRTV, which hues more and more to the government line of reporting even though that is not really necessary at a time when the independent media are showing that reporters can get away with honest reporting.    A word on the passing of John Fru, the mythical opposition leader of the early 90s?  Julius Wamey: Ni John, as I knew him from our first meeting in the 80s when I was a cub reporter at Radio Bamenda, deserved his reputation as a mythical figure. I consider him the patron saint of democracy in Cameroon, despite claims to the contrary by his detractors. He was the one person who stood up and challenged the stultifying political one-party status quo and went on to lead the revolution that irrevocably changed the country’s political landscape in the face of violent reaction from the government. Those who try to rewrite this political history and diminish or downplay the role Ni John played should be ashamed of themselves. The change he brought about is more important than what he failed to accomplish, no matter what his critics say, and fortunately, enough of his actions have been documented so that our children and grandchildren will learn about his accomplishments.  In power for 40-plus years and counting, what do you think the defining legacy of President Biya will be when he eventually leaves power?  Julius Wamey: In the 1990s, President Biya made the patently false assertion to a French TV audience that he would be remembered for bringing democracy to Cameroon. While this falsehood went unchallenged by the French interviewer, most who heard it knew the truth; that Mr. Biya had been forced, kicking and screaming, to accept whatever measure of democracy then existing in the country, thanks solely to the unflinching courage of John Fru Ndi and his opposition followers in challenging the status quo ante, sacrificing some lives in the process.   When he finally leaves the stage, Mr. Biya shall be remembered for the deeply entrenched corruption that has helped to bog down the country’s development efforts and for which Cameroon has achieved global renown, claiming first place in the global corruption perception index on several occasions.  On the infrastructure front, President Biya shall be remembered more for what he failed to do than for what he did. Roads built by his predecessor (Douala-Yaounde, Yaounde - Bamenda, Douala - Bafoussam, etc.,) have crumbled and have not been replaced or improved. When Mr. Biya came to power, people traveled by taxi and city buses; now they travel by motorbike. Our airports are an international embarrassment compared to those in other African countries; our national airline, with its single Chinese-made plane, is a disgrace. The examples are too numerous to cite here. [caption id="attachment_108608" align="alignnone" width="768"] In power for over forty years, Julius Wamey describes the legacy of President Biya as very porous.[/caption]  On the Anglophone crisis, what do you see as a way out as things stand now?  Julius Wamey: I’m deeply pessimistic about the future of our two Anglophone territories. To start with, the introduction and widespread availability of firearms in the area ensures that it shall be unstable and insecure for decades to come. Secondly, there is no unified leadership structure among our people, which also is a recipe for internal conflict as has been witnessed within the different separatist groups now operating in the area. Some seem to be pinning their hopes on the departure of the Biya regime, either through the president’s departure by retirement or in a coffin, but all I see as a consequence is an escalation of the infighting among the fractious factions of the ‘liberation struggle’ more bent on acquiring power than liberating anyone. All I can foresee is the continuous suffering of the ordinary citizens who are victims of the war entrepreneurs in the military and the separatists.  Back to the book where can readers at home and abroad procure copies and how affordable is the book? Julius Wamey: The book is available online and in print on Amazon.com. We shall be updating readers when the print version becomes available in local bookshops in Cameroon in the not-too-distant future. *The Vulture Family Convention is available on Amazon