By Hans Ngala
The recent news that some 40 Cameroonians drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to cross into Europe on a rickety boat, has done little to deter hundreds more from taking the same potentially perilous path.
Weeks prior, another video showing Black Africans allegedly killed in Morocco, was making the rounds on social media and before that video, another one showed Black Africans in slave-like conditions in Libya.
Before US President Donald Trump’s ascension to power, the southern border of the United States via Mexico, was another well-trodden path taken by daring Cameroonians and other Africans. However, as Trump tightens immigration rules to deter illegal immigration and even curb legal immigration, young Africans with aspirations to travel to the US are left in limbo sort of. Some feel that their hopes and dreams have been dashed to pieces.
However, maybe it is time to rather take a step back and ask ourselves what we as Africans have gotten wrong. Who sold us the idea that we can only make it outside of Africa?
While we are busy dying in the Sahara and in the seas, others are flocking into our continent and making themselves rich. The Chinese are present in almost every corner of our continent, the Russians and Europeans.
Canada recently announced what it called its Africa Strategy, promising more engagement with the continent as the US pulls out its funding. So while the US wants to focus on its domestic issues under Trump, other countries still see opportunity where we Africans only see despair.
So What Should Young Cameroonians Do?
The story is told of two friends who went to India and saw millions of people who were walking around barefoot. One friend complained about how dirty and poor the people were but his friend had a brilliant idea – make shoes and sell to these people! And that is how Nike shoes came about – because someone saw potential where others only saw filth and hopelessness.
The same can be said of Cameroon where it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the litany of seemingly endless problems: a lethargic government, inefficient public services and bureaucracy, dirt-filled streets, poorly equipped hospitals and schools etc. However, these things can be turned into opportunities for those with the foresight. Instead of seeing the filth on our streets as a menace, enterprising young people can find a way to collect the trash and turn it into reuseable items, the lack of good restaurants in most Cameroonian towns can be an opportunity for young Cameroonians with culinary skills to open classic, yet affordable restaurants so that people don’t sit by the side of the road to eat; the lack of public toilets can be an opportunity for an investor to partner with authorities to build low-cost rest rooms across the country and employ young people who will buy cleaning detergent and maintain those toilets for a fee and it will be a crime for anyone to pee by the roadside, making our cities cleaner.
The ideas are endless, but most Cameroonians are just not willing to put in the effort. Many complain that the taxes are suffocating or that they don’t have the capital. These same people are willing to cough up about FCFA 5Million to embark on a risky journey across the desert or sea to a future that they don’t know about.
More Cameroonians are willing to flee to the US, rather than build Cameroon and hold their government to account. Some have been quick to criticize US president Donald Trump but are curiously silent when it comes to holding their own government to whom they pay taxes, accountable. President Biya is 92 and will be seeking an eighth term of seven more years in spite of doing very little to create jobs, fix roads, provide basic amenities and is rumored to spend long absences from the country treating himself in top-tier European hospitals and hotel suites while most of those under his lead simply accept poverty as their lot. Those who dare to question his actions are met with an iron-fist that makes a vain attempt to portray him as the best thing to ever happen to Cameroon even when the reality on the ground tells a different story.
Yaounde is stinking to the high heavens as I write this and Biya who lives in Yaounde as well, is so far out of touch with reality that he has not as much as even commented on the situation. This is a clear sign of failed leadership and this is the person Cameroonians ought to be holding to account, not Donald Trump. We may not be comfortable with Trump’s actions but it is also true that he owes us nothing.
Young Cameroonians need to focus their attention to fixing their motherland because the opportunities therein, are endless.
