Killing The Easy Wealth-acquisition Syndrome!

Cameroon joined the rest of the world last week (March 17-23, 2025) to observe the 13th edition of the Global Money Week under the theme, “Think Before You Follow, Wise Money Tomorrow.” The annual global awareness-raising campaign that seeks to ensure that young people, from an early age, are financially aware, and are gradually acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours necessary to make sound financial decisions and ultimately achieve financial well-being and financial resilience, goes on a slogan, “Learn. Save. Earn.”
The crusade which started in 2012 is said to have reached over 60 million youngsters in 176 nations worldwide. Its core objective is empowering children and youth to not only learn to manage their money wisely, but as well to save for a better future for themselves and their families. Inspiring indeed in a world where the get-rich-quick syndrome is spreading so fast.
In Cameroon, over 25,000 youth were targeted in a weeklong sensitization campaign launched by Youth and Civic Education Minister. All focused on promoting responsible, secure and sustainable financial management among young people, by making them aware of the risks associated with financial transactions and quick-money practices. Commemorative activities in Cameroon comprised a national workshop to train some 7,000 young people in economic patriotism and to raise awareness of the consequences of easy money. The mobilisation and civic commitment of at least 15 companies in the banking sector to the economic and financial education of young people was also on the agenda. Young people and the responsible use of money as well as the harmful consequences of easy money was therefore the gospel that resonated throughout the week. The activities were more than timely!
In fact, in a context where wealth is seen as a source of pride irrespective of how it is acquired, it was therefore crucial that young people be schooled on ways of developing sound money management skills, recognising emotional triggers and developing critical mindsets. For, strengthening financial literacy can help young people better navigate financial markets, build their capacities in taking smarter financial decisions so as to resist growing temptations.
How well the sermon went down with Cameroonian youth and what change could be expected in the short, medium and long terms remains to be seen. But for one thing, practice makes perfect, more so where everything is in place to right wrongs. The milieu in which the youngsters find themselves and the practices therein are, to say the least, not conducive for the weeklong preaching to bear desired fruits, if nothing is done, for example, to cause behaviourial change. The current youth-money situational relations is indeed preoccupying. 
Youth of nowadays seemingly have an unquenchable taste for popularity, wealth or a life of luxury and most of them are increasingly giving in to anything, even the ugly, provided it leads them to achieve their goals. From cybercrime of all sorts, to prostitution through even enrolling in doubtful partnerships, the youth are just vulnerable to anything. Addiction to sports betting, cybercrime, the sale of human bones and other networks that lure young people into the search for easy money are in their numbers. Hard to imagine how society can evolve when people on whom the future lies want huge crowns with few ready to carry the cross.
And what change would anyone expect from the youngsters when their behaviour is regrettably a reflection of society! A society where wealth, sometimes ill-gotten, overrides almost every value even in churches. How would you tell a youth to work hard to “Learn. Save. Earn,” as the slogan of the Global Money Week goes, when some citizens, even State functionaries whose salaries are not up to anything, arrogantly celebrate their billions in a country struggling to stand. If it is not the “billionaires” themselves, their children and wives splash the cash anyhow, as if to tell strugglers to ‘go and die if they cannot live.’ A society where wealth is not justified and some become multi-billionaires overnight. Where assets are not declared, despite the famous Article 66 in the country’s Constitution which advocates that. In fact, when office holders get in stomachs-flat ...