THE CORRUPTION COVENANT: CAMEROON’S UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION
By Christopher Fon Achobang
When former minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary spoke of the disappearance of 80 trillion CFA francs, many Cameroonians reacted with outrage. Others reacted with disbelief. Some demanded prosecutions. Others demanded regime change.
Yet the most important question is not whether the figure is accurate.
The most important question is: How does such a colossal loss become possible and sustainable over decades?
The answer lies in what I have repeatedly described as The Corruption Covenant—the unwritten constitution that governs Cameroon more effectively than any document promulgated in Yaoundé.
Sylvester Takwa Senyuyseghan’s recent reflections on Tchiroma’s revelations arrive at the edge of this truth but stop short of naming it. He argues that Cameroon suffers from a crisis of character, accountability, and political culture. He is correct. But the evidence points to something even more profound.
Cameroon is not merely afflicted by corruption.
Cameroon is governed through corruption.
The system survives because corruption has become the glue holding together political alliances, administrative networks, economic interests, and elite survival.
The theft of public wealth is not a malfunction of the system.
It is one of the system’s operating principles.
Even before discussing the fate of the alleged 80 trillion CFA francs, another uncomfortable reality must be acknowledged. For decades, Cameroon has operated within economic arrangements that many African intellectuals and economists have criticized as perpetuating dependency on France. Whether through monetary structures, trade imbalances, external control of strategic sectors, debt mechanisms, or the broader architecture of Françafrique, enormous wealth generated by Cameroonians leaves the country before it can be invested in national development.
Many critics estimate that a substantial portion of national wealth is effectively extracted through these arrangements. Put differently, after foreign interests have taken their share, the residue that remains in Cameroon is then subjected to another layer of predation by domestic political and administrative elites.
The result is devastating.
First, the nation loses wealth externally.
Then what remains is treated by government officials, political brokers, contractors, and their networks according to their whims and caprices.
The ordinary citizen becomes the victim twice.
First by external extraction.
Then by internal plunder.
This is why roads remain unfinished.
This is why hospitals remain under-equipped.
This is why schools deteriorate.
This is why electricity, water, and public infrastructure continue to lag behind national expectations.
The tragedy is not simply that money disappears.
The tragedy is that the disappearance has become normalized.
The anti-corruption agencies established over the years have not fundamentally altered the situation. Commissions have been created. Investigations launched. High-profile arrests publicized. Courts established.
Yet the receipt keeps growing.
Why?
Because institutions designed to fight corruption are themselves operating within the limits imposed by the Corruption Covenant.
The covenant’s rules are simple:
Loyalty is more valuable than competence.
Silence is rewarded.
Exposure is selective.
Political usefulness determines accountability.
Access to public resources secures allegiance.
Mutual protection guarantees survival.
Under such conditions, corruption ceases to be a crime and becomes a governing technique.
This explains why ruling parties often resemble opposition parties when they gain power.
It explains why opposition leaders sometimes exhibit the same tendencies they condemn.
It explains why local councils, ministries, public corporations, and political parties frequently reproduce identical patterns of behaviour.
The faces change.
The covenant remains.
This is why merely replacing President Paul Biya will not automatically solve Cameroon’s problems.
Neither would replacing him with Tchiroma.
Nor with any opposition figure.
Without dismantling the covenant itself, new occupants of power will simply inherit the privileges and temptations of the old system.
Cameroon’s crisis is therefore not fundamentally a crisis of leadership.
It is a crisis of political morality institutionalized over generations.
The challenge before the nation is not merely recovering stolen billions.
The challenge is recovering the idea that public office is a sacred trust rather than a private inheritance.
Tchiroma’s 80 trillion CFA allegation should therefore be understood not as a scandal but as a revelation.
The figure is the receipt.
The Corruption Covenant is the transaction.
Until that covenant is broken, Cameroon will continue to bleed wealth externally while those entrusted with managing the remainder distribute it according to their whims and caprices. New leaders will emerge, old leaders will depart, institutions will be renamed, commissions will be established, and slogans will change.
But the receipt will continue to grow.
And history will continue to record the same tragedy under different names
THE CORRUPTION COVENANT: CAMEROON’S UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION
