Paul Biya’s Vacation: An Idea For Obudu Cattle Ranch
Pius Adesanmi
September 03, 2009

“His country is one of the poorest and most corrupt in Africa but he sure can afford an expensive vacation. And the cost of his vacation is beginning to make tongues wag in La Baule”. That was how the news anchor of France 24 cable news station (France started that TV station in the vain hope of catching up with CNN and Al Jazeera) started her 7 p.m. news broadcast on Wednesday September 3, 2009. I hurriedly phoned to announce to some Nigerian and French friends who were waiting for me at a pub around the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris that I would be late. Something just cropped up on TV, bla bla bla. It is my last week in Paris and the friends had organized a beering session at the pub to bid me farewell. Next week, I return to the grind of Canadian academia after two months in France.

Arriving late for my own sendoff because of a news item on TV? That’s the eternal damnation of the Nigerian/African in the West! Every time you hear “Africa” or “Nigeria” on TV, you behave like an antelope whose hyper-sensitive ears have just caught the whiff of an unwelcome lion in the neighbourhood. I wasn’t going to miss a France 24 news feature about the ongoing vacation of one of Francophone Africa’s most corrupt Présidents à vie (Presidents for life) and Pères de la Nation (fathers of the nation).

Details soon came with flamboyant footage of Monsieur le Président Biya holidaying with his wife in the French resort town of La Baule. As Professional as she tried to be, the news anchor couldn’t hide her disgust and contempt as she reeled out the details of how another African buffoon and his ostentatious wife “are currently on an expensive holiday in La Baule”. Naturally, the Biyas have taken over the most expensive hotel in very expensive La Baule for their three-week vacation. They booked 43 – yes, forty-three! – luxury rooms for themselves and aides! The price tag for the people of Cameroon? Only eight hundred thousand euros!

At this point, the focus shifts to the French journalist who started the investigation and blew the whistle on this crazy vacation. He gives the usual talking points that we hear regularly from Western liberal friends of Africa. He tells of how disgusting the whole thing is. He tells of what the money that the Presidential couple has wasted could do for the starving children and women of Africa – yes, he said Africa, not Cameroon. I was about screaming in frustration at the Africanization of the madness of the President of one specific African country when a better idea occurred to me…

President and President Mrs. Paul Biya have eight hundred thousand euros to blow on a three-week, forty-three-rooms vacation in France. You and I know that, as African “leaders”, they will come again next year and even adjust their expenses for inflation. Since we can’t stop them from coming, why don’t we at least struggle to make them keep the money in the family back in Africa? Nigeria’s Obudu cattle ranch in Cross River state is walking distance from the Biyas. I suggest that the management of Obudu, the Governor of Cross River state, and the Minister of Tourism send a high-powered delegation to Yaoundé with immediate effect to offer a discounted 2010 summer vacation at Obudu to the Presidential couple of Cameroon. Eight hundred thousand euros is a lot of money and we could use it in Nigeria. Do they really need it in France? If we knew how to market the tourism potential of Obudu properly, we just might be able to convince the Biyas to bring that excess Cameroonian money to Nigeria next year. After all, it could even be Nigerian money that they are already spending in France! There is no telling if Cameroon has already started making money from the oil reserves in the Bakassi peninsula, hence the very expensive holiday in La Baule.

Back to the news. The Mayor of La Baule was interviewed for the clip. He showered praises on the Presidential couple and commented on the friendship between the people of La Baule and the people of Cameroon! Asked if he was aware of the fact that the Biyas’ vacation in his town contributes to corruption in Africa, he smiled and quipped: “no comments”. My friends at the pub had comments when I finally joined them. I announced my intention to write and publish this piece. “You would be doing the Nigerian people a disservice”, one of them said. “You don start again o. Wetin be disservice for inside dis matter?” I asked. “If you write and publish that President Biya spent eight hundred thousand euros on 43 hotel rooms in Europe, don’t be surprised to hear next year that a Nigerian Governor, Senator, or Rep has spent two million euros on seventy rooms in La Baule. You will just give the looters of Abuja ideas on where next to spend the loot.” I kept quiet. There is nothing a group of Nigerians can’t say over beer when discussing our disgraceful rulers. How do you respond to that one?

C'est la France Afrique . He thinks France will help him.

@poster and post Kuri and Kuriology

Just wasted my 2 mins.,,.,.,.,.,.,.,, I demand my 2 mins back. Brain dead you are a waste of matter. Ah give me back my 2 mins oh.

Biya? Another

Another Robert Mugabe in the making.

rethink:

@poster and post Kuri and Kuriology

Just wasted my 2 mins.,,.,.,.,.,.,.,, I demand my 2 mins back. Brain dead you are a waste of matter. Ah give me back my 2 mins oh.

You spent 2 mins NOT reading the article 

Own up, you read that article with relish As for your 2 mins, I spare you a cruel reply

Where, when, how? Show it.

Are you unhappy that I decided not to reply to your "we are better than that" elitist crap? Well you got one now!

What you wrote below should have been sent to huxley when he was jumping from thread to thread posting the same ramblings, and his dog, rethink, kept agreeing with him on how Nigerians have no brain cells at all.

THE AMAKA:

OMG!!!! CAMEROON ALREADY DENIED IT.
LET IT DIE!

No! Never! I will not rest until I chase huxley into his rat hole!

Just kidding - serenity now

BTW, I am curious, why do you write in pink and capital letters - not trying to start anything, just wondering.

THE AMAKA:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-487385.640.html#msg6493115

Cameroon didn't exactly deny it, but they never said it to begin with.
NOW LET IT DIE!