The former managing director of the Cameroon Radio and Television Corporation (CRTV), Professor Gervais Mendo Ze, has thanked the head of state, Paul Biya, for helping him lose the excess weight that had become a millstone around his neck.

In a video statement issued on Monday, the ailing professor could been seen demonstrating how grateful he is to the man he served for decades though he was thrown in jail for many years.

A professor of linguistics, Mendo Ze knows how to be sarcastic and understands that sometimes non-verbal communication could be more effective than verbal communication.

The learned Professor wants the world to see how he has been reduced to a bag of bones and helpless. That is why he has released a short video which shows how helpless he has become because of a system that has no regard for human life.

In the video, Mendo Ze is being spoon-fed by a good Samaritan, an image which underscores that a picture is worth more than a thousand words.

But Mendo Ze is not alone in this mess he helped to create. Many others are suffering like him and it is clear that they might never be free.

Inoni Ephraim, a former prime minister, was also reduced to a bag of bones because he was suspected of engaging in corrupt practices while he was the Deputy Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic.

He is today receiving medical attention in France and he has been warned not to open his large mouth else he will be brought back to the Yaounde maximum security facility.

Others like Abah Abah, a former minister of finance; Marafa Amidou Yaya, a former minister of territorial administration and master election rigger; Mebe Ngoh, a former minister of defense and presumed heir to the throne; and Amadou Vamoulke, a former CRTV managing director, are all slowly dying in the Yaounde Maximum Security Facility.

But Cameroonians are not worried about this bunch of hungry individuals who helped to prop a very bad system that is today consuming them and their families.

Under the guise of fighting corruption, the country’s president and those who surround him are doing their best to settle scores and to intimidate those who might one day think of exposing the system or even dreaming of taking over from the ailing president who has ruled the country for 38 years with no good results to show for his long stay in power.

Mendo Ze’s fate is simply a reminder to those who think of becoming senior officials in a system that functions like the Sicilian Mafia.

The only effective rules in the system are those which are unwritten and those rules are dictated by the ailing president.

Cameroon is a dangerous place; a rich country that has been reduced to a bastion of poverty by a president who only thinks of himself.

By the time Biya dies, his government will be considered the worst in the world and the damage Pinochet wreak on his people will be reduced to a dress rehearsal because Biya would have outperformed Pinochet.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai