Cameroonians, dear Compatriots, after many years of thoughts, hard work and surrounded by women and men of this country; the time has come for me to introduce myself as a candidate to the next presidential elections.

          During these three years, I went around Cameroon, from North to South and East to West, and in a particular way, I observed, listened and wrote down many things during our encounters. What you told and gave me helped to propose a coherent, ambitious and realistic political program for the country.

          I surveyed Cameroon of country sides and towns;

          Cameroon of farmers and stock breeders;

          Cameroon of unemployed; those who the society left across the road without any alternative other than to see the poverty taking over them and a horizon without dreams.

          Cameroon of civil servants; those that the salary is not any longer a merit today but a favor given by the State.

          Cameroon of small business, bayam-selam;

          Cameroon of business, men and women who are watching their business go down because of a State with unstable institutions where the leading class is egotistic and short of ideas.

          I also met another Cameroon, where men and women are worried about the future of their progenitors. That Cameroon, which thinks that it's time to turn the page and take care of our destiny.

          Presidential election is for every population and in every country in the World to rebound the republican and to seal the conveyance between the political World and the population.

          I announce my candidature in advance;

          First of all because we don't have electoral calendar in this country,

          Secondly and foremost because we have to start over again in this country, that’s why I want every Cameroonian to have my program so that you will be able to see if it's faithful to our exchanges and can fulfill your needs. The future of many generations depends on the results of the urns.

          I heard your call and your will and I understand that Cameroonians do not longer want a candidate approved by the ancestors because we know where it led us. Presidential election in Cameroon is the matter of people alive not dead, because there is a lot for the elected one to do. This election has to oppose women and men who have a program to propose to the population of Cameroon, with the capacity to put in place an ambitious and realistic politic with unique concern of the well-being of Cameroonians. Presidential election is the encounter of a candidate with his people, because people of Cameroon in their quest for their freedom do not need anymore those political men whose only strength of proposition, until now, was to strike, and who are tired of cheated elections, which finally put them into dependence. No one wants a country where the success of others is based on the failure of multitude.

          I know the distress of my people, not only because they are mine as well but because I came to you and you expressed it. This is time to liberate our talents and energies with only one goal. It's time to give to the people of Cameroon, the hard workers and ingenious the life they deserve.

This is time to tell you that I need you. Dr Martin Luther King said and I quote, “The scaring thing is not the oppression of the wicked, but the indifference of the good ones.” Yes, it's for you, for you to be mobilized as one man against imposture, dictatorship and dehumanization we went through these 50 last years. Let's liberate ourselves and go ahead as one man for the construction of our country. I need your intelligence, your generosity, your courage and your pride.

          It's time dear Compatriots, Cameroonians of towns, villages, cities and country sides to stand for a Cameroon which rallies above all, above religions and ethnical belongings. Together let's say no to those, who for almost 30 years, tried to prove to us that Cameroonians hate each others.

          My campaign is based on restoration of institutions because without it Cameroon does not exist. We are constantly faced with corruption, waste and false promises from our leaders.

          My campaign is also based on contract of honor with each one of you, daughters and sons of this National triangle carrying the Lake Chad on the head, proud of each one of his tribes and religions. A Cameroon able to supply for the needs of his people: from the strongest to the weakest, English to the French speaking, Tikar as Toupouri, and Moundang of Kaele as Okak of Ma'an. Cameroon is proud of its 256 ethnicities and with all we have, we will be able to rise again from the challenges that we are facing today. It's time to turn towards the construction of a country proud of his men and women.

          Those who led us yesterday hurt our country greatly, but from the colonization till today, Cameroon always knew how to rise again after the sustained humiliations. Martin Paul Samba, Douala Manga Bell and the chiefs of the west of Cameroon did not died singing serenades but pushed by the enemies. They walked with firm steps because they trusted the people of Cameroon and their descendants. Now is the time to lift up high the face of this Cameroon, resistant and proud.

          Dear Compatriots, Cameroonians, my candidature is about the pride and the recovered dignity of people of Cameroon from towns to villages, cities and country sides. It's the just and noble alternative to the silent distress of our country. My candidature is for the restoration of many broken lives of Cameroonians, humiliated families and confined in the misery of injustice's hymn.

          To rise again from the challenges, I will need the whole population of Cameroon, that’s why I submit to your appreciation a project of society built from our meetings, managed days and nights in secret because of the repressive system which does not hesitate to use force to keep the population in fear. We are to propose a new way to do politics and a new way to behave in Cameroon.

          The public debt of our country is 1,377 billions of our francs and it is unbearable. We have one doctor for every 12,500 Cameroonians and every Cameroonian is on debt for about 18 millions of our francs. Industrial production in our country stocks when it does not exist. That inconsiderate tour of horizon is not linked to the Worldwide conjunction but to the economic choices made by our leaders these last 30 years.

          It's time for us, for me, for the whole population of Cameroon, with our efforts and sense of patriotism to do it in our own way. I'm convince that we can make it if we change with professionalism the way we conceived the creation of worth until now, the way we conceive education and professional insertion. Within me, I think it’s time to project a durable development of our country on the essential pillars which are economy, the social and the environmental. They as our National flag should be shared equally, carried by a man and a will of a united people, strong and proud.

          We are in Central Africa, the light that lights the people of the North and South in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We are a sub-regional power in many domains; and we owe that status to the genius of people who make up our country. We are the attic of Central Africa and we have to keep that place by taking economic risks, by sustaining the fleuron of our agriculture and our banks to our national capitals. To reach there, it's now time to mobilize our greatest resources, our students, from our schools and universities. It is time to permit our salaried workers to be real partners of the State and contribute to the development of our country. This has to be a social dialogue with the real autonomous syndicates’ beyond political influence. Now is the time.

          Being conscious of our competences and rewards, we must work together as one. There is much to be done to start over, that’s why I take a date with the people of Cameroon whom I believe that a drop of sweat will not fall in vain. Everything I promise, I’ll do. I will install a virtuous circle in the center of our Cameroonian administration; a real protection shield and catalyst of development. Believe me; we have human means to restart the economic machine so long stayed in the platform because of an ancient system of exploitation, without a machinist and a pilot.

          It is time to put Cameroonians in the center of enterprise to get our country out of debt. It is time to focus on the poor zones and give them the resources needed to become contributors in the development of this country rather than deprive the people of the resources. It is time to safeguard our Nation’s greatest resources.

          Cameroonians, dear Compatriots, I commit myself during this campaign to show you the ways we can use to get out of this situation. They were conceived during our meetings, and analyzed by the best of us. I'm really grateful to those men and women who help us to discover how much this country can accomplish by creating institutions which in turn, will create employment.

          I have always said that school and employment go hand in hand, that’s why I will like to put schools in the center of the enterprise and the enterprise in the middle of the secondary school. I want universities which are able to supply the needs of Cameroonians and the population. It's with you that I want to achieve this, that's why for all of us it's time to go for this long walk. Yes, we all need it because the future of our children and grand-children depends in it.

          The Cameroonian and administrative machine is heavy because it does not really exist, that why this campaign is based on construction and restoration of our institutions. The Central State inherited from the French colonization was rusted during these last 50 years. It was heavy for these last years because of the lack of initiatives and the political will of 1% of the population. That 1% that holds 90% of the resources of our country. I understood that the people of Cameroon from towns to villages want the real reform, the real cleaning up and the construction based on new things. We have ministries that are not really useful and those that the denomination is changing all the time. It's the case of the ministry of finances and education: two key sectors in any respected country that the aim is to be projected to the future. I would like to reduce ministries in our government so that they can be more effective and to limit the waste. Let's declare together the death of that heavy structure of administration, the one that gave useful text to the population, scattered in the national territory of men and women who want to work but don’t have anything to do.

          People of Cameroon proud and strong; let's sweep away that large administration, motor diesel of corruption, all the blackmails possible and all the compromises. It's time to put the State at the service of the population of Cameroon. No one in this country at the end of the day would ever ask what the use of that ministry is.

          The minimum salary in our country from July 2008 was 28.214 Fcfa. It's unbearable when our neighbors are at 80.000 Fcfa for Gabon and 150.000 Fcfa for Equatorial Guinea! It is normal that a scream of anger would come out of Cameroonians who are able to work, but do not have any perspective of employment. Yes, I heard the frustration of the young graduates, unemployed, whose figures are close to 68%. And those that the first job is nothing compared to the expectations and worst, it is not the concern of those who led our country until now. I could feel the anger rising and could see it in the faces of those who are deprived of speech, those who can't pay their rent, those who can't send their children to school. I felt the anger of those 14 million Cameroonians who are living with less than 2 dollars per day. I could feel that anger, the anger of those homeless children, without family and no hope. Those children, sons and daughters of men condemned into misery.

          People of Cameroon, my people, I, Vincent Sosthène FOUDA, promise to revalorize the social minima, and that in 2 years, the SMIC (Guaranteed Minimum Wages) of our country will be at 100.000 Fcfa. I refuse to see the people of Cameroon living in misery and condemned to steal to survive. It's those who are leading us who created the misery to finance sects out of our borders and to pay parasitic irlands out of here. Those that their children never went in our schools, who never spend their holidays in our villages, who their expectations of life is the double of the National expectation.

          If I’m elected at the head of this country, I will commit myself to satisfy your just anger, and to walk with you towards a radiant future because it's for all of us.

          It's time for Cameroon to re-build, to re-develop with the modern means, that's why the development plan I propose leans toward the environment. I said it and I will do it. I will renationalize SNEC and AES SONEL, because the vocation is to sustain the State in its regalian functions. After Congo-Kinshasa, Cameroon is the second hydraulic reserve of black Africa and its richness is only operated today at 3%! Every habitation and road of our country has to be electrified at the end of my mandate. We have developed renewable energies which we need to use to ensure we leave this planet in the best shape for our children.

          I gathered around me competent and patriot environmentalists and they gave me an action plan, precise and durable.

          Cameroon is the attic of Central Africa and has to remain so. That is how it's happening everywhere in the world. We are going to subsidize our agriculture and not undergo the rules of the CMO but participate in a competitive way. We need an agriculture which is going to let farmers across the road compete on a safe environment without the fear of being killed. By developing the new agricultural techniques, the meteorological technology necessary to determine the seasons, and the circle of rain, we are going to better answer the needs of agricultural world. Each Cameroonian is a farmer and stock breeder, and the help will go directly to them and not to the big agricultural enterprises. We can't forget the world of countrymen and will not ignore them.

          We went through riots of hunger in February 2008 with more than a thousand deaths, mostly youths. By choosing the culture of exportation over the National sovereignty alimentary, the State of Cameroon missed an opportunity. Since its entry in CMO in 1995, alimentary dependence of our country based on outside sources today, the figures of FAO are to confirm: 500,000 tons of rice and 361,000 tons of wheat for 2008, about the essential of our national consumption, it means we are not capable to produce what we can eat anymore.

          Agriculture is the fuel of that car called Cameroon, and not the opposite. We don't have to do as is normal to see our population gloom in poverty, incapable to live of the fruit of their labor. Then it's normal for that world to be organized, where the necessity to put back the regulation offices of products type, of stability fund of incomes, of our countrymen. The name of countrymen has to stop being a pejorative but remain in the noble vocabulary of our country. It's time to encourage and sustain the birth of syndicates so that their rights will be defended and protected. We are going to create a system of health insurance for the agricultural world because it's also exercising a profession with everything included.

          I want to lead Cameroon towards modernization by putting agriculture in the center of administration; the first goal to serve. It's time. Our agricultural engineers need to be from now on in the field, to innovate, propose new techniques and promote new ways to improve our agriculture. They have to play the first role for the success of our agricultural policy. That is the ambitious policy I would like to lead for a durable development of our country.

          By putting down the customs barriers, the State has constrained farmers to leave agriculture of subsistence because we can't rival imported products which inundate local and national markets. The State starving of juicy speculations gives more importance today to the exploitation of the underground, which permits that the minority exile instead of being at the service of the people of Cameroon. This is precisely why only 1.9% of the National budget allocated to the ministry of agriculture and of rural development went to the agricultural world.

          The population of Cameroon is proud and not reconciled; that’s why we have to stand together because it's time to have a speech without fear; a speech pushed by the desire of freedom for progress and development. Cameroon has the vocation to express itself in Africa and where it's needed, and for that, let's build a better Cameroon, so that it can be the tree that welcomes and on which many birds come to build their nests.

          Dear compatriots, everything still needs to be re-build in our country, that’s why I present my candidature months ahead, and I will like it to be viewed by each one of you. The presidential is the encounter of a man with his people. You are my party, you are my civil society, you are my voice in the small towns and villages, and we are walking together towards that road which is the re-construction of our country.

          Hurray for peace!

          Hurray for work!

          Hurray for Fatherland!

          Hurray! Cameroon stands more than ever and proud for ever.

Vincent-Sosthène FOUDA ESSOMBA