By Ali Dan Ismael
Editor-in-Chief, The Independentistnews
5 April 2026
A System Fed, Not Fixed
There is a quiet absurdity at the heart of Cameroon’s political economy—one so glaring that it can no longer be hidden behind diplomatic language or development rhetoric. A state swollen with ministries, bloated with titles, and paralysed by patronage continues to receive financial endorsement from institutions that claim to promote efficiency and growth. Let us be clear. This is not governance. This is not development. This is organised administrative gluttony—financed from abroad and sustained by political convenience.
The Architecture of Patronage
Under the long shadow of Paul Biya, the state has become an elaborate theatre of appointments. Ministries multiply. Delegations expand. Portfolios overlap. But production does not follow. There is no corresponding rise in industrial output, agricultural transformation, energy security, or export strength. Instead, what exists is a system designed not to produce wealth—but to distribute power. Positions for loyalty. Positions for silence. Positions for control. This is not an economy. It is a political payroll masquerading as a state.
The Donors Know—And Still Fund It
Let us dispense with illusion. Institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are not blind. They know the wage bill is excessive, productivity is weak, reforms are superficial, and corruption is entrenched. Yet the funding continues. Why? Because the objective is not transformation. It is containment.
The Stability Doctrine: Order Without Progress
For external actors—particularly France—the calculation is simple: a predictable, inefficient regime is preferable to an uncertain collapse. And so emerges the doctrine of political stability at any cost. But what is called stability is, in truth, something else entirely: stagnation disguised as order, silence mistaken for peace, control presented as governance. This is not stability. It is managed decay.
Is There Any Certainty of Economic Growth?
Here lies the question that cuts through all narratives: can such a structure produce real, sustainable economic growth? The answer is unequivocal: no. No economy can grow where administration expands faster than production, loyalty outweighs competence, consumption exceeds value creation, and policy serves political survival over economic logic. At best, the system produces statistical growth without substance—numbers sustained by external inflows. At worst, it spirals into rising debt, declining real output, currency vulnerability, and eventual fiscal collapse. This is not growth. It is economic simulation.
The Vice Presidency Illusion
Into this already fragile structure enters a familiar remedy: the creation of new political titles—most notably, the proposal or introduction of a Vice President. We must ask: can a new title fix a broken system? The answer is as clear as it is uncomfortable. It cannot. A Vice Presidency may clarify succession, provide symbolic reassurance, or suggest institutional continuity. But it does not address the core failures of the system. It does not reduce administrative bloat, generate economic productivity, restore institutional credibility, or resolve structural marginalisation. Instead, it risks becoming yet another layer in an already overloaded state—another office, another budget line, another instrument of political balancing. At worst, it introduces elite competition, succession tensions, and deeper instability disguised as reform. This is not a solution. It is political theatre.
The Recycling of Dependency
Meanwhile, the flow of aid continues—not as a catalyst for transformation, but as part of a closed financial loop. Funds arrive. Contracts are issued. Consultants are paid. Capital returns outward. Dependency is maintained. Influence is preserved. And the system remains exactly as it was—unchanged, unproductive, and unaccountable.
The Human Cost of Managed Decay
While this machinery of inefficiency operates, the people bear the consequences. Unemployment rises. Infrastructure deteriorates. Opportunity disappears. And in Southern Cameroons—Ambazonia—the cost is even more severe: militarisation, displacement, and economic strangulation imposed upon a people already excluded from meaningful participation in the system. This is the moral contradiction: a system funded in the name of stability produces sustained human suffering.
Can This System Be Trusted?
So we return to the central question: can the international financial system trust this structure? The answer is stark. It is not trust that sustains this relationship—it is tolerance. Donors do not trust the system to perform. They trust it to comply. They trust that reforms will be simulated, reporting will be managed, and instability will be contained. What exists is not confidence. It is managed risk underwritten by geopolitical interest.
What Real Stability Requires
True stability is not the absence of disruption. It is the presence of functioning systems. It requires a lean and disciplined state, a productive economy, accountable institutions, and legitimacy rooted in the consent of the governed. Without these, no amount of funding, no multiplication of ministries, and no creation of new titles can save the system.
Final Word: The Day of Reckoning
The real scandal is not merely that such a system exists. It is that it is financed, legitimised, and defended by those who claim to promote development. History will not remember this as partnership. It will remember it as the deliberate maintenance of dysfunction. And when the question is asked—who kept this system alive?—the answer will not rest in Yaoundé alone. It will echo through the institutions, the policies, and the quiet approvals of those who chose stability over truth—and in doing so, delayed the inevitable reckoning.
