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Another central obstacle to development lies in a contradiction that has become almost routine: inconsistency.

We say we want change, yet we refuse to change.
We demand honest leaders, yet we celebrate, welcome, and honor in our villages and communities men and women we know to be dishonest or corrupt.

More troubling still, we tolerate — and sometimes practice — dishonesty within our own families, associations, and networks. What we publicly condemn, we privately accommodate.

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Morality With Variable Geometry

We claim we must be strong and united in the face of external threats, yet we excel above all at weakening one another.
What could genuinely constitute our strength and unity — the reinforcement of justice, fairness, and shared rules — we routinely undermine, relativize, or violate.

We call for the rule of law, but applaud shortcuts when they benefit us.
We demand equality, but accept privilege when it serves our side.
We praise merit, yet turn a blind eye to favoritism when it is convenient.

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Sowing Disorder, Expecting Harmony

Day after day, we sow the seeds of tribalism, corruption, individualism, resignation, and ignorance.
And yet we hope — almost magically — to obtain a united country, populated by citizens who are upright, solidaristic, committed, and patriotic.

This dissonance is not trivial. It reflects a profound misunderstanding of how societies function. One never harvests what one refuses to sow.

Societies do not transform themselves through incantation. They are shaped by the repeated, consistent behaviors they truly reward and tolerate.

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Speaking Without Adhering

Inconsistency means saying things one does not genuinely believe.
It means proclaiming values without embodying them.
It means expressing outrage at outcomes that our own daily actions make inevitable.

To desire something, then to be shocked by not obtaining it while our behaviors actively prevent it — this is the core of the problem.

This is not a marginal moral flaw.
It is a collective mechanism that drains discourse of substance and reduces change to rhetoric.

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No Golden Society With Lead Individuals

It must be stated plainly: one does not build a society of gold with individuals made of lead.

Cameroon will never progress beyond the level of coherence, responsibility, and integrity of its citizens. Institutions will not sustainably surpass the ethical and civic standards of those who animate them.

Development is not an external force imposed upon a society despite itself. It is the aggregated outcome of citizens’ practices, choices, and renunciations.

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The Condition for Real Change

For Cameroon to change and develop, neither stronger speeches, nor more attractive promises, nor better slogans will suffice.

What is required is a critical mass of citizens acting coherently with what they demand:

• refusing corruption even when it is socially tolerated;
• defending justice even when it does not serve their immediate interests;
• embodying, in everyday life, the values they expect from leaders.

Change begins where words cease to serve as alibis and become commitments.

Without this minimum coherence between speech and action, every ambition for transformation will remain an illusion — and development, an unfulfilled promise.

Franck Essi

#WeHaveTheChoice
#WeHavePower
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#LetsTurnOnOurBrains