Across democracies, the rule is simple: citizens vote, and their choice decides. In Cameroon, citizens vote — and power politely thanks them for their participation before issuing a different ending. The ballot box appears onstage, but the final script is written backstage, after the lights dim.
By Colbert Gwain @The Muteff Factor (formerly The Colbert Factor)
In the hillslope village of Muteff, in Fundong Subdivision of Cameroon’s then Menchum Division, schooling was a communal affair. Children, youths, and even the elderly shared the same dusty classrooms, united by the belief — or at least the hope — that education was a passport to a better life.
Among them once stood Yam Tohnain, a towering figure whose enthusiasm for school far outweighed his interest in anything actually taught in it. Tohnain loved the uniform, the noise, the camaraderie — everything except the lessons. Yet every end of term, he marched home with theatrical confidence to announce he had “topped the class.” His illiterate parents, dazzled by the exotic red markings on his report card, never suspected those were symbols of failure — not distinction.
Whenever a literate uncle or returning student asked to inspect the report, Tohnain did not flinch. With artistic speed, he would fish out the card and, with the precision of a calligrapher, convert every red “0” into a blue “10.” Failure became success — by the stroke of a pen.
His sheer size did the rest. Teachers, younger and less confrontational, let him move up with the others. By Class Seven, when the First School Leaving Certificate exam arrived, Tohnain didn’t even wait for results. He left for the coast, found work lifting cargo, made money, came back, married, and settled. He had learned the first rule of survival: when truth threatens comfort, edit the report card.
Fast forward to 2025. Cameroonians went to the polls on October 12. Incumbent President Paul Biya and eleven other candidates were on the ballot. With the visible enthusiasm and high turnout, many believed Biya’s uninterrupted 43-year reign was finally over.
They believed — until the script was rewritten.
And that’s where Yam Tohnain returns, as metaphor and mirror. If digital manipulation is the new art, Tohnain was its prophet long before electricity. With the official results proclaimed on October 27, Cameroonians are once again holding a report card that seems to have been corrected overnight in blue ink.
Tohnain’s schoolboy deception was comical and harmless. But when a nation’s destiny is edited the same way, it ceases to be funny. The question now haunting citizens is whether Cameroon’s elections management body, ELECAM, and the courts graded the winner on merit — or on handwriting.
Across democracies, the rule is simple: citizens vote, and their choice decides. In Cameroon, citizens vote — and power politely thanks them for their participation before issuing a different ending. The ballot box appears onstage, but the final script is written backstage, after the lights dim.
What should be a civic act has turned into political theatre. Campaign promises reappear every election season wearing new costumes; old manifestos are repackaged and resold as “fresh reforms.” Citizens are called to fill stadiums, wave flags, and applaud — not to decide. Their role is to validate the show, not influence its outcome.
To be fair, this pattern is not unique to Cameroon. Across the continent, many incumbents have perfected the art of performative democracy — an elaborate show of participation masking deep institutional control. But in Cameroon, the spectacle has become so polished that it risks replacing governance itself.
Still, every stage has its breaking point. Even the most convincing illusion eventually meets an audience that stops clapping. Across homes, market squares, and WhatsApp groups, a quiet truth is spreading: this is not democracy — it is choreography. And when people stop pretending, the play begins to collapse.
The danger for those still editing history in blue ink is not rebellion at the polls — but awakening in the streets. For when citizens discover that the script no longer belongs to them, the most radical act is not violence but refusal — the refusal to participate in a lie.
Because once the people stop believing in the theatre, the drama ends — even if the actors remain on stage, performing to an empty hall.
Colbert Gwain @The Muteff Factor (formerly The Colbert Factor)
