Cameroon's Predicaments

Tse Angwafo

• Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9789956792382
• eBook ISBN: 9789956792412
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book deals with a variety of socio-cultural, economic and political problems facing Cameroon and the rest of Africa, with particular reference to unemployment, corruption, poverty, criminality, violence, insecurity, and moral decadence. It presents a critical analysis of government policies from the colonial era to the present time; arguing that most of these policies have been stalled by an uncommitted leadership. The regime in Cameroon has drifted away from basic managerial and democratic principles in in favour of the ethnicisation of politics, sterile consumption, clientelism and patronage. The book contends that corruption has become the main instrument of governance whereby the political and economic elites control the wealth of the nation at the expense of a majority who wallow in abject poverty and misery. Faced with the difficult economic and political situation, most youth and the intelligentsia have adopted official and unofficial means to circumvent all immigration rules to travel to affluent Western countries, the consequences notwithstanding. Brain drain is often the outcome. Further, it examines issues of social exclusion, political representation and marginalization with special focus on the predicament of Anglophone Cameroonians as a socio-cultural community. The inclusion of examples and case studies based on empirical and secondary data from Africa is intended to foreground the importance of comparison, and attract the interest of both academic and non-academic readership.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - In the Beginning
• Chapter 2 - Leadership: Where the Problem Lies
• Chapter 3 - Unemployment and the Cameroon Public Service Quagmire
• Chapter 4 - Poverty, Corruption and Bribery
• Chapter 5 - Crime and Violence
• Chapter 6 - The Bush faller Syndrome
• Chapter 7 - The ‘Anglophone Problem’ and Cameroon Bilingualism
• Chapter 8 - Insecurity, Disorder and Moral Decadence
• Chapter 9 - As the English people say, better late than never’: Cameroon and the Waithood Syndrome
• Chapter 10 - Cameroon in Search of Nationhood
• Chapter 11 - Concluding Reflections
• Bibliography
• Back cover