While Cameroonians across the world are optimistic about the resolution of the socio-political crisis which has fractured the country and hurt its economy, the hawks in the Yaounde government who are clearly frozen in time are seeking to scuttle plans by the international community to engineer peace in the Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions.

In a press release signed by the country’s communication minister, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, who also doubles as the government’s spokesperson, it is clear that the government stuck in its old ways and prepared to throw a monkey-wrench into the peace process which has received global approval with Canada designated to play a leadership role. The press release stresses that it is first and foremost up to the people of Cameroon and the leaders to seek ways and means to address problems facing the country.

It must be pointed out that Cameroon’s current leaders have never been voted into power by the people of Cameroon. For more than 30 years, no free and fair elections have ever been held in Cameroon and rigging elections is the only way the current regime knows. 

The Yaoundé government is noted for its dishonesty, and it will be preposterous for any reasonable person to trust a word from a government which is on its last leg. Mr. Rene Sadi’s unfortunate release should not dampen anybody determination to bring peace to the country.  

Cameroonians must be willing to drag their so-called leaders to the negotiating table if real change has to occur in the country. Only a massive revolution will change things in Cameroon and Cameroonians must accept that some people have to die for others to live in peace. Power never concedes and freedom is never granted on a platter of gold.

Cameroonians – both Anglophones and Francophones – should join forces to engineer a regime change in Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana 

The announcement by the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, to the effect that there is a peace process aimed at resolving the ongoing crisis in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon has generated a lot of enthusiasm in Cameroon, especially in the country’s two English-speaking regions where many innocent civilians are still being killed and others being exploited by government soldiers sent to the regions to help restore peace and unity. 

The announcement clearly points out that “Civilians are bearing the brunt of the ongoing crisis in Cameroon, with more than 6,000 people having lost their lives since 2017. In addition, nearly 800,000 people have been displaced as a result of this crisis, and 600,000 children do not have full access to education.

The announcement also underscores that Canada welcomes the agreement by the parties to enter a process to reach a comprehensive, peaceful and political resolution of the conflict, underscoring that the parties have also agreed to form technical committees to begin work on confidence-building measures.

Canada, a trusted partner around the world, holds that the agreement to enter a formal process is a critical first step toward peace and a safer, more inclusive and prosperous future for civilians affected by the conflict and the North American country is ready to provide much-needed leadership in the resolution of a conflict which has left many dead.

Canada therefore “… commend all parties for engaging in substantive dialogue. We encourage all stakeholders to support and work with the parties to advance and contribute to an inclusive process to reach a lasting and sustainable political settlement, stressing that “Canada has accepted the mandate to facilitate this process, as part of our commitment to promote peace and security and advance support for democracy and human rights. Our role also reflects Canada’s engagement to work with our African partners to build a better future for everyone.

It should be recalled that Canada does not support Cameroon’s dislocation and has underscored, through many media, that it has had significant experience with its own minorities which it intends to put at the service of Cameroon so that the different communities can live in peace and work tirelessly towards the attainment of economic prosperity. 

Canada is a middle-class civilization which runs on equitable distribution of resources so that its citizens can have the best possible living conditions. Canada believes in federalism and it holds that with a federal structure, Cameroon can become the continent’s envy. 

Canada’s federal system is cost-effective, and it grants the citizens unfettered access to their leaders and the right to run their own affairs except for foreign affairs, natural resources and the military. Canadian federalism diminishes conflicts among the various communities, and this has made Canada one of the best countries to live in the world.

By Dr. Joachim Arrey

Since the country’s president, Paul Biya, announced senatorial elections in Cameroon, many reactionaries have jumped into higher gear with a view to destroying those they do not like. For years, we have not heard much that can validly destroy, Chief George Tabetando’s career, but since the elections were announced, an army of enemies has been at work, even accusing the brilliant lawyer of raping a housemaid. 

It is hard to trust any human being when it comes to sex, but this allegation against Senator George Tabetando at a time when he wants to run again for the senate clearly points to the fact that some enemies have an ulterior motive, and the objective is clear – destroy a man who loves his people. 

Though a CPDM senator, Chief Tabetando of Bachou Ntai has always worked for the development of his people. Chief Tabetando is not perfect and like many Manyu people, he also has an eye for beautiful women. But having an eye for the daughters of eve does not make him a bad person. 

In the height of the Southern Cameroons crisis, Chief Tabetando travelled to Mamfe to plead with the young fighters for them to forgive the government and to come out of the bushes so that a peaceful solution to the conflict could be found. He was not ashamed to go on his knees to demonstrate that he was not superior to anybody. Not many top politicians in Cameroon can do that. Leave Tabetando alone! 

Why is it that those allegations are only surfacing now? It is alleged that he raped the lady who braided his wife’s hair, and the act took place in the comfort of their home. How come the wife never heard the woman scream or resist the honorable and brilliant lawyer?  

Chief Tabetando may be mad, but his madness surely has a method. He knows that he can take his madness away from his family and he is a man who always has his wits about him.  Chief Tabetando is a barrister at law, and he understands that such an act could blow up his brilliant career and expose him to ridicule. 

The Cameroon Concord News Group is not holding any brief for the honorable senator. It is just seeking to point out that Senator Tabetando’s enemies are at work. Unfortunately, they will not be succeeding this time around. The Cameroon Concord News Group will support any person elected to the senate, but it will not stand by and watch any dirty games designed to destroy a man who has always earned his keep. 

Tabetando was a great lawyer, and his former clients can attest to that. As a senator, it is hard to cast him in the best possible light as he is a representative of a party which has failed to meet the glorious expectations of the nation. But as an individual, Tabetando, the chief of Bachou Ntai, deserves our respect. Seeking to sling mud at him will be one big mistake. It is time to walk away from nasty politics!  

 Dr. Joachim Arrey  

Cameroonian President Paul Biya has expressed concerns that corruption is “becoming rife” in the Central African nation and said the graft crackdown will be intensified.

“Last year, I talked about the need to strengthen governance in the management of public affairs and to control government spending. Rest assured that this concern is constant and unwavering,” Biya said in a televised address to the nation Saturday night.

“I also want to reiterate that those who are illicitly amassing wealth by plundering the State, at whatever level, will be brought to book,” he said.

In November, the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission said about 44 billion xaf (about 72 million U.S. dollars) was lost to corruption in 2021.

Cameroon has arrested several top-ranking government officials since Biya launched an anti-graft campaign called Operation Epervier (Sparrowhawk) in 2004.

Source: Xinhaunet

Paul Biya is the longest serving president on the African continent, longer than even Yoweri Museveni. He came to power in 1982, when the founding president of that unlucky country, Ahmadou Ahidjo, stepped down after he had presided over his country’s decline since 1960.

There was some drama in that changing of the guard. Ahidjo was not particularly popular with the French, and Biya, his prime minister, looked like he could be more useful. So they cooked up a conspiracy involving telling the president he had a terminal cancer and his days were numbered, and maybe it was proper for him to go to France and live his last days in good care and great comfort.

But once in France, Ahidjo sought a second opinion and discovered that his “cancer” had been a hoax hatched to get rid of him and install Biya in his place. So, he came back home and, simply, demanded that Biya give him his job back. All hell broke loose, Biya saying he was there to stay and Ahidjo mobilising his supporters to fight for him in a brief civil war that killed a few people. Biya managed to keep Ahidjo at bay, and when his former master mounted an unsuccessful putsch, had him arrested, tried and sentenced to death, a sentence which was later commuted to life in prison.

Ruled single-handedly

Since then, Biya has ruled the country single-handedly, and as his age advanced, he got into the habit of staying out of Cameroon, returning only a few times a year to visit and meet and know his ministers.

Over this period, he has not exactly endeared himself to his people, who have coined very nasty sobriquets for him, including “Sphinx,” or “Dinosaur” or even “Mummy.”

So, why did the “Mummy” think that he could go to Paris for the celebration of his 40 years in power? Well, most probably because he thought his country was too backward to provide the kind of décor for such an auspicious occasion. Having lived so much in Europe he possibly did not know a venue in his country that could do the appropriate catering for the feast.

But when he got to the venue of the event in France, he found irate Cameroonians waiting for him, with clubs, knives and crossbars, chanting expletives and punching and kicking members of Biya’s entourage. Among the chants I could catch from the riot were things like, “Celebrating 40 years of what? Murder, looting? Crap!”

While the president was lucky enough to have himself whisked away, there was a fatality in his delegation, reportedly a minister.

To me – and, I daresay, many others, it was clear this old man, who despite his age – he is almost 90— spots jet-black hair, only betrayed by his rickety walk and over-powdered face, tell-tale signs even the vainest of our despots cannot hide – was unaware of his surroundings.

Sycophantic hangers-on

As with most African rulers who have overstayed their welcome, Paul Biya surrounds himself with sycophantic hangers-on who travel with him and keep telling him the things he desperately needs to hear to keep him under the false belief he is still in charge of his country.

Now, in his absence, it is like when the cat is away the mice will play. Well before the fiasco of the president’s anniversary party, in June, his minister back in Cameroon was summoned before a court of law to answer charges of corruption, involving huge defence contracts granted to companies owned by his wife!

So, the former minister appears in court in his dapper, double-breasted suit and looks extremely well-groomed, which is okay for a former minister, I suppose. But to complete the picture of a former minister in touch with the times, the gentleman arrives in court sipping on a coupe of champagne, just to underline what the whole thing was about.

I loved the optics, the spectre of a small Biya doing his thing at home while the big boss is strutting his stuff abroad. It is a case of emulating the leader. In fact, looking at the cheek that this young man was displaying, I had this feeling that he was going to evoke Biya in his defence by saying, “I am only doing what my president is doing, nothing more, nothing less. But it is a sad sign of the times in a country that has a lot of colour.    

The story of Cameroon is much more colourful than an overaged president running a bankrupt country. It is about a people that has been traumatised by extreme poverty, growing threats of terror attacks by Islamist groups afflicting the whole sub region and an absentee government by its president who comes to visit from time to time.

A brief historical study shows us that the man Biya is supposed to have conned into early retirement, Ahidjo, was not even the legitimate freedom fighter who had fought to drive the French out of Cameroon. That role was played by Felix-Roland Moumie, who was assassinated by French intelligence agents in Switzerland in 1960, aged 35. His fault was that he was too much like Patrice-Emery Lumumba of Congo, who was also killed for the same reasons: too anti-west, most likely a communist.          

Such is Africa for you.

Culled from The East African

At 89 years old, one of the oldest leaders in the world, President Paul Biya of Cameroon has marked 40 years as head of state. He assumed office in 1982.

He is the second longest serving leader in Africa. The longest is Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in power since 1979.

Cameroon experienced a long spell of political stability under Biya’s iron hand. But this eventually unravelled when an Anglophone rebellion broke out in the south-west and north-west and when radical Islamists entered from Nigeria. Domestic pressure for Biya to accept a transition has also been persistent.

But Biya remains non-committal about relinquishing power in 2025, which would be the end of his current seventh term of office.

What explains Biya’s longevity in office and why is Cameroon unable to marshal a transition?

I am a scholar of democratic studies and regime types in Africa and a commentator on African political developments. I’m interested in why the continent is saddled with ageing presidents who ought to be enjoying their retirement when it desperately needs young, agile and innovative leaders equal to its challenges.

A bright start

Biya succeeded Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s president from 1960 to 1982, after his surprise resignation. Ahidjo had been struggling with an economic crisis and widespread corruption. He had superintended a one party state and an exceptional centralisation of power in the presidency.

When Biya became president in 1982, he promised political liberalisation, including democracy, civil and human rights and economic advancement in Cameroon.

For a while, he worked to achieve some of these goals. The country achieved political stability and unity, and relative economic transformation through his “new deal”. There was even a momentary easing of the draconian police state.

But in the late 1990s, there was a gradual halt to political liberalisation, fiscal discipline and government accountability. This happened after the 1984 bloody coup attempt by the Republican Guards.

Biya became increasingly unyielding to political accommodation. First he purged Ahidjo’s faction within the ruling party and eventually he locked out any meaningful challenge to his leadership from within or outside the party. Ultimately though, under external pressure, he agreed to a multiparty dispensation in 1990.

This has gradually and systematically been hollowed out, creating a monolithic system that entrenched Biya in office for the last 40 years.

Biya’s staying power

Cameroon’s politics has long been dominated by Biya’s Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounaise, which rebranded from the Cameroon National Union in 1985. It had been the dominant party since 1966. After a formal opening up of the political space to multipartyism, this has gradually been weakened.

There has been a failure of political party institutionalisation. Hundreds of small parties mushroomed – 300 to date, many allegedly secretly bankrolled and controlled by Biya. They provide a façade of democratic competitiveness. In reality, they have weakened legitimate political opposition.

The absence of a united and consolidated opposition has enabled the entrenchment of a dominant party system. The ruling party has a dominant majority in both the National Assembly and the Senate (63 seats of 70). This erodes any chance of genuine checks and balance.

The party has also used electoral mechanics like redrawing boundaries for electoral advantage and in places outright fraud to expand victories and consolidate majorities.

Elections have become little more than a procedural inconvenience, where Biya runs with no possibility of losing.

For instance, in 2004 Biya won with 70.9% of the vote. After the 2008 constitutional revision to remove term limits, he was re-elected with 78% of the vote in 2011.

In 2018, he got 71.28% against his challenger, opposition leader Maurice Kamto.

Biya has created a rent seeking political class that not only does his bidding but keeps him in power with minimum resistance. Cameroon is a leading exporter of timber in Africa and fifth largest cocoa producer in the world.

The country should have enough resources to reduce extreme poverty and underdevelopment. Yet the proceeds are plundered through corruption and to maintain a clientelist network.

Politicians must show allegiance and loyalty to Biya. The alternative is being out in the cold or in jail. Biya has also filled senior positions in the administration, the military and security agencies and the civil service with people from his southern ethnic group. Most notably he has relied on the Rapid Intervention Battalion, a highly trained military commando unit, to ensure the regular army is unable to move against him.

The Anglophone conflict has also enabled Biya to deflect attention from his misrule. The violent conflict has left thousands dead in a civil war against the secessionist English-speaking regions of the country.

Biya, relying on French and recently Russian backers, used the conflict to strengthen his domestic hand and deflect international criticisms.

Another factor is the concentration of power in Cameroon. Nothing substantive gets done without the sign-off of the president. No arm of government or entity of the state has gone unpoliced, including the judiciary: judges are nominated directly by the president.

Simply put, there is no facet of public life untouched by the Biya regime.

Contemplating a post Biya era

The president’s mandate runs out in 2025, at which time he will be 92. While he has shown no signs of exiting the stage, talk of a post Biya era is rising.

Although the ruling party has not held a party congress since 2011, hence dampening the transition debate, there is periodical internal party reorganisation. The president has used it to reward and check potential threats to his supremacy.

Biya’s stewardship has long run its course. Its longevity relies on ruthlessness and political astuteness.

Sadly, the real cost is to the country’s democracy, which has long suffered fissures that can only be healed by political renewal through a change of guard. And this change is one that even Biya can do little to forestall.

Culled from The Conversation

CPDM stalwarts were in Bamenda today to celebrate Biya’s 40 years of incompetence, corruption and arrogance.

Led by the CPDM Secretary-general, Jean Kuete, speakers at the event highlighted what they thought were Mr. Biya’s achievements – indeed his appalling failure – over the last four decades.

But Cameroonians cannot be fooled. The results are there for all to see. The country has been caught up in a downward spiral with corruption becoming the regime’s hallmark.

Since coming to power in 1982, Mr. Biya has legalized corruption. He and his followers hold that nothing can be achieved without corruption. They use money to buy loyalty, corrupt those who criticize the government and imprison those who refuse their bribes.

Cameroon’s jails are full of Mr. Biya’s former collaborators who have embezzled state funds and he and his wife have been involved in many financial scandals which have helped to erode the people’s confidence in the moribund government.

Regarding the economy, Mr. Biya’s government has disappointed millions of Cameroonians. Many had seen him as a savior when he came to power in 1982, but his incompetence has taken the country down the wrong path.

The country’s economy has been in a free fall in decades, spreading pain and death among desperate and hungry Cameroonians.

Millions of Cameroonian youth are without jobs and even those employed are simply eking a living. The country’s civil service is bloated with civil servants finding it hard to make ends meet.

This financial challenge has transformed many civil service workers into   con artists whose main objective of joining the civil service is to line their pockets.

The regime’s failure to create jobs for millions of young Cameroonians has transformed the country into a net exporter of human capital as young Cameroonians look outwards for greener pastures.

Regarding infrastructure development, Cameroon lags behind most African countries in this regard. For forty years, instead of investing in infrastructure which could drive development and create jobs, Mr. Biya and his collaborators have transformed the country’s treasury into their personal ATM.

The country is bereft of roads, hospitals and educational facilities. Mr. Biya has created many primary and secondary schools, but these institutions only exist on paper as there is no modern infrastructure.

For tertiary institutions, there are many of them in Cameroon today, but the quality of training leaves much to be desired.

The country’s state universities have been transformed into brothels where lecturers with very high libido satisfy their sex needs. Young girls are being dehumanized and robbed of their self-esteem by unscrupulous lecturers just because there are no checks in government-run universities.

Some lecturers even demand bribes from their students, especially those seeking to defend their thesis. This unfortunate situation in the country’s state universities truly reflects what is happening in a nation where young girls are asked to have sex with company heads before they can be given jobs.

Today, even young men are required to sleep with unscrupulous employers for them to get hired. Mr. Biya and his bunch of godless, hell-bound and depraved collaborators have made of Cameroon a fertile ground for homosexuality.

Morals have simply taken French leave of the country and there are no signs that they will return even after Biya and his gangsters leave power.

Today’s meeting in Bamenda, the place where the demon-possessed CPDM was created, is indeed a celebration of evil in human form.

Incompetence, corruption and demonic powers have been firmly rooted in the country under Biya and there is no doubt that the CPDM is very pleased with its leader’s abysmal and appalling failure.

By Rita Akana and Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

Cameroon’s 89-year-old president, Paul Biya, on Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of his rise to power amid splashy ceremonies where the word on everyone’s mind — succession — will almost certainly be absent.

The Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), which Biya founded in 1985, says it will hold “a big party” up and down the country to mark the anniversary.

The festivities will celebrate “political stability and peace — the biggest successes of these last four decades in Cameroon,” said Herve Emmanuel Nkom, a member of the party’s central committee.

At the RDPC’s headquarters in Messa district, a couple of dozen party members were busy selling caps, scarves, shirts and multi-coloured garments emblazoned with Biya’s face.

“Lots of people come by and look — we get a lot of orders,” said Sylvie Beyala, 42, a party member for 20 years, next to a photo of a beaming Biya and the slogan “Unity, Progress, Democracy.”

The crowning event on Sunday will be a “regional mega-rally” in front of city hall in Yaounde, the capital, but no word has emerged as to whether Biya himself will attend.

The anniversary bash aims to divert attention away from “the crucial question,” said Stephane Akoa, a professor and researcher in political science.

“It’s not whether Cameroon is doing well or could be doing better, but how the president is,” he said.

Biya rose to the top job on November 6 1982 after seven years as prime minister.

He is only the second president in Cameroon’s history since the central African nation gained independence from France. He is also the continent’s longest-serving leader after Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who seized power in 1979.

– Wily leader –

Commentators ascribe Biya’s extraordinary political longevity to a mixture of astuteness and ruthlessness — he has a constellation of loyalists in key positions and crushes or sidelines opponents and rivals.

But his public outings, except for a few choreographed TV appearances, have become rarer and rarer in recent years, stoking speculation about his health.

Any official talk of succession is taboo, and none of the most visible figures around Biya has publicly uttered a word about entertaining any wish to succeed him.

“Ministers have fallen into disgrace just for thinking about a theoretical departure of the president,” said Aimee Raoul Sumo Tayo, a defence and security specialist on Cameroon.

“Mr. Biya has put the saying ‘divide and rule’ into practice… forces which could have challenged him for power have been unable to get organised and, even less so, unify,” said Akoa.

Even so, conversations about a successor are rife.

Those most commonly named are Biya’s son, Franck Biya, and Finance Minister Louis-Paul Motaze. The younger Biya already has a discreet following among supporters called “Franckists.”

Another name in the mix is that of Biya’s right-hand man, the presidency’s chief of staff, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Reputed to have the backing of Biya’s influential wife, Chantal Biya, Ngoh Ngoh has been the longest-serving chief of staff in the presidency’s tenure.

He wields extensive de-facto authority through executive powers that have been delegated by Biya and, like his boss, also has his supporters in senior jobs, said Akoa.

– All-eclipsing debate –

“No (potential) candidate enjoys unanimity,” said Akoa, adding that the succession debate “eclipses all other concerns, such as strategies for health, education and infrastructure.”

The jockeying for power has been intensified by Cameroon’s weak mechanisms for handing on presidential power in an emergency, said Sumo Tayo.

If the president becomes unable to continue in office, presidential authority is handed down in the interim to the speaker of the Senate — currently 88-year-old Marcel Nial Njifenji, whose health is at least as much a concern as that of Biya.

The scenario stokes “the probability that certain parts of the army may intervene,” said Sumo Tayo.

Military leaders appointed by Biya may fear their privileges will be at threat once he exits the scene, which increases the risk of turbulence, he suggested.

Culled from AFP

Cameroon’s government and its supporters are holding events this week ahead of celebrations Sunday marking President Paul Biya’s 40 years in power. Meanwhile, opposition parties are holding rallies calling for the 89-year-old Biya, the world’s oldest head of state, to change what they say are unfair election laws.

On Thursday in Nanga Eboko on the outskirts of the capital city of Yaoundé, supporters of Biya sang that Cameroon has remained one, undivided and prosperous despite the numerous challenges the central African state has faced since Biya became president in 1982.

The singing and dancing was part of week-long activities marking the 40th anniversary of Biya’s rule.

Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, or CPDM, said it dispatched party officials to towns and villages to organize conferences and mobilize more support for the 89-year-old leader who, it said, has achieved a lot for the country.

Elvis Ngolle Ngolle is one of Biya’s close collaborators in the ruling party. He says freedom is top among the things Biya should be credited for and that “every citizen can express themselves in any way they want.”

He says that under Biya’s rule, Cameroon has enhanced women’s rights and vastly improved its education system. “In 1982, we had one state university,” Ngolle Ngolle said. “Today we have more than 11 state universities and hundreds of private university institutes. Incredible in 40 years.”

Ngolle Ngolle says Biya has stayed in power this long because a majority of Cameroonians love and always vote for him.

However, opposition political parties accuse Biya of rigging elections for decades, and wanting to stay in power until he dies.

The Cameroon Renaissance Movement, led by Maurice Kamto, says Kamto won the October 2018 presidential election and that the victory was stolen from him.

Another party, the Social Democratic Front, has joined the CRM in asking civilians not to attend anniversary celebrations to protest Biya’s long stay in power.

Christopher Ndong, the CRM’s secretary-general, said Biya shows no signs of giving up the presidency and that, “Cameroonians are aggrieved because of him.”

“The opposition political parties want him to revise the electoral code, making sure the next president of this country should be democratically elected,” Ndong said. “Cameroonians now want a democratically elected president.”

Ndong said many of Biya’s supporters have resigned from the ruling party and joined the opposition CRM during the anniversary event.

The ruling CPDM acknowledges that it has some internal leadership wrangling but has provided no details.

Loic Kankeu, a lecturer of public law at the University of Yaoundé, said Biya’s absence from conferences aimed at drumming up support indicates the aging ruler is tired. He added that many CPDM supporters want Biya to leave but fear reprisals if they express their views in public.

According to Kankeu, Jean Nkuete, the secretary general of the CPDM party, acknowledged during a meeting with decentralized CPDM party structures this week that leadership squabbles are tearing the party apart. He said malaise within the CPDM is pushing supporters and disgruntled CPDM leaders in many Cameroonian towns and villages to cross over to the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement party of Maurice Kamto.

Biya’s supporters are calling on the octogenarian to run for president again in 2025 while the opposition is asking him to hand over power to a younger leader. On July 30, during a visit to Cameroon by French President Emmanuel Macron, Biya said he still has time to decide if he will run again.

Source: VOA