Unruly Driving in Governance: Who is Responsible?
(3 votes)
“La route ne tue pas mais c’est nous qui tuons…” Black Rogers exclaims in his song titled “La Route ne Tue Pas.” His message is that the road itself does not kill. Instead we, the road users, kill ourselves because of our unruliness and irresponsible driving.
Many ghastly accidents occur every day. Road accidents are among the most agonizing because they occur frequently and claim many lives due to carelessness. Road accidents cause deaths that could be prevented if proper measures were taken. Many people fear accidents and work hard to reduce them in order to save the lives of our fellow humans. But how do we reduce the occurrence of accidents reduced? Some people say bad roads are to blame. Yes, but who constructs the roads? Some people say accidents are caused by low vehicle quality. If true, who manufactures the vehicles? In Cameroon, every person needs to take responsibility to make the roads safer.
Recently, on the Bafoussam––Yaounde highway, precisely at Kon-Yambetta, a 70-seat passenger bus went off-track and crashed into the bushes, claiming the lives of 48 people. Seated in front of my TV set, a man who knew the driver of this “killer-bus” made this comment: “This accident is due to tiredness. This driver, for the last three days, has been driving without any rest”. His comment was confirmed in a May 31, 2010 article in the “Cameroon Tribune” newspaper. In that article, a Ministry of Transport road safety agent said that the vehicle went off-track because the driver fell asleep. It is excruciating to know that so many bus drivers refuse to put the common good ahead of their love of money and desire to amass economic power.
I travel the highways regularly and I had the most frightened journey of my life in 1994. Being a holiday job-seeker, I landed a job as a “Motor boy” – checking passengers and luggage in and out of a Douala-Kumba and Kumba-Douala transport bus. I realized on countless occasions that this driver – my boss -- used to sleep while driving on the highway. And this could be understood because in a period of 24 hours, we only had about three hours to sleep. This is because we needed to raise the bus owner’s daily earnings plus the driver’s profit. People referred to him as a “strong driver” because he could drive for longer hours than most. Most transport vehicle drivers I’ve met try various methods to stay awake, including eating “bitter-kola,” drinking dry whisky, consuming illicit drugs and inhaling traditional concoctions before setting out for a long drive.
In March 2010, from a voyage from the town of Mbouda, Western Region, I boarded a bus for Yaounde. We took off at about 1:30 a.m. from Bafoussam. Seated at the front seat beside the driver, I realized how weary he was, frequently struggling to overcome sleep. Each time he wavered toward and awayfrom the windshield while dozing off, he was challenged to adjust because he realised I was focused on him.
At one point, when all the other passengers were asleep, I muttered to him, “You are tired! I see you sleeping.” I asked him to be heroic enough to stop and rest for fifteen minutes because it’s better for us to reach Yaounde late and alive than for our corpses to be there. He said, “Ça va aller,” that is, “It’s going to be okay”. But I insisted, reminding him that I’m the first son of my mother and she hasn’t yet any grand child. He laughed and said “Tu as raison”, that is “You are right”. He drove slowly and stopped by a thick bush. It was about 3:30 a.m. when the bus slowed to a halt. He got off the bus and took about ten minutes to practice the art of tai chi/karate. Then he used water to wash his face and water his whole body before getting back to his steering. Though it wasn’t sufficient, it was better.
It occurs to me that we could look at a nation as one of these passenger buses. The drivers are presidents and elected officials, and it is easy to find similarities between a crashed bus and a country experiencing civil discord or civil war. A BBC online article entitled “Africa’s Top 10 ‘Big Men” caught my interest recently. I thought the article would tell the stories of great educators, great researchers and inventors, great engineers, great investors, etc. To my great surprise, the article’s “big men” were presidents of ten African countries, starting with Ben Ali of Tunisia, with 21 years in power. The list continued with, Compare of Burkina Faso, through Museveni of Uganda, Biya of Cameroon, Mubarak of Egypt, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and ended with Gaddafi of Libya, with 39 years in power. The late Omar Bongo of Gabon, who was in power for almost 42 years, was also considered.
These “big men” presidents, just like “powerful and hard-working” drivers, also have their own “bitter kolas” and other “sleep-fighting” drugs. These are election rigging, modification of constitutions, gerrymandering, ghost polling stations, ghost voters, intimidation and even torturing and killing educated and pro-human right citizens, that they use to maintain their positions at the navigation wheel of their countries. Like passengers who fall deep asleep, African citizens abandon their future to the hands of these “big men” presidents, who engage in unfair practices, in the name of being the only, and-forever-pilots, in the cockpits of their countries. A glaring and sad example is the late President Moboutu of former Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo, and other countries like Cameroon, a country that has experienced massive corruption and embezzlement of state funds under Paul Biya, with his 28 years in power.
Many of us are aware of the neglect of our president-drivers. Yet instead of reproaching them, we brandish them as “strong drivers”. It is nonsensical to bestow the title of “powerful and hardworking” to someone who violates and disgustingly defies the basic natural ethics – rest and sleep – in order to keep driving. A president, just like a bus driver, should be viewed as a worker who is allowed to earn his salary only when he obeys the rules given to him by us, his or her employers.
Whether we employ a driver or president, we should be responsible, and make sure we have a greater say over the job or errands he or she is running for us. We are all responsible when road accidents, corruption, bad governance, and civil unrest claim our lives or the lives of our loved ones. Unless we shoulder our responsibilities and take our destinies into our own hands, we will be hurting our communities by surrendering to the whims and caprices of mindless politicians and drivers. Let us embrace our own power to take our lives into our hands. If we do not, then we are just the same as those who praise, promote, and qualify politicians and drivers who drive without resting as “strong and hard working drivers” or “presidents” who stay in power through ruthless measures, as “big men”.
02 August, 2010.
By
Outreach Coordinator
Vote Sizing Institute
http://www.votesizing.org
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Comments
my humble view point!
In the 90's,during his tour in Africai,Jacque Chirac still french president at that time once said "la Democratie est encore un luxe pour l'Afrique " meanning in english 'Democratie is still a luxury for Africa';sad observation indeed but close to a generation after, the same observation can still be made in many african countries,the people are oppressed by their leaders(who promised them heaven & earth if they were elected),with privation of most basic rights such as freedomi of speech,equitable treatment for all,right to votei( the case with cameroonian diaspora;are they not full flesh citizens, just like u & me???? ..... the answers rest in God) the right of nationality, ...be honor citizens of CAMEROON because your nationality is precious more than gold,why?
you can not claim cameroonian nationality if you already hold one from abroad;not the case in the western world is it because their nationality is worthless?.....the answers rest in God.
you can not claim cameroonian nationality even if you were borned in Camerooni from none cameroonian parents not the case in Europe or America where where the wives of our leaders deliver for their children to bear foreign nationality as safety mesures in case ...,what do our leaders think? that is a privilege to be a Cameroonian? NO,some may say a curse,if yes,it is not because of our nationalities, perhaps the colour of our skin(Africans)? i'd rather point at the colour of our heart,We allknow the image Cameroon in particular & Africa in general potrait abroad(corruption,embezzlement ,occulties practises j,abuses,just to name a few),when we know how cautious people get to be when dealing with Cameroonians;
Juliuos ,I believe great men are those who do great things ,as Mandela did,as Sankara ,like Cheick Anta Diop,Sengor,those are great men,not those who seize poweri or kill their people for their selfish interest
Nonetheless we are all accountable to God,sooner or later we 'll receive our salary according to our work!
Don't forget!
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