By Yerima Kini Nsom
The October 12 presidential election gave rise to an unprecedented wave of political prostitution as soapbox hawks moved from libertarian leftist fraternity to Neo-Fascist rightist gang and vice versa.
At first sight, this political akwara business is normal since politics is often said to be a dirty game and a ruse of personal interest. It sounded normal since time for elections is always a time for the migratory egrets to swing from one end to the other in search of greener pastures.
Yet, it becomes a galling issue when intellectuals who were sitting at the border post of the nation’s moral conscience, spinelessly swing to join the oppressors and the conservatives of the right wing. The case of one varsity don in Yaounde is appalling. Before he made a moral and ideological summersault and migrated to the ruling party, he was an intellectual soldier in defence of the voiceless. He was an ardent critic of the establishment for negating human rights and democracy. During a debate programme on one of the television stations, the philosophy teacher was applauded for making a persuasive case for the sanctity of constitutional governance in the country. He hurled vituperative attacks on the sit-tight propensity of the regime as an affront to democracy. That is why his carpet-crossing to the side of the very people he has been criticising, has been viewed as a large national ridicule that is perfectly in tune with betrayal.
That treacherous move alone has dulled his thoughts on social answerability. He now speaks on both sides of his mouth unable to call national issues by their names as he brilliantly did before. His lips quiver when he justifies one dictatorial action to the other. He now carries the unenviable crown of a pseudo- intellectual who easily condones the profane conduct of the oppressors who abuse office and plunder the wealth of the nation with unmatched arrogance. He now belongs to the fraternity of other intellectual Iagos who marched to the crumbs-picking table on the corpses of free and fair elections. They are the breed of intellectuals that think and reason with their stomach once they join the awulf-eating spree. That is why the ruling party has been described by some critics as a place where academics go to tender their intellectual obituaries.
They are those who have eloquently demonstrated that the respect of principles and moral integrity has never been a factor in Cameroonian politics. For, those who populate the political landscape are not people who can live and die by their principles and convictions. They are hardly men and women of sterling integrity. The so-called intellectuals often churn out political arguments to justify the violation of the constitution under an insulting alibi called state authority. They hardly make the point to the effect that the supreme authority lies on the shoulders of the people. They are so vulnerable to the vices of compromise and corruption. In the world of this intellectual betrayal and moral bankruptcy, there is no sound and humane academic who can say no to unpatriotic compromise and walk through the flames of battle tall and upright. This is understood because principle is punished while compromise is handsomely rewarded in our society where politics is seen as the main road to jobbery.
Thanks to such politicians, our society has become a wasteland wherein even those who carry the can to demonstrate the personal good example, flounder along in expediency and shifty values. Staple values like the truth, honour, fairness and self-pride, are dispensable here. The absence of principle in social and political circles is the partly the truth of our predicament as a nation. That is why even those who hold briefs for leftist radicals can spinelessly swing to the rightist wing without blinking. Here, they sing hosanna to the murderers of our national vision for a fee. The paucity of the country’s development is equally due the fact that intellectuals are cloned into political apologists who do not see beyond their personal interest and that of their masters.
Partly due to the repressive nature of the establishment, intellectuals who dutifully stand between the nation and tyranny, are in a lamentably short supply in the country. That is why few of them have mustered the courage to condemn the general abuse of human rights, including arbitrary arrest, extra judicial killing, the closure of freedom of expression space and attacks on the press.