Dear young compatriots,
Let me not wish you, for once, a happy Youth Day on this 57th edition! I feel very uncomfortable do-ing so, because I know and see your suffering and despair that grows year after year.
The theme of this 57th edition is: “Youth, moral, civic and entrepreneurship rearmament, a guarantee for discipline in building a united and prosperous Cameroon”. This could have been an attractive and mobilising programme if we were not convinced that it is the umpteenth mockery of a regime experienced in diabolical manipulation. This edition of the Youth Day, which was designed to encourage our youth to look to the future instead of wading in the painful memory of the 1961 territo-rial amputation that saw Northern Cameroons becoming part of Nigeria, is being celebrated in a coun-try plunged in a deep moral decay.
Indeed, this 57th edition of the Youth Day coincides with a state crime, the heinous murder of MAR-TINEZ ZOGO, followed by that of Reverend Jean Jacques OLA BÉBÉ. These heinous crimes are linked to citizen and republican denunciations of mafia-type gangs that have taken over the State in broad daylight and in an arrogant manner, as illustrated by the scandalous embezzlement of public funds allocated to the organisation of the 2019/2022 AFCON, the protection of Cameroonians against Covid-19, the revolting management of the famous Chapter 94, and lines 65 and 57 of the State Budget with the active participation of those who are supposed to protect public wealth and ensure the security of the people. In this context, what credence can be given to a project of “moral and civic re-armament” of the youth led by a government that is responsible for the moral decay of society, includ-ing the perversion of morals, and whose only mode of action is incantation?
The moral legacy of 40 years of CPDM rule and its allies and satellites is simply disastrous. Along the long and chaotic path of the New Deal, our youth have been, and remain, disoriented by various evils, including mass unemployment in a country where the regime preferred to import prefabricated concrete materials for the construction of football stadiums for the 2019/2022 AFCAN; the spread of drug use in society, including in schools where, according to data from the National Committee for the Fight against Drugs (CNLD), in June 2022, 21% of the population had already had to use drugs; sex-ual deviance, including rape, paedophilia, homosexuality imposed as a means of social mobility, alco-holism, violence of all kinds, endemic corruption and misappropriation of public funds, etc.
How can a government, that passed the 2023 finance law with a tax system that is disconnected from the country’s economic realities, claim to encourage young people to start-up businesses? Today, the young Cameroonian entrepreneur just starting out fears the administration more than the competition, as the latter is ridden by corruption and develops all kinds of pretexts to extort money from him/her.
How can a government that has forced the youth into an absurd civil war in the English-speaking re-gions of the country, that distils hatred and promotes tribalism in an unabashed manner credibly invite the youth to participate in the building of a united and prosperous Cameroon?
The truth is that the CPDM government has never had a plan for our youth.
Since its creation more than ten years ago, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) has been proposing a well thought-out and credible offer that will enable our youth to take their rightful place in the recovery of the country. This innovative project is based on quality education through a radical reform of the current education system, with emphasis on technical and vocational training adapted to the job creation and the rapid technological progress of the country.
In order to enable the implementation of this revolutionary project for the youth, I invite you to massively go and register on the electoral registers and to vote when the time comes, so that, through the ballot box and peacefully, we put an end together to the long drift in which the current regime has involved not only entire generations of Cameroonians, but also the current youth of our country and the generations to come.
All of us, including those who, during the various elections, are mobilised to stuff the ballot boxes in favour of the ruling CPDM, or to attack the scrutineers of the opposition candidates, or those who, receiving a pittance as remuneration, spend most of their time on social networks, at the request of the government, to promote hatred and the most despicable tribalism, are now experiencing the dramatic consequences of an irresponsible management of the country. No one is safe anymore, not even the youth of the CPDM.
So, my dear young compatriots, let us work together for the advent of a democratic and peaceful change in our country via free, transparent, and credible elections. Through your massive registration on the electoral registers and your informed votes during the twin legislative and municipal elections of February 2025 and the presidential election of October of the same year, you will block the way to the adventure in which the mafia-type gangs engaged in the struggles for undemocratic leadership want to embark our country. I remind you that registration is open from 1 January to 31 August.
The tragic and particularly cruel fate of MARTINEZ ZOGO must awaken each one of you, every Cameroonian, because it reveals the determination of the forces of evil to keep Cameroon in the dark-ness of misery, division, and hatred, and to accentuate ever more the dramatic regression of our beau-tiful country. It is the duty of all of us, and particularly the duty of the youth that you are, to fight them democratically by voting, to express your categorical refusal of their evil project through the ballot box.
I therefore invite you to make this 57th edition of the Youth Day a moment of reflection on the peace-ful and democratic means to be deployed effectively to put an end to the distress of Cameroon’s youth during the next municipal, legislative, and presidential elections of 2025 or before!
May God protect Cameroon!
Done in Yaoundé on 9 February 2023
The National President
Maurice KAMTO
