From The Sketch, No. 19, March 11, 1993, p. 13
I was relaxing on a sofa in my living room the other day, a newspaper in hand, when I overheard a TV journalist reporting on one of those seemingly aimless and endless seminars Yaounde never tires of organising. What with the juicy allowances, the wining and dinning, and out-of-station fringe benefits that go with them! Government functionaries never miss an opportunity to organise one.This time around, it was the Ministry of National Education, which was said to have organised a seminar on sex education in our schools. I interrupted my reading to hear what our brilliant seminarists had come up with this time around and, as it was to be expected, nothing to write home about.
I’m sure you still remember that several years ago, in the columns of Cameroon Tribune – in those days that paper was still fairly palatable and digestible – your humble Tav-Njong had tried to impress on our educational authorities the urgency of introducing sex education in our primary schools as a way of curbing the alarming rate of crude abortions to which many of our young girls are so vulnerable. All this advice I gave for free, por favor.
I can see all of you looking at each other in the mouth, wondering aloud from which muddy creeks of his fertile imagination Tav-Njong has fished out an expression like por favor. You probably didn’t know Tav-Njong spoke Panya from Santa Isabel, did you? Shame on you. Well, por favor means s’il vous plait! You must know what that means since it is the language of nos ancêtres les gaulois! If you don’t, then you must be one of those dreaded Emah Basile’s ennemis dans la maison, or one of those “fist-waving Fascists” – the Ni Fru Ndi apostles – who give Kontchou, alias Zero Mort, such sleepless nights in this country. You should then pack bag and baggage and heed His Royal Highness, Sultan Mbombo Njoya’s advice and vamoose from this country. Where to? Don’t ask me; ask His Highest Royalty.
Well, let’s go back to sex. Yes, I can see a smile on your lips already. Whenever Cameroonians hear the word “sex”, their ears pop up like those of rabbits as they strain them to hear more, sniffing the air like a dog in heat. You talk of a nation of sex maniacs! You should all be ashamed of yourselves!
Yes, I was saying that it is sad that the Ministry of Education should have had to organise a seminar, with all that it entails in terms of expenses, only to endorse my wise conclusions made several years before. What is all the more painful is that I had given my advice, generous as I am, completely gratis. No charge whatsoever.
I believe it was Gobata who once lamented, and rightly so, that those of us in this nation who are benevolent with our ideas, dishing them left and right, free-of-charge, are never listened to. Had the Biya Administration been listening to some of us, would it still be wallowing in this quagmire of blunders? The answer is dancing in the mud.
The only person who seemed to have taken the cue from your humble Tav-Njong on this sex education business was Mrs Anne Nsang of CRTV, who once organised a round-table discussion on that topic. I remember being particularly shocked by the views of one of Mrs Nsang’s guests, a woman of a reasonable age, who wondered out loud how many Cameroonians have ever undressed themselves in front of their children!! Boy, oh boy! You talk of weirdoes in this country!
What has undressing yourself in front of your children got to do with sex education, for goodness sake? I remember reading an angry riposte from a justifiably horrified Cameroonian who considered that woman’s views outrageous. I totally share his feeling of outrage. Why would anyone want me to shed my clothes in front of my three children? If I were ever to be caught in a strip-tease act before my children, what would I tell them? Would I tell them: “Look here kiddies, how well hung your daddy is?” And if I ever did that, how would my action help them understand what this much abused, over-fondled, and potentially dangerous, three-letter word, sex, is all about?
Ever since PB introduced this nonsense called “advanced democracy” in this unfortunate triangle, which some old Portuguese sailor, probably riddled with syphilis, and with a weird sense of humour, had baptised “land of shrimps”, Cameroonians, who should rightfully be called “shrimps” or “Njanga” (with due honours to Gobata), seem to be thinking with their behinds, not with their heads. How sad!
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