The real price of chewing gum in Cameroon

A few months ago I found myself standing on a dusty street far away in a village in the North West Region (for connoisseurs, I was in Kom, Boyo Division to be precise). After an 8 hour nocturnal journey from Buea, I alighted from the 30 seater bus and stepped into a hail of wails, tears, sobs, sadness and melancholy; simply put a mournosphere. As the corpse was lowered from the top of the bus and taken away, I unleashed a huge yawn and didn’t like the feedback; I had to brush my teeth. After briefly rummaging through my backpack I discovered that I had done it again: I had forgotten my toothbrush. For my self-confidence, peace of mind and the comfort of those who might stand within my breath’s sphere of influence during the day, I knew I had to do something and quick.

The price I know

So I sought and headed for a small provision store nearby and asked for my favourite brand of chewing gum  - It is Cameroonian made but don’t see anything patriotic about my choice; we Cameroonians are very loyal to our national brands – so long as they are still within our financial reach.  In exchange for the CFAF 100 I handed the storekeeper,I was surprised when I got 8 instead of the standard 6 chewing gums I get in Buea for the same sum. I could have quietly walked but the honest boy within and inquisitive me connived and sent me into a wondering spiral that would end with a question? Was this rural lady mistaken? Far away from the money-mindedness and greed of urban life, could she be the last honest shopkeeper in Cameroon? Was she even the regular shopkeeper or was she sitting in for someone? I thought of not pressing my ‘luck’ and leaving quietly but I wanted to know the real price of my favourite brand of chewing in my own country beloved fatherland Cameroon. So I asked the lady how much the gums are sold and she replied 8 for a CFAF 100. I left and went about my chewing gum teeth – brushing endeavours. One question had been answered but another had reared its ugly head in its place: was it my memory playing tricks on me or don’t I vividly remember my secondary school economics teacher telling teenage me that the closer a product is to its place of manufacturing the lower its price and vice versa? If yes, why was my favourite brand of Made-in-Cameroon chewing gums cheaper hundreds of kilometres away from its place of manufacturing Douala and more expensive just a few kilometres away –in Buea- from its place of birth?

An ‘insider’ attempts to answer my question

After the funeral, I returned to my city of residence and quizzed an insider - my neighbourhood shopkeeper to be precise - on why the same chewing gums were cheaper further away from their place of manufacturing than closer to it. In his defence, (since he had just sold the same brand of gum at 6 for CFAF 100 to me) he said a lot of things; most of which left me unconvinced and as confused as I had returned from Kom. One of them was that this situation could be because after being manufactured, the gum was smuggled in huge quantities to Nigeria and then back into Cameroon through the North West reason for the cheap price up there. I found this argument utterly unbelievable.  Won’t transportation cost ultimately make the smuggled gum as expensive as unsmuggled gum? To his credit however, he offered an argument that struck some chord with me. To better explain himself, he used bananas as an example, saying that though they were ‘made’ Buea and its environs, they were cheaper in Douala than in Buea because as major demand hub huge quantities are taken there to meet the demand and this often results in supply surpassing demand and lower prices. This was a plausible argument I thought but it was not a plausible argument for my current chewing gum dilemma because both products had core differences which their made prices susceptible to very different factors which could not be interchangeable ex is a manufactured good while the other is a farmed product. In other words I still couldn’t explain the significant price discrepancy between the same products in the same country with a free market economy. With the appearance of this expression ‘free market economy’ in my field of thought, it finally dawned on me that I had been barking up the wrong tree – like most Cameroonians?-. I had begun my investigation with the wrong premise. The issue was not my proximity to the plant where my favourite gums were manufactured: this is a microissue and so subservient to the macro and main issue which is economic model practised in Cameroon. If  journalists and politrickians are right then my fatherland is a free market economy. Really?

Cameroon a free market economy?

Generally-speaking and going by my government’s disposal of major companies like SONEL, CDC Tea, CAMRAIL, Cameroon is a free market economy. Cameroon is (or supposed to be) a country where the price of my favourite bottom-of-log gum should be set by how much is produced, how much is consumed and in how long. But even a cursory look at the Cameroonian economoscape would provide ready-made arguments in rebuttal of our free market economy status. 

We are in a free market economy but now and again we hear government promoting a certain price list for basic commodities which businesses must comply under threat of severe penalty.

We are a free market economy but at the beginning of each month, special discount sales are organised by the various regional delegations of commerce. 

We are a free market economy but government and the AES SONEL (the American-owned company to whom legated our electricity sector to) were locked in dispute because the latter had decided to increase the unit price for electricity.

We are in a free market economy but price hikes are always blamed on fuel price hikes.

So?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not excoriating my government for trying to alleviate our misery with piecemeal measures, far from it. I am merely advocating for conscious and judicious use of foreign concepts since these concepts imply a string of things which we cannot always afford. I am rising up in words (not arms) against indiscriminate use of high sounding words which upon close introspection makes the government look and sound like a dishonest and/or confused bunch. Let’s guard against unfiltered borrowing and importation less we ensnare ourselves like we already are: if we hadn’t blindly signed up for things like human rights and co. Western countries and their acolytes won’t be calling us names, at the least not with the same ease, as they currently are because we've said ONE BIG HELL NO to homosexuality liberalisation. Just saying.

The headache of dual nationality in Cameroon

Ama Tutu Muna: Cameroon's minister of arts and culture

I was channel flicking recently when I stumbled on a regular talk-show program (“Tous Azimuts” it is called) on one of Cameroon’s  privately-owned TV stations (LTM TV to be precise). On any other day I would have flicked on but the presence of a diverse panel as well as their respective passionate commitment to their points of view caught my eye and convinced me to watch on. I must admit the talking point was rather mouth and ear watering, so to speak.

 That infamous ministerial decision

 The talking point when I joined the programme was the decision by Cameroon's minister of arts and culture to challenge the election of Ndedi Eyango -allegedly American- as President of Cameroon's artists' copyright management body SOCAM because of his “dual nationality” which Cameroon’s law on nationality doesn’t recognise except implicitly regarding Cameroonian women who marry foreigners - Section 32(1) of Law No 68-LF-3 of 11^th June 1968. To the average informed Cameroonian this is an old mole -ridden issue that had been making headlines recently with renewal of the conviction, for embezzlement, of “soi-disant” French – Cameroonian Michel Thierry Atangana.

Despite the allure of the onslaughts, sometimes gratuitous, on Minister Ama Tutu Muna’s intelligence and stewardship of arts as well as cultural matters in Cameroon, the almost dogmatic resolve and patronising absolutism of some of the panellists, I was sustainably struck by one thing: the reasons advanced by some of the panellists on why Cameroon needs to adopt a more liberal posture regarding nationality.  

Bad reasons why Cameroon needs a more liberal posture on nationality?

During that talk show, most of the panellists delved into effect and fear mongering. To some Cameroon needs to extensively recognise dual nationality because of the effect it would have on Cameroon. Not recognising dual nationality will make Cameroon lose out on some of the good reputation it sucks associatively from names like Richard Bona; Cameroon would have to return the football trophies it won with “dual-nationals” in its ranks, Cameroon would be justifying the Tunisian complaint filed against it at FIFA after our qualification for the Brazil 2014 World Cup on the grounds that players like Tchouopo – Moting were not eligible to play for Cameroon due to their dual nationalities.  Cameroon would be unjust to its remittance-sending diaspora etc.

Good reasons

 I concur generally with the panellists that Cameroon needs to change its current conservative stand on dual nationality. In this world of globalisation and unavoidable cultural intercourse, every country needs tolerant nationality laws, if not to legislatively respect the international trend, to embrace its culturally-diverse elements and give them room to express themselves through recognition of their multiple identities. 

However we should avoid doing a good thing for the wrong reasons.

Ndedi Eyango: challenged SOCAM president

Furthermore our calls should not be informed by the fear or any of the reasons advanced by the panellists stated above. This is an erroneous premise to build on since we must not lose sight or under look the implications of being a national of a particular country - this by the way is an important piece of the dual nationality puzzle. In seeking wider legislative recognition of dual nationality, we must endeavour to priorily answer the following questions: what should being Cameroonian mean? Should it mean nothing more than recognition and affirmation of our descent?  Shouldn’t it imply whole wholehearted devotion to a particular community? Shouldn’t it mean undivided subscription to a set of values and beliefs? Shouldn’t it at some point be synonymous to unalloyed allegiance to one flag and fatherland? Our degree of comfort (or discomfort) and consensus with the answers to the above questions should inform the framing of any eventual amendment of Cameroon’s current position of dual nationality. I am quite sure somebody will ask whether in today’s global village any country can afford an uncompromising appreciation of the issue. But then again this doesn’t mean it is a perspective we should lose sight of in the current debate. The underlying issue here is definition. If ever a bill attempting to modify Cameroon’s current legislative position regarding nationality is ever tabled, its content should be a reflection of how we define what it means to be a national of Cameroon and whether this is compatible with dual nationality. 

 Conclusion

Dual nationality is a double-edged we should cautiously wield. The core question every country seeking to adopt it liberally is whether nationality means belonging to a particular society and subscribing fully to all its customs and traditions or is it nothing more than a formality? As such, can someone really be for example both American and Cameroonian at the same time? Can you simultaneously advocate social, moral and legislative tolerance as well as   vituperation of something like homosexuality?  This is a practical dimension of the issue.

And so?

If Cameroon’s government  ever decides to amend the country’s law on nationality,  it should remember that as much as it should make allowance for our diaspora, even foreign born, to connect with their country of birth or descent, it should not turn being Cameroonian into a consolation prize it dolls out. It should guard against opening the doors too wide to Western-leaning mind-sets seeking to radically distort our way of life or perverting our political processes with the hard-currency and extreme liberalism at their disposal. In short Cameroon should be made to mean something. Hiring persons even of Cameroonian origin to some positions like the President of an association like SOCAM should not necessarily lead to cries of foul play on grounds of nationality. This should simply be viewed as the hiring of a foreign hand to help steer Cameroon in the right direction.