Jacque Fame Ndongo: Minister says Biya’s laptops will be arriving by December

The date for the distribution of Biya’s gift has been shifted to December after students have spent their whole school year saturating space in their brains needlessly with thoughts about some bait machines.

If the computers are really coming, then the regime surely tactically wants to give them out at a time not too distanced from elections. So that at that time, the gifts should still be fresh in the minds of students, some of whom will vote for the CPDM as a result of the laptops they have received.

Tongues are restless as many are wondering what could possibly be the reason for this delay. An excuse cannot be given related to insufficiency of money because the government had signed a deal with the Chinese Exim bank, which loaned them 75 billion FCFA. Equally, they saw the company Sichuan telecom, which had to manufacture the laptops and claimed the cost per machine was fixed at 150, 000 FCFA.

This delay means there is something behind which is not clear and the authorities involved do not want to let the public know.

On the eve of the National youth day (11 February 2017), during a TV program organised by the CRTV which took place in the Amphi-700 of the Ngoa Ekele university campus in Yaounde, students were given the opportunity to ask Ministers who were there present, questions. One of them asked about the laptops, willing to know when they shall be available. The Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma who never lacks what to say, responded unconvincingly and defending his Head of State as usual. He said the students should not be afraid, that the President had promised them and will definitely keep to his words. Everybody whether they liked it or not, had to take it that way, even though it was not straight to the point