This is a view I nurtured as a teenager while growing up in a small Cameroonian village in which a group of elites stood in the way of progress through regularly petitioning authorities to dismiss, transfer or call back new appointees or rivals, coming from outside their familiar circles, and who they did not consider ‘indigene’ enough to be legitimate. This oligarchy terrorised and held the entire community hostage to the point where almost every development and progressive initiative came to a standstill because everyone was worried about the sabbotage techniques of this visious group; who were involved in and had captured almost every space. My siblings and I, because we play too much, named this group of simply pathetic people we felt sorry for fondly as ‘the petitioners’. In the era of PCs, many of the petitions were typed by one of our Big Brothers in the community who owned a documentation/computer shop – now of late, oftentimes right into the wee hours of the night and early mornings. They petitioners were dedicated, invested, committed, and had transformed it as an art, a professional and a way of life. They were so good at it so much so that at some point in the community, roads, schools, churches, hospitals, government offices, etc had been petitioned such that almost nothing was working; and especially after every appointed qualified and competent person had left for fear of reprisals and sabbotage.