Fellow youth of Cameroon, You will be celebrating the 49th youth day in the context of a bloody war declared on our country by a coalition of terrorists, grand-bandits, and power-mongers called Boko Haram.  This nebula is made of evil-doers from Cameroon and the neighboring country Nigeria.  The hardship imposed on our country and our people is exacerbated by the fact that we have a selfish, power-mongering president who is less concerned by the plights of his people, but more concerned with staying in power.

Who is this heartless country leader who is unable to show empathy and compassion for the his defenseless people who are being slaughtered in the far north region of Cameroun by the evil-doers of Boko Haram ?  His name is Paul Biya.

Who is this leader who has declared war to a terrorist while vacationing in France, but has never been near the battle field to comfort the valiant soldiers who are fighting to protect the territorial integrity of our country as well as the people?  His name is Paul Biya.

Who is this leader who never attended the funerals or burial of fallen soldiers, unlike his counter-parts of other countries, such as Idriss Deby of Chad?  His name is Paul Biya.

Fellow youth of Cameroon, you will all agree with me that our country will be better off without a leader who lacks emotional intelligence, vision, patriotism, and governance competency. As such, you have an important role to play in the social, political, and economic transformation of our country. Such positive changes cannot occur under the more than 32-year system of governance that has exacerbated poverty, corruption, nepotism, tribalism, human rights abuses, injustice, mismanagement of resources in Cameroun and all sorts of moral decay in our country, especially among the youth.

So that you can better reflect on the disastrous governance of the current system of governance and take your responsibility towards ending it, I am going to provide you some factual evidence of the bad governance of country under the leadership of Paul Biya.

In fact, under the leadership of Paul Biya:

1.Most citizens of Cameroon live in poverty, while public officials embezzle public funds and engage in corrupt practices. Poverty and income inequality are still high, with more than 40 % of the population living below the poverty line, despite the steady economic growth of Cameroon.

2.Transparency International (TI), the Germany-based corruption watchdog organization, ranked Cameroon twice in a row as the most corrupt nation in the world, respectively in 1998 and 1999.

3.A TI’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer survey indicated that 62% of Cameroonians have admitted to paying a bribe to a public entity in 2012.

4.The World Bank Institute (WBI) Worldwide Governance Indicators for Cameroon showed a rating of a mere 2.5 for transparency and accountability in Cameroon in 2006.

5.The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2010) asserted that there is evidence from the World Bank showing that Cameroon lags behind most other countries in Africa in terms of economic, administrative, and political transparency.

Fellow youth of Cameroon, the above-mentioned indicators of bad governance of Cameroon is not exhaustive.  That said, you all should hope and contribute for a better Cameroon.  The country has the resources and human capital needed to become an emerging country in a decade, but the current leadership has failed and has no political to impact positive changes in the year to come.  Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to effectively participate in the political process with the aim of catalyzing leadership and systemic political change that will probably usher a new era of a strong democratic governance and better life for Cameroonians.

Finally, I thank the young soldiers of Cameroon for their sacrifice for our country and call upon all Cameroonians from all tribes, religions, political and linguistic affiliations to support our troops.  However, I caution our fellow countrymen that national solidarity in time of war should not make us lose sight of the root cause of our social, political, and economic problems.  Cameroonians, especially the youth should continue to press for political reforms aimed at bringing about electoral transparency, strong democracy, and better life for all.

Long Live Cameroon