Two individuals, Gaspard Serge Nkoa alias “Excellence” who works in one of the administrative offices in Yaounde and Dagobert Ngando, a businessman based in Loum, Littoral Region were on May 27, 2010 arrested by the police for extracting FCFA 10 million from over 60 desperate parents promising to have their children admitted into the police. The two suspects are now helping the police in investigating the matter. Many stories of money exchanging hands for admission into public institutions have been heard in the past and more will definitely be recorded in the days ahead with the announcement of competitive entrance examinations into the Higher Teachers’ Training College, ENS and other public exams that will be coming in the weeks ahead. Cameroonians have of late fallen prey to several con men that pass for intermediaries in the recruitments. The thousands of school graduates in search of white collar jobs keep making such a market to flourish. Effectively, some people testify that they got admitted into professional schools through such middlemen. Embarrassingly enough, a member of parliament once said the number of jobs he got for school graduates from his constituency using his micro-finance grants was an indication of the success he recorded as MP. As a law-maker, he ought to know that, such an act alone is bribery, which is a crime punishable by the Cameroonian law.

The justification most often given for the several cases of corruption in our country, especially recruitment has been that the jobs are scarce and the end justifies the means. What people often forget is that both the corrupter and the corrupted are guilty before the law.

The inhabitants of Loum who summed up courage to lodge their case against the two suspects did so simply because the promises were fake. Otherwise, no one would have heard about the issue. There are also many who get duped in such a manner, year in year out. Yet they persist, believing that it is impossible to make it in life without having to bribe. Consequently, it has become difficult to situate the role of values in our society. Once a child is made to know that success in life can only come through dubious means, the tendency will be for that child to set such behaviour as the norm.

However, it is understandable that the high unemployment rate in the country could make many to function according to the adage that a drowning man hangs on a straw for survival.

Cameroonians readily talk of networks in reference to conduit channels which are said to facilitate admission into most professional institutions with fabulous sums of money changing hands. Once such initiatives go unidentified, the candidate and his/her parents rub their hands in glee; heaving a sigh of relief that one problem has been solved with the child having a job. However, the consequence of such acts has been the degrading moral standards in our society.

The close to sixty families in Loum that got deceived might be fuming, and marching to court asking for justice, arguing that they never knew the deal was a raw one. But ignorance of the law is no excuse. Consequently, Cameroonians need to be vigilant in knowing that as long as the society is built on clienteles and back door negotiations, production and quality will keep going down the drain.

It would have been nobler to learn that those involved in the Loum scandal fought hard to convince their progenies to count on hard work and nothing else. Until Cameroonians learn to collectively watch out against those who either give or take bribe, there can be little hope for a society that is forward looking. Yet, the country must move ahead despite the many tales of social misconduct.