"THIS THING CALLED COMPROMISE"

"THIS THING CALLED COMPROMISE"

Few weeks ago, I accompanied a friend to the central police district in Limbe Southwest Region of Cameroon, to follow-up his complaint.  My friend expressed disappointment with the commissioner of police the way his complaint is handled.

“Sir, it is obvious the IPO (investigation police officer) is compromised,” Mekus said.

      

He has an issue with fellow businessman on possession of stolen items, which is a criminal offence in the Cameroon penal code. The IPO showed blithe indifference, the usual “come today, come tomorrow” affair because the respondent compromised him with cash gratification. Mekus is married to a lawyer and able to intervene through the legal department or state prosecution office, and secured justice.

His privilege position helped him: maybe his education and boldness to demand for his rights, insisting the right thing be done. But there are many citizens out there unlike Mekus who lack the advantage of sound education, boldness and even the financial wherewithal to seek justice in all spheres. They don’t have a lawyer as wife and lack the ability to resist a compromised mind. So, they remain victims of compromise, which keep roaring in a society already bedevil by system failure, selfish greed and evil flattery, where no one dare call a spade a spade – more so when they hope to curry favour.

There are varying angles to Compromise. It is an act and when people indulge in acts which expose them to dishonour and shame or take actions which reveal the stain on their integrity, not necessarily before men but also before God - that is my take on compromise. Usually it is a mix of contrasting values, practices or persons incurring God’s disapproval. Also a positive way to achieve a greater good more so when seen from what one gives up for the best. In fact what tell most of us are the compromises we refuse to indulge.

Somebody can compromise self, taking on initiatives by self devise. This happens when inordinate desires overtake contentment or sound morality. Somebody can also be compromised; being pressured by circumstances or human elements for morally despicable acts. This happens when multitude, popular opinion and societal trend are given considerations, just for the gains. I consider this the double sides of compromise.

From biblical perspectives, God loathes compromise. He forbids compromise and compromising associations. That’s why during His dispensation with the Jews, He warned them against compromise with paganism – in association, worship, foreign alliance and even marriage. Some Bible characters make it more vivid. It is acceptable for Daniel and the other Hebrew boys to eat of daily provisions of the King’s meat: food willfully provided by the King, being among the appointed princes. Eating the King’s food seems a harmless thing to do but for Daniel and others, the consequences are dire. It can be a possible temptation to distraction –an abuse of their status and stand with God. So, they refused to compromise. With Joseph, he resisted being pressured by the surrounding people, his environment and the circumstances he found himself. His brothers could not get him to join their evil racket, not even the amorous advances of his master’s wife. Joseph couldn’t be compromised, being aware of the inappropriateness’ of such action.

In our contemporary world, the force of compromise stares us in all aspects of life; breeding vices like corruption. The consequences are inherent though sometimes we negate it by passing the bulk of blame to others and or circumstances. Compromise faces us in two directions. It looks forward to the bargains we strike and backward at what we had to sacrifice to get there. This also connotes compromise as ‘betrayal’ particularly when it deals with ‘honour and integrity.’ That's the inference we make when we praise somebody as uncompromising – a word for one who sticks to his moral principles, not just for frivolous tendencies.

Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit in his book “On Compromise and Rotten Compromises” called a "rotten compromise" the morally unacceptable accommodation of what is called radical evil. He sited the case of Chamberlain's pact with Hitler at Munich in 1938. Margalit suggests that we should be judged by our compromises more than by our ideals. To him; “Ideals tell us something important about what we would like to be, but compromises tell us who we are."

As humans, we all live, move and carry out activities to attain our dreams, aspirations and life goals. In the course of this we dwell among different people in different locations and take different responsibilities as leaders and followers at different levels. It may be in school, family, church, organizations, institutions, workplace and neighbourhoods. The issue is not where we are or where we find ourselves, but being able to maintain acceptable moral standards by a defiant to compromise or being compromised.

In Cameroon, compromises of all sorts abound, which as earlier mentioned, corruption is the result. Few years back -1998 and 1999- the country made it top in corruption ranking by transparency international corruption perception index (CPI). With little fluctuations in ranking in the preceding years, she maintained a 7^th position in the top ten most corrupt countries in Africa 2015, according to HOWAFRICA rating – a sign that corruption remains systemic and endemic in the Cameroonian society. Here corrupt practices ‘speak loud’, with insidious consequences which pervert all strata of the society’s life and conduct.

For instance, Cameroon highways are littered with checkpoints of different security nomenclatures. Police, Gendarmes and highway police use whistles to halt vehicles on highway, which sometimes I wonder why Cameroon does not have the best of referees in Africa. Whistling is known antics for collecting “highway crumbs”-from 500 francs to 2000 francs CFA. Some call it bribe or settlement. According to HOWAFRICA survey, 62% of Cameroonians paid bribes in 2014.Whatever connotation, it is corruption and it erodes moral dignity. Drivers, especially commercial vehicle drivers and commuters are common victims, often hoodwink into imaginary highway offences. Security checks on vehicle documents and commuters are relegated.

“If you refuse to give ‘something’, they will apply all measures to scrutinise and hang an offence on you,” Simon, a commercial bus driver told me during a chat, referring to the bribe they give as ‘something’   

“It’s a waste of time. If your documents are complete, you give ‘something’, if they are not; you still give ‘something.’’

Many drivers don’t bother about having complete vehicle documents, given they can always bribe their way through, at the risk of commuters.

The judicial process in Cameroon is justice bought and twisted, not justice given. This has negative effect on the justice system. Infact you get justice even for the most unlikely issues as far as your pocket can go. According to HOWAFRICA survey, 81% respondent shows the judiciary in Cameroon is very corrupt. I have been at the legal department or state prosecutor’s office in my Division several times. ‘Bail is free’ is boldly written at eye catchy spots as if meant to welcome first time visitors or as an advertisement. However, it remains a verbal assertion. Bail is never free. Bail fees are recklessly slammed even in matters as simple as investigating written complaints. Freedom is often secured by ability to pay.

In the courts, there is a constant interplay of lies, greed and judicial intimidation - because judicial officers are compromised. What moral justification for instance has a magistrate or judge to sentence a criminal when he or she misappropriates bail deposits made in courts by litigants? The poor and underprivileged are sometimes detained beyond the ambit of the law just because some highly placed elites have compromised judicial officers. Citizens are often threatened with ridiculous jail sentences by some top judicial officers to make them succumb to the financial overtures of these officers.

Local civil administrators are not left out. They have departed from their primary functions of administrative supervision and maintaining peace and order in their various localities. They digress into contracts and land merchandising in connivance with dubious local elites and chiefs. Lands are being confiscated albeit provocatively through fictitious communal applications and sold off, even before registration. This has been trending in their administrative spheres of influence for too long.

In Fako Division of the Southwest Region, after the Government through the Cameroon Development Corporation surrendered ancestral lands belonging to the indigenous people of Fako, a land grabbing mafia cashed in on this seemingly “Government gesture” and ancestral lands suddenly become invitingly sweet smelling and succulent business. Officials in the Ministry of Lands, civil administrators and fabricated traditional rulers in resurrected chiefdoms are fingered in these racketeering. Evidences abound of vast hectares of surrendered lands being grabbed and visible colossal fortunes made from it by dubious authorities. Most of the surrendered lands fraudulently appear in the personal names of local chiefs, who then decide to auction them with little regard or recourse for common good of the teeming villagers; leaving reports of gross deprivations of the local people.

Employment into the public service has remained a ‘pipe dream’ for many today because their “pockets could not speak for them” though their paper qualification is more than apt. For many also, entry into professional schools remain a dream never come through because heads of institutions and their collaborators have monetized entry process.71% respondent in Cameroon feels that corruption is equally rife in academic institution, according to HOWAFRICA.

I can go on stating the obvious but it suffice to say that what is happening in Cameroon and indeed Africa reeks of gross corruption orchestrated by compromises at different levels. Corruption has been the bane of leadership and even followership in our clime, which evidently requires change – an astute behavioural change that should be driven by purposeful leadership and spreads to all levels of the society.There must be a change through proper orientation from taking the venal path to the discipline of controlled cravings, to refusing to be driven by fear to sell out birthrights or backslide into error.  This is patriotism.

‘Operation epervier’ or ‘sparrow-hawk’ (in English translation) initiated by the government of Cameroon as a move against corruption has been received with mixed feelings: the impact not as effective as expected. The excitement is not in the arrest and detention of high profile cronies of this administration both past and serving; but in the recovery of loots and putting in place necessary policy framework which will put corruption to rest or reduce it to the barest minimum.

The Government of Cameroon through the President has embarked on an ambitious programme for the emergence of Cameroon by 2035; what is today tagged “vision 2035”.This programme amongst other things is to see the emergence of Cameroon as a country which creates and distributes wealth fairly, which offers equal development opportunities to all and a country which ensures happiness for all. Though laudable, it is daunting as well and therefore requires total involvement of all and sundry - Cameroonians in towns and villages.

However, vision 2035 will be another aborted government slogan until there is commitment and political will by government and other stakeholders to vigorously pursue rule of law, social justice and respect for human rights. Cameroon will not emerge where good governance as in public accountability and transparency especially in budgeting does not exist; where citizens can not key into government programs or policies as it affects their welfare and also track government spending. She will not emerge if corruption and all other financial graft soar.

Experts have rued the depth of corruption in the country. “Government efforts seems tenuous to the unimaginable depth of corruption in our governance process,” said a university don who pleaded anonymity. He is very sarcastic about the so called fight against corruption. “What has it yielded,” he asked.

For Kwenti, a development consultant in the commercial city of Douala, “it is a circle.” The tendency has always been there even at the grassroots but simply requires an opportunity to strive. People take their chances these days with the wrong things,” he stated, adding that government must be sincere and also focus on minor corrupt practices in public offices which are the most devastating for citizens. Granted – there are major corrupt cases and it should be pursued, but what about minor sharp practices which daily inhibit citizen’s access to public service; a situation where 41% of citizen’s response indicates that corruption in the country is still on the rise.

I must agree there are possibilities to curb the menace of corruption. However that may not be too soon because a pervasively coloured leadership as we currently have in place, with high handedness, recklessness and vindictiveness – all in the name of fighting corruption

can never drive change. So also is a followership that looks on with feline complacency while corrupt practices are being brazenly perpetrated with impunity.

There is always a price for compromise. It is like an implanted seed with the ‘evil harvest’ of corruption as we’ve just discussed. Compromise is a dream killer. By it destinies are truncated and God’s plan frustrated. I take another look at a biblical character Samson - his birth, life and ultimate end. Samson had a peculiar birth, with great and glorious destiny from God. He did many exploits but a life of compromise with women made him die a blind, desperate and frustrated man.

So are destinies of Nations and or societies trapped and their socio-economic development truncated. This can only happen to societies in Africa which embrace compromise as a way of life forgetting that all it breeds is unchecked greed and underdevelopment. As a wise saying goes, “He who goes to bed with an itching anus will obviously wake up with smelling fingers”

By: Godycreative