A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

Your Grace, it was devastating as it was aching for me to find la Republique du Cameroun declared in the Vatican among peace loving nations in the mouth of Paul Biya – even though Pope Francis knows. His visit to the Vatican may be difficult to describe only to jaded viewers. It was a masquerade that deceived only the stupid people who give themselves to be mislead by such aimless travesty. This president is not unfamiliar with these apparatus of mass deception he has applied on subjugated peoples for over three decades. His blood-colored track record of brutal killings and unjust incarcerations is well-known to the high court of history except to the leaders of the National Episcopal Council of Cameroon. Talk less of the recent genocide he is perpetuated in the British Cameroons. The whole national edifice has been sanguinary taking into consideration that he inherited the same heritage from a brutal warlord of a president, Ahmadou Ahidjo. The British Cameroonians have turned refugees in their own nation. It is this decadent model of authority that has characterized us since 1961 that we must interrogate.

In a nation where silliness is given a standing ovation and fools ride on royal horses, a sell out like PM Philemon Yang who shamelessly takes himself a dishonorable recent trip around the North West, should be taken critically. Cameroon‟s false impression of greatness and self-styled portrayal as the island of peace in a sea of troubled Africa has been exposed for what it truly is. The Internet blockage and the mass abduction of the British Cameroonians to Yaoundé by the republican forces of lawlessness and disorder, expose them as a flimsy country pretending to be tough. Our people say that there is no greater injustice than when anus farts, head receives a knock. The tyrant who is oppressor has engaged in placating international eyes that he is the oppressed. What a shame!

The heart of our people is bleeding. They are carted like cattle in groves into prison yards away from homeland to Yaoundé. In a country where you are arrested because you are poor, in a country where you go to prison because you have no godfather to back you up, in country where you are put behind bars because you stand for justice and freedom – in such a country, good men must rise up to say Enough is Enough.

Now that the shambolic regime is abducting our strong men, how do we gain patience when we are challenged by hurtful things? How do we pick up patience when a villain has cut the throat of a beloved, when a loved one has been raped from life by impious brutes? The undisclosed trick is to busy yourself with some other thing in the period in-between. Gandhi said “If patience is worth anything it must endure to the end of time.” Patience is protest in non-violence. Patience is Mahatma Gandhi‟s “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.” Many people gamble with their lives. They take disasters for wives or husbands because of lack of some little patience. And they pay for it when the mask falls off. Patience is faith in a journey fraught with dejection but rewarding still. Once patience goes, everything goes.

It might take a day, it might take a year, it might take a decade, what will be will be. So be patient. ”Be patient, brothers, until the Lord‟s coming. Think of a farmer: how patiently he waits for the precious fruit of the ground until it has had the autumn rains and the spring rains! You too have to be patient; do not lose heart, because the Lord‟s coming will be soon.“ (James: 5:7-10). One patient pause in ill-tempered times can save us painful apologies after. Organization is patience. Patience in other words is stock-taking. Patience is telling the tyrant NO, and giving time waiting to gain breathe, to build other strategies in the darkness of the cause. It is victory when it looks like defeat. Courage is patience. Leadership is patience. Truth is patience. Integrity is patience. Freedom is patience. Ma pipol, mumu don do. A mumurised people are doomed forever. We tried. Your Grace, we tried. We tried. We are tired. Patience is enough-is-enough. The danger signals are enough. UNO, AU, UK, act now or never! A stitch in time saves nine.

To be continued
Father Gerald Jumbam