False Enemies and the Me First Mentality
The writer argues that Cameroonians have turned on each other rather than uniting against shared obstacles—corruption, government dysfunction, educational collapse, economic stagnation, and cultural decay. Drawing on the historical example of Samuel Langley's refusal to collaborate after losing the aviation race to the Wright brothers, the piece diagnoses a corrosive zero-sum competitiveness that prioritizes individual credit over collective progress.
Our real enemy is our common obstacles not each other.
We need to join forces against corruption, a dysfunctional government, a lagging education system, a poor socioeconomic structure, and a defunct cultural machine.
At the time the Wright brothers were using their own money from their bike repair shop to try and put man in the air, there was another state and academically sponsored engineer with the same task. After the Wright brothers beat him to having the first manned flight, he packed his bags and went home and never again worked on anything that had to do with flight. His objective was not to discover flight but rather to be the first one and to get credit for it. The right decision would have been for him to link up with the Wright brothers and add his knowledge to what they had.
I feel like we in Cameroon have all become like that engineer who is not worthy of being named but will be - Samuel P. Langley. We do not want to see our obstacles crumble if we cannot get the most credit for it so we tear each other down with every given opportunity.
We have to be careful about where such an attitude will drive us. The primary driver of our well-being is our culture. A culture built on selfishness is harsh, brittle and short-lived.
I really wish this will make a difference. I’ll just leave this here in case there are any humans out there.
- Tino Foy
Written in early 2019, this reflects a moment of deepening frustration with Cameroon's governance and social cohesion. The piece speaks to a pattern of fragmentation—where rival factions, leaders, and interest groups sabotage potential allies rather than consolidate effort against systemic failure. This was a period of acute civic strain in Cameroon.
The post crystallizes a diagnosis that remains central to understanding persistent developmental failure: the difference between competing for scarce legitimacy and collaborating to expand the pie. Its historical analogy—Langley as a cautionary figure—gives the observation intellectual weight. The warning about a 'culture built on selfishness' being 'harsh, brittle and short-lived' articulates something many observe but few name plainly, and it rings with the same urgency now as it did five years ago.