As a national brand football once had only corruption to contend with in Cameroon. But there’s another that has been warming up in the wings, working its way to top rung, virtually unnoticed. It is a game called Chop-and-change, and the star player is none other than President Biya himself. Some say it is a mind game. No gainsaying that. What with the way he narcotizes us with it, beginning with the dizzying speed. Some others call it the chair dance, and I think that’s nearer home. Now, don’t say you don’t know what it is. It is an enjoyable party game. Chairs in a circle,  dancers in the middle, dancing. Each time the music stops the dancers return to the chairs. But the number of chairs keeps reducing and each time a dancer cannot find a seat to return to, the dance ends for him/her.

I was in a Nairobi airport lounge, waiting to take a Mbanga Pongo back home from a ramble that took me halfway across the world (more about that next time). Somebody I did not know spotted this rambling face that has the misfortune of not going unnoticed anywhere, and no sooner were we done with the one-sided self-introduction that he whipped a piece of paper our of his diplomatic briefcase. It was the result of the latest lap of the chair dance. I noticed that my brother the Bird had survived as the top dancer, flanked by an outsider from Beauregard country and a Nkassang who now joins the big jester Cavalier.

True to his diplomatic calling, my chat mate was quite poker-faced about the fact that, of all hopefuls, - the shipman, the Chiefs’ man, the Midman etc, with all what they threw into the bargain - the only chair left on the dance floor for his native Abakwa was taken by a most unexpected, new dancer – one who seems to have been trained in Mutengene (for those who know the track record of this famous townlet).

Well I mentioned the dizzying speed with which the chairs change. In fact the chairs themselves hardly get to know the pair of buttocks occupying them. Are you wondering why it goes so fast? Or trying to understand the elimination principle? You must be a candidate for a migraine. Not that there is no logic to the chopping and changing. Nothing to do with dancing well – because dancing well is itself defined by the most subjective criteria dictate executive privilege and informed by ethnic and personal survivalism.

So you can dance like a bull in a china shop for all anyone cares, if you don’t rock the boat, you will see many chairs. The last thing to do is dance well enough to attract applause from the audience. You will not see the next chair. Anyone else drawing applause makes the changer of the chairs have butterflies in his stomach. Remember his buttocks are glued to his own chair. He need not, dare not stand up to dance. You never know. So what happened to the Blessed Virgin’s personal disciple? What would his son say, after all the sacrifice he made for the other son?

Well, all this reminds one of what Ndongmo is quoted as saying to Ahidjo. Changing chairs while others dance may be fun, but what if the sky stops the music? 

The Rambler