Bassaland: one of the bastions of petition writings in Cameroon

Offices given to civil servants sent to Bassaland and who have been victims of petition letters, thus brought back to their bases in Yaoundé, are always poorly arranged and their desks are like those of sinners waiting to be questioned on their ways to either heaven or hell. Furthermore, during dry seasons, those offices have temperatures at par with that of the ovens of backers. Civil servants posted to Bassaland and who have lost their posts because of petition letters, start cursing the day they were posted to the region, when dry season comes. For it is the best period when their administrative punishments of sitting idle in their respective offices, ignored by their colleagues and also without electric fans or air conditioners are most felt. Another thing often referred to as the lottery of Bassaland, by all top civil servants who have worked there is that, you could either get promoted or demoted within the civil service. But the first comes only the on condition that, during your stay in the region, the combined number of petitions written against or in support of you and that reaches the ministry of Territorial administration, the Prime ministry and the presidency of the Republic doesn’t exceed 2000. Sadly, the combined figures of 2000 petitions are the monthly figures of petitions coming from Bassaland against and on rare occasions, in support of any posted civil servant to the region.

Hence, any civil servant who has worked in Bassaland, know that, his chances of being elevated from where he was before posting, are slim. What causes the binge of petition writings in Bassaland are most often trivial things. Some of them are sparked by the following: in case a divisional, sub divisional, district or sub district officer or the school principal, chief medical officer or commandant of a military post, refuses to visit a local supper star, who hold an obscure responsibility in one obscure ministry in Yaoundé or fails to salute the many traditional chiefs, who at times are competing for legitimacy amongst the people. Those are some of the reasons that might flicker the anger of one native in search or in need for gratifications, to get his pen and paper and write a long graphic report on the behaviours of posted resident civil servants. Bassaland has chiefs and chiefdoms, but unlike the grass lands and greater Northern provinces of Cameroon, traditional chiefs in Bassaland in particular and most of the forest and coastal lands of Cameroon wield very little power. Bassaland doesn’t have an organised set up, as it is the case in the Grass lands or the semi desertic greater Northern provinces of Cameroon. It may partly explain the reasons why, there are many traditional chiefs in Bassaland and it is always difficult for top state civil servants who are not nationals/natives of Bassaland to seek or know their appropriate interlocutors, without risking creating animosity or jealousy amongst those who have not been contacted.