Vote Sizing Institute Real change from within.

Before any election, politicians have to get their messages across, probably on the reforms they are going to carry in order to better the living standards of the people. This exercise does not go without much money being spent on paying the media, bribing the people to vote for a particular party/person. It is important we understand that election periods are the greatest and only moments which people have to start the building of a fundamental or foundation of a good government. The government of a country is responsible for the policies and laws guiding its people to a better life. These laws and policies should be able to institute transparency and accountability in the management of their resources. If our society is not healthy, then government is polluted. Can we maintain a healthy society by cleaning it up all the time while keeping the progressively polluted government in place?

If you evaluate the money spent during this process, you will find out that it is far more than what could have provided portable water to the people, construct and equip health centers and even pay long standing arrears of some state employees. Where does all this money come from? I am not sure poorer people who really have and know their problems can admit to waste such huge sums. Therefore only wealthy guys can carryout such senseless and fruitless ventures. Why does a wealthy guy, who, throughout, never gets mixed with the poorer people, suddenly spend fabulous sums of money to canvass for votes? Some people term them as philanthropists. My question to that view is, do philanthropists help in order to reap some benefits in return? There is nothing philanthropic about money spent in politics. A Cameroonian academic, George Nyamndi notes that:

When money slides into politics, the people's consciences are destroyed. When rigging flows into politics, the national interest is destroyed. ¹

A closer observation takes one to think that democracy that was founded for the common wellbeing of the people, is fast becoming a kind of private investment where only wealthy people reap the profits. After all you cannot carry out an investment when you are not wealthy, and any successful investor is one who makes more profit far more than invested in a relatively short time.

This is fast becoming a lifestyle and people in their majority, categorically refuse to see anything wrong with this and have already been made to accept that, it is normal that he who has more money should comfortably grab more power and so doing, only their thoughts and ideas prevail in the society. But my question is why do we even vote if we see nothing wrong with the wealthy people, grabbing in an unfair manner all the power for themselves and carrying our destines into their hands? Is that not rigging our future? Why do we even fight bribery and corruption and many other social ills when we want to make-do with the belief that those with much money should have a higher say that those with less money? Why do we even fight climate change, deforestation, conflicts and the fabrication of weapons, including nuclear weapons and embezzlement just to name these few? A Cameroonian Barrister at law and a critic, posits that:

If you rig elections, you will rig your office, you will rig files, you will rig appointments, you will rig contract, projects, you will rig everything that comes your way. ²

Media men and policy makers all have their ears at the mouth of the wealthy guys in order to fulfill their demands. Now if you say again that it's normal, my question to you again is, aren't we promoting corruption? Do you mean poorer people don't have anything to propose as to what they need? Today, constructive political debates are rendered useless by big money and the never-fulfilled promises of the oligarchs stay there forever, election after election.

Elections after elections, different people get in and out of office and things keep on deteriorating. The gap between the minority wealthy and the majority poor keep on widening both in the economic and political domains and people in their majority become more and more powerless, frustrated and miserable. Again, George Nyamndi thinks that:

With poverty, people turn to go where the crumbs are. Poverty factor plays in the favour of those who have. During elections, ideas did not come out victorious, it was just the desire to survive. ³

If policy makers keep their ears all the times at the mouth of the wealthy, then do not expect taxes to be filed in? Why is it that some basic social amenities like potable water, education and medical facilities that were free some 30 years ago are now, not only becoming scarce and expensive, but deteriorating as well? What do you think is the primary cause in drop in salaries and high taxes? Who are those who benefit from such reforms since almost everything is on a decline nowadays? Is that not corruption at work again? Longue Longue, a renowned Cameroonian musician, regards the situation of Cameroon in one of his songs as:

Les riches ne font que s'enrichirent, les pauvres ne font que s'appauvrirent. Les plus faibles meurent du paludisme. Où est donc l'avenir de ce pays? … Pourtant nous payons nos impôts. …A quoi sert donc l'argent des impôts? L'argent des impôts va dans les comptes privés et ne sert pas au développement de mon pays. … Vous nous avez promis le changement. On attend donc ce changement. …Vous allez même changer quoi? ….La constitution ou les éternels ministres ? / The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. The weaker/poorer are dying or malaria. Where is the future of this country? … Meanwhile we pay our taxes. .. Why do we pay taxes?... our tax money goes into private accounts and does not serve in the development of my country… you have promised us change. We are all waiting for that change. What are you even going to change? … The constitution or the eternal ministers? ⁴

If you move around town, you will find that a wealthy minority live in extreme wealth and arrogance while a majority spends its whole time acting as spectators. Another makossa singer Albert Premier, in one of his songs brings out the following points:

… Mon pays va mal, il va de mal en mal… et malgré les souffrances de nos en enfants … ils sont indifférents. … malgré la misère de nos parents, ils n'ont pas notre temps. … ils roulent dans les cylindrés, ils logent dans les palais. …Pendant tout ce temps, l'économie est à genou… / …My country is deteriorating, it is moving from bad to worst. … and despite the sufferings of our children, … they are indifferent. … despite the misery of our parents, they do not care about us. …. They drive in big cars, they live in well-furnished homes. …Meanwhile the economy is getting weaker and weaker... ⁵

From this extract, it is not hard to figure out the "they" this musician is referring to. After all, he has mentioned how they live their lives despite our cries. It is also clear that this wealthy class cannot solve the problems faced by the poorer class, certainly because they do not get mixed with us to know exactly what we are going through, though they have government and policies in their hands.

Vulnerability of Low-Income Earners and Non-Workers

Now that everything is on a decline, some remarks can be made:

1. A lecturer whose income has been slashed down and whose publications cannot be bought by poor students, who prefer photocopying, can only corrupt in order to fulfill his family and daily demands.
2. A worker, who spent so much to educate himself, now earning a low income can only take corruption as a way of life to sustain his daily demands.
3. A graduate who stays jobless for so long can only apply deviant measures to make sure life goes on without much stress.
4. An employee who works very hard and go for months without any income can jeopardize the company's by doing some negative things in order to survive.
5. What about a farmer, whose produce can't be bought at reasonable prices in order to cover up the transport cost and other expenditures, do?
6. What becomes of those who can't send their children to school?
7. What becomes of those who have good ideas in order to change and build a healthy society do, when there is no money to get them in a position of decision making?
8. What becomes of an artist who is unable to sell his products because of low purchasing power faced by consumers?
9. What do you think of a contractor who bribes to get a contract to may be construct a building or tar a road?

Consequences of Bribery and Corruption in School Milieu and Corporations

• Have you ever heard of STMs and MTMs, i.e. Sexually Transmitted Marks and Money Transmitted Marks?
• Do you know that most graduates nowadays are either financially or sexually intelligent?
• What do you think will happen to a corporation when it is being run by a graduate who used either money or sex to obtain diplomas? Also imagine the kind of people such an employer will admit into a corporation.
• Do you know that most criminals and arm robbers are either dropouts or jobless graduates?
• Do you know that sexual promiscuity, child abuse, drug trafficking, modern slavery, illegal immigration, kidnapping just to mention a few, are bound to be on the rise because people need to make ends meet and that even education nowadays cannot stop it?
• Can you see with me that the immorality of yesterday is fast becoming morality even though we talk of opening of so many schools and many graduates?

Consequences of Bribery and Corruption on the African Way of Life

In Africa, a family is always extended and somebody's problem is always everybody's problem. Since it is very difficult finding a job nowadays, the only means to break that "difficulty" is to bribe. You must get a job if you want to survive and so people find it normal to look for huge sums of money to bribe their way into government or jobs through employers. Bribe is here considered as an "emulsifier", emulsifying passages into government and job. The poorer class of the society does not have that enough money but needs to find a way out. Most families, despite their degree of poverty, either sell away some of their property or contribute all they've saved in order to bribe the entrance of just one member of the family into one of these jobs.

What do you expect when a family member succeeds in grabbing one of these jobs, obviously through bribery? All those who contributed to get him there will now be expecting to reap some benefits - after all, they all invested to get him there. Now his salary, as that of any civil servant, is very low and cannot in anyway help him help other family members who sacrificed for him or reimburse them. What do you think can be the way out? 

The Health Situation of the Governed

• Do you think this decline spares doctors and nurses?
• Can an unhealthy people build a healthy society?

It demands lot of sacrifice to become a medical doctor. Most people get into this field primarily because they want to save lives, and as we know you can't be a pro-life promoter when you are not psychologically comfortable. Do you think a doctor can effectively treat patients when he/she is unable to solve his own primary needs like good feeding, a good home, a nice car, or even pay-off his bills and take care of his family needs? If the policy makers can't solve his problem, then some people must do and that must be the patients. In Cameron, a poor patient who do not have the minimum to even pay for the too expensive consultation, not to talk of the too expensive drugs, is bound to die.

Local cultivators are not left out.

Fuel prices, in an unfair manner, have skyrocketed, transport fares have experienced an abnormal increase and farm to market roads are all broken or have never been repaired. A distance that was formerly covered in one hour 20 years ago, because we had good roads back then, is now covered in 5 hours. One might be tempted to think that locations have moved farther away from one another. Now farmers put in so much effort to get to the market with their produce. What do you think will become of the bid between the sellers and consumers who either have no source of income or who earn very meager incomes? What do you think will become of sellers if they are unable to raise reasonable sums of money to cover up their costs of production and transportation? Do you think sellers/producers will still have that courage of going to the farms if they discover that they are working on a minus? In fact they are not different from slaves who work hard to feed their masters. After all they don't have any voice or power to reverse things. What do you think will be the next vice if there is shortage in food supply? What do you think of education, especially concerning the children of the poorer people?

Enmity, vengeance, insecurity and finger-pointing have defined the looming threat to peace. People have lost focus of the real cause of their problems and are distracted by the powers that corrupt them. So many grassroot organizations have come up with counter-productive approaches to solve the problems that stem from corruption and greed.

Heads of state, senators, parliamentarians, media men, judges and magistrates, doctors, teachers, security officers, tax controllers, contractors, agriculturalists, terrorists, arm robbers, organ traffickers, assassins, gang leaders, racists, rebels, racketeers and sexsellers amongst others, are the children of tomorrow who have now grown up and are leading the world. But how is this world being led? Where are we heading to and what about our children who are the hope of tomorrow?

America's youth are changing. The "baby boom" generation of the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, who became the hippies and yuppies, the "Pepsi generation" and the "me generation," have grown up.

It was President John F. Kennedy, the political leader of that generation's youth who wrote: "Children are the world's most valuable resources and its best hope for the future." The children whom he referred are now parents of children themselves and those children are faced with problems more varied and complex than existed a generation ago. ⁶

It is easy to depict from the above quotation that the reason why children of today are full of corrupt practices and are becoming wayward, is because parents are unable to fulfill their responsibilities. The triggered question that comes to mind is, why are the parents of today who were the hippies and yuppies of yesterday unable to lead their children in the right direction? What were they put in mind by their own parents when they were kids? If we don't identify and erase the polluted belief we have in our minds today, we will keep on passing it from one generation to the other and making the world an insecure place to live in.

• Do you still think after all these problems and the trends they follow that we need to apply the top-bottom approach in order to build a healthy society?
• Do you think that the so many approaches provided by the uncountable number of grassroot organizations can help reverse this trend?
• Do you think we should adhere to the ideology that the more money you have, the more power or vote you deserve?

I am not sure I have perfect answers to the questions. But the only thing I am sure of is, our government is fast becoming a slave driver and working nowadays in government or private corporations is also fast becoming a slave labour. I do not think we should risk the future of our innocent, defenseless unborn children into the hands of a few greedy men who ignorantly believe they know and can solve the problems killing the majority.

We will all benefit if we share power in a fair manner and learn to live together. Do you have something new and feasible from all the millions of ideas flying around us? If yes or no, then compare it to this one VoteSizing.org

Let's see if we can together reduce the burden of the powerless.

^[1] George, Nyamndi. "Extramile" on Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), during a TV debate on the July 22, 2007  municipal and parliamentary elections in Cameroon, September 2007.

^[2] Nico, Halle. National Election Observatory (NEO) member, interview with the "Post" newspaper, August 2007

^[3] George, Nyamndi. "Extramile" on the Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), during a TV debate on the July 22, 2007 municipal and parliamentary elections in Cameroon, September 2007.

^[4] Longue Longue, Makossa Singer, "Liberateur Liberer", translated into English by Julius Awafong.

^[5] Albert, Premier. Makossa Singer. Translated into  English by Julius Awafong.

^[6] Oliver Tragger, America's Children: New Generation, New Troubles. New Work: Facts On File, May 1991, p. 1