For the second consecutive time, heavily armed police dispersed an opposition leaders’ meeting held to propose reforms they say are needed to democratically change the more than four-decade-long rule of 88-year-old Cameroonian President Paul Biya. Opposition leaders, including three former presidential candidates, say the crackdown is the latest setback in their attempt to pave the way for peaceful transition of power from Africa’s second-longest-ruling president.

 Seven opposition leaders said they were forcefully evicted from a meeting held in Yaounde Wednesday as they were pressing for reforms to rescue elections from the strong grip of Cameroon’s long-serving president, Paul Biya. The leaders issued a formal statement on April 3. 

 Among the attendees was Prince Michael Ngwese Ekosso. He is the president of the opposition United Socialist Democratic Party and said he took part in the meeting with hopes of easing tensions after allegations of election rigging. Opposition leaders say post-election tensions have risen after claims of fraud, with results skewed toward Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party.

 “It was a need for us the political leaders to see that the electoral code resembles the aspirations of Cameroonians in general,” Ekosso said. “We are living a country where democracy is not implemented. They (the government) do not want political leaders to hold meetings and they (the police) always come to disrupt. And also, it was a need for us to be able to discuss those things that have hampered true democracy, and then talk about the need for opposition parties to be able to form a reasonable platform to address some of the key issues,” he added.

 Ekosso said the leaders avoided possible brutality and assault by peacefully leaving the hall when the police ordered an immediate stop to the meeting.

 The government said it ordered the meeting to be ended because the opposition leaders failed to obtain an authorization, as stipulated by Cameroonian law.

 Ekosso said the law requires an authorization only when there is a political rally. He said he and his peers were simply taking part in a meeting of seven opposition leaders. 

 Three candidates who lost the country’s October 7, 2018, presidential poll were in the meeting.

 Maurice Kamto, who claims he won the election and that Biya stole his victory, said the decision to stop an opposition meeting was another step in a crackdown on the democratic process. 

 Cabral Libii, a former presidential aspirant and lawmaker of the opposition Cameroonian Party for National Reconciliation, and Joshua Osih, former presidential candidate and vice president of the Social Democratic Front, said the decision to stop the meeting was an afront to democracy.

 Cameroon’s Higher Education Minister under Bia, Jacques Fame Ndongo, says there is no need for changes in the electoral code now. 

 He said Cameroonians gave Biya 71% of their votes in the 2018 presidential election, an indication that they agree with all of Biya’s policies and laws. He said people are expecting Biya to concentrate on developing Cameroon in fulfilment of the promises he made before the 2018 presidential poll.

 Ndongo said political parties can make suggestions as to the changes they want in the electoral code for Cameroon’s Parliament to examine when lawmakers deem it necessary.

 Mamoun Njoya of the Cameroon Civil Society group, which advocates for good governance in the country, says any opposition bill to change the electoral code will be thrown out of Parliament by majority lawmakers controlled by Biya.

 He said Biya and his Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party have drifted from the policy and values they promised the Cameroon people when the party was founded in 1985. He said Biya and his party are not ready to enact laws that will stop election rigging and the siphoning state funds.

 Biya has been in power in Cameroon for 45 years, seven as prime minister and 38 as president. In 2008, he removed term limits from the constitution, allowing him to serve indefinitely. 

 He has won all of Cameroon’s elections, but the opposition has always contested his victory, saying Biya prepared the electoral code to favor him and his CPDM party.

 Biya is the second-oldest serving president in sub-Saharan Africa after his neighbor, Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, who has been in power since 1979. When Biya’s latest term is finished, he would be 93 years old.

Source: VOA

Tongues have been wagging in Yaoundé following the re-election of some ailing octogenarians to the helm of Cameroon’s two houses of Parliament last month.

Recent footage from the Upper House of Parliament showed 86-year-old Senator Marcel Niat Njifenji teetering to the podium on March 18. He was going to assume office following his re-election as president of the Senate, which he has headed since it went operational in 2013.

Earlier the same day, 81-year-old Hon Cavaye Yeguie Djibril retained his position as Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, the National Assembly, a post he has held since 1992.

Hon Nafissatou Alim, the 30-year-old Member of Parliament of Mayo Louti constituency in the North region, and her colleague, Hon Dague Aicha Blanche Jacqueline of Mayo Kani South constituency in the Far North region of the country, were both just a year old when Hon Djibril was first elected Speaker.

The two youngest MPs of the current (10th) legislative period in Cameroon assisted the eldest member and head of the provisional bureau of the Lower House of Parliament, Hon Laurentine Nkoa Mfegue, CPDM MP for the Mefou and Afamba in the Centre region in the election of the Speaker which Hon Djibril contested unopposed.

Both Senator Niat and Hon Djibril, all members of the ruling CPDM party, were earlier approved for the jobs by party leader and Cameroon president, 88-year-old Paul Biya, who is also Africa’s oldest and second longest-serving leader.

In their inaugural speeches, delivered in very faint voices, the duo thanked Biya for appointing them to the positions.

Some had expected that Biya, who in February this year said “2021 is beginning on a positive note for our youth”, would propose younger people for the posts.

Though a lone candidate, Hon Djibril garnered 147 of the 162 valid votes cast, with 15 void ballots to retain his post as Speaker of the 180-member legislative institution, making him the longest-serving House Speaker in the country.

President Biya, Mr Njifenji and Mr Djibril are in order of state protocol, the first, second and third public personalities of the country. According to the Constitution, if President Biya is incapacitated, resigns or dies, the President of the Senate will take over power.

The re-election of the octogenarian men, however, did not come as a surprise to some MPs. Hon Koupit Adamou, a member of the opposition Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU), said he was not surprised with their re-election.

Old guards in power

“Looking at how our Parliament functions since independence, you realise that those who are elected at the beginning of a legislative period like this one are re-elected each year till the end of the mandate. So, anyone who thought anything will change is naive,” he said.

Another member of the Lower House of Parliament who did not take part in the election, said if he was present, he would have still voted for Hon Cavaye because he was the party’s candidate for the post.

“Party discipline is not only in Cameroon. It is all over the world,” the MP said, explaining he was on the field doing an assignment for the ruling party when the election took place.

However, the heads of the two houses of Parliament are not the only old guards in power in the Central African country.

The police boss, Martin Mbarga Nguele, is 89; head of National Hydrocarbons Company Adolphe Mudiki is 82; Justice Minister 78; Secretary General of ruling party 77; and Environment Minister 75, among others.

In Cameroon though, the World Bank says, the median age is 18.7 years and six in every 10 people you meet is aged below 35 years, the line that defines youth. Yet the country’s most powerful positions are held by frail, elderly men.

Ruled by ‘club of friends’

According to Prof Willibroad Dze-Ngwa, a Historian and Political Scientist at the University of Yaoundé, the country is ruled by “a club of friends who have been together for more than 50 years and just share power amongst themselves.”

Mr Dze-Ngwa reckons none of the old guards wants to leave the scene before the other, except if nature intervenes.

“You can see that such is reflected not only in the National Assembly and the Senate but at every level of public administration. Let me say that I have no particular bias against these so-called old people because they have been placed there by the young people,” he said.

The young people, Mr Dze-Nwa says, have not been doing enough politics or using their numbers and youthfulness to take over leadership of the country.

“Of course, when there is such a vacuum, the octogenarians as you call them take advantage and play politics. Remember politics is coining policies to gain power and govern. So if the octogenarians have been able to dominate politics, then they are succeeding in their game and staying on,” he says.

“That is why we are taking too much time to advance in democracy, that is why the old laws in the National Assembly and the Senate cannot be changed, that is why the electoral laws in Cameroon have remained virtually the same because we have the same people who have gained so much power and want to sustain that power,” Mr Dze-Ngwa  adds.

Source: The East African

Officially, Franck Biya, the son of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, has no political ambitions. As discreet as he is influential with his father, he has made efforts to surround himself with childhood friends and relatives, most of whom have economic or financial backgrounds.

Franck Biya has never run for political office and does not appear in any official organisation chart. However, he regularly finds himself on the front page of Cameroonian newspapers, which tend to view him as a potential successor to his father, 88-year-old Paul Biya, who has served as Cameroon’s president since 1982 and is the leader of the powerful Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais (RDPC).

49-year-old Biya is nevertheless careful not to reveal any of his intentions. He is very discreet as he avoids the media and has never given an interview. Biya’s entourage is also careful to deny any rumours about his political ambitions.

A movement called the “Friends of Franck Biya” began in Cameroon and spread throughout the diaspora. What is its objective? To support the 2025 presidential candidacy of the eldest son of Paul and Jeanne Irene Biya (who died in July 1992).

Some view it as a test run, as a means of gauging public opinion. Others see it as a means of exerting pressure on this businessman who has so far shown little interest in public affairs.

In Central Africa, family successions are a regular occurrence. For example, in neighbouring Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba took over from his father, Omar.

And in Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the country’s vice-president and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Constancia Mangue Nsue Okomo’s son, is biding his time.

Although he has always stayed out of the spotlight, Biya has not hesitated to use his influence with his father to promote members of his mother’s family to prominent government positions.

Robert Nkili, who served as minister of labour and transport between 2002 and 2015, is his mother’s younger brother and Louis-Paul Motaze, the current finance minister, is his cousin. Both owe their positions to Biya.

The latter also serves as a gateway to the head of state. For instance, Biya invited Yannick Noah to the president’s birthday celebration on 13 February. The former tennis champion, whose real estate project – “La Cité des Cinquantenaires” in Yaoundé – is entangled in bureaucratic red tape, was able to plead his case in between glasses of orange juice.

One of the reasons why Franck Biya has remained under the radar for so long is that he left Cameroon in the 1990s to study in Los Angeles. He then moved to South Africa and France, where he lived until March 2020, when he returned to Cameroon just before the country’s first Covid-19 lockdown.

In each of these countries, Franck Biya has taken care to live in a tight-knit circle, surrounded by childhood friends and relatives who are mostly technocrats with an economist profile or working in finance.

For example, he met Modeste Mopa Fatoing, the director-general of the tax department, through Alamine Ousmane Mey, a mutual friend. In South Africa, he rubbed shoulders with Acha Leke, who has been a member of McKinsey’s Shareholders’ Council since May 2020.

Now based in Yaoundé, he is close to Samuel Mvondo Ayolo, the director of the head of state’s civil cabinet, and Paul Elung Che, the deputy secretary-general of the presidency. This 52-year-old English-speaking man, who trained at Enam and Harvard, was the head of the Caisse de Stabilisation des Produits Pétroliers et des Hydrocarbures (CSPH).

After a stormy beginning, his relationship with his father’s wife, Chantal, has calmed down. On the other hand, relations with his cousin, Bonaventure Mvondo Assam, a former deputy and ex-partner in the Compagnie Forestière Assam (Cofa), have become more tenuous.

However, many people make up Franck Biya’s inner circle. Listed below are some of the most prominent ones.

Ghislain Samou Nguewo

Aged 44, he is one of Biya’s closest collaborators. An economics graduate from the University of Yaoundé II, Ghislain Samou Nguewo took over the board of directors of Boissons Vins et Spiritueux (BVS) in February 2019. This agro-industry was launched by Guillaume Sarra and his wife Virginie Palu-Sarra, the latter whom is French industrialist Pierre Castel’s niece.

Based in Douala, the company is managed by Stéphane Soumahoro, former Ivorian president Robert Gueï’s son.

Christian Mataga

Christian Mataga is the son of Philippe Mataga, a former ambassador and ex-director of Paul Biya’s civil cabinet. Philippe Mataga also previously served as President Biya’s minister of labour and foreign affairs. The two men are so close that Paul Biya agreed to be Christian’s godfather.

Biya considers this finance graduate from the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne as his own brother. Mataga runs the Société Commerciale Industrielle et Forestière (Scifo), which specialises in the production, processing and marketing of tropical wood species from concessions granted by the Cameroonian Ministry of Forests.

Alamine Ousmane Mey

The current finance minister is a long-time friend of Ghislain Samou Nguewo, who introduced him to Biya. Alamine Ousmane Mey trained at the RWTH Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, served as director-general of Afriland First Bank, the second largest bank in the country, and then – on Franck Biya’s recommendation – became President Biya’s minister of finance.

In the latest government reshuffle, Mey moved from managing the finance portfolio to the economic one, swapping with Louis-Paul Motaze.

Serge Akounou

One of Biya’s childhood friends, Serge Akounou followed him to the US, where the president’s son pursued his university studies. He received an MBA in Finance from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in California and returned to Cameroon to work for the local branches of Standard Chartered Bank and City Bank before moving to Gauteng, in the Johannesburg region of South Africa.

However, their friendship is reportedly going through a rough patch. Perhaps this is because Akounou is the son of Gervais Mendo Ze, a former director-general of Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) and former minister of communication, who has been imprisoned since 12 November 2014.

Culled from The Africa Report

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday exchanged congratulations with Cameroonian President Paul Biya on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

In his message, Xi said that over the past half a century since the establishment of their diplomatic ties, China and Cameroon has been standing side by side through thick and thin, and the traditional friendship between the two countries has grown stronger with time.

In recent years, the friendly cooperative relations between the two countries have enjoyed a strong momentum of development with deepening political mutual trust and fruitful results in practical cooperation, Xi said.

The two countries have understood and supported each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests and major concerns, and have coordinated closely in international and regional affairs, he noted.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, China has been working with Cameroon and other African countries to help and support each other in fighting the epidemic, which demonstrated the brotherly friendship between China and Africa that shares weal and woe, Xi said.

Xi emphasized that he attaches great importance to the development of China-Cameroon relations.

He expressed the willingness to work with Biya to take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic ties to implement the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and enhance their joint efforts to build the Belt and Road, so as to benefit the two countries and peoples and to make positive contributions to forging a closer China-Africa community with a shared future.

In his message, Biya said for a long time, with the efforts of the heads of state of the two countries, the friendly cooperative relations between Cameroon and China, which are mutually-beneficial and win-win, have been fruitful and continuously consolidated.

The fruits of cooperation between the two countries have made great contributions to enhancing the Cameroonian people’s well-being and helping Cameroon achieve national modernization, Biya said.

Noting the Chinese leadership is far-sighted and the Chinese people are diligent and brave, the Cameroonian president said China has become a significant force on the international stage.

What is even more encouraging is that China has been attaching importance to South-South cooperation and supporting African countries in achieving development and vitalization, Biya said.

On the occasion of grand celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, Biya said he wishes Cameroon-China cooperation becoming closer with a broader prospect to better benefit the two peoples.

Source: China.org

Will new US President Joe Biden change the situation in Yaoundé? Opposition leader Maurice Kamto certainly hopes so. However, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, who intends to maintain his relationship with the US, hopes that it will not interfere in Cameroonian affairs.

On 19 January – in front of US senators – Antony Blinken was sworn in as US secretary of state. Delaware Democrat Chris Coons asked him about Africa. Blinken replied, saying that “I share your concerns about the recent elections held in Uganda and Cameroon, especially the violence directed against the English-speaking population.”

President Paul Biya’s balancing act

He added that “there are a whole series of places where I think the United States can help make a difference.” Blinken – who is already familiar with Morocco, Djibouti, Nigeria and South Africa – has for years been in favour of a stronger partnership between the US and Africa.

In a speech broadcast on 7 February at the 34th African Union summit, US President Joe Biden echoed this sentiment saying that “America is back. [We will work] to renew our role in international institutions and regain our credibility and moral authority.”

But what form will this turn of events take? As soon as Biden was elected, Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto welcomed the news. Congratulating the Democrat, he wrote that “The United States is proving that democracy and democratic institutions matter. So does political change. I look forward to working with the Biden administration on a new path for Cameroon.”

A diplomat in Yaoundé adds that “the opposition’s future is also at stake in Washington. Due to the crisis in the English-speaking regions and the fact that opponents are being incarcerated, Paul Biya does not have good press there.”

The fight against Boko Haram as an asset

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya knows that the Anglophone crisis is a subject of concern for Washington, which advocates dialogue to resolve the conflict, while Yaoundé favours the security approach.

“For the moment, the United States has not gone further than the stage of declarations, notably at the instigation of the Senate, but the Biden presidency could go a step further,” continues the diplomat. One of Yaoundé’s fears is that the new US administration will bring up the Anglophone crisis more regularly during UN Security Council meetings, through their ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Thomas-Greenfield, who is an African-American and a seasoned diplomat who was former President Barack Obama’s Africa adviser, knows the continent well and met with Biya at a UN General Assembly in 2016. She has already set up a team to work specifically on African issues in New York.

“However, Paul Biya does not lack assets, such as his army’s fight against Boko Haram, which is important to the Americans,” says an analyst.

To conclude: “On the one hand, he does not want to cede anything to the Americans or the opposition regarding the Anglophone crisis. On the other hand, he does not want Cameroon to be blacklisted or for some of its officials to be targeted by sanctions. He has to find a balance between firmness and tact.”

Culled from The Africa Report

The numerous conflicts in Cameroon have failed to draw in major global powers except the French supporting the 88-year-old President Biya and members of his ruling crime syndicate.

The Biya family has ruled Cameroon since 6 November 1982 and now the man who took over from the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo is using the network he has built as the Commander-in-Chief of the Cameroon military to get his first son, Franck Biya, to succeed him.

To maintain his position as head of state over the last 38 years, Biya has implemented the divide and rule system and personalized power to such an extent that only he alone is seen by the international community as the person who can hold the country together.

Mindful of the fact that President Paul Biya has not groomed anybody within his ruling CPDM party to take power, the political elites from his tribal extraction are now aware that his successor would inherit a weak government and weak state institutions.

Many around Biya do not want someone from outside the Biya tribe to take over.

 Similarly, the ruling Francophone political elites from the Centre and South regions are working tirelessly to get Biya’s eldest son, Franck Biya, to take over power.

Cameroon Intelligence Report has been reliably informed that Franck Biya is already receiving presidential protocol lessons and getting intelligence briefing from senior officials in the military, the gendarmerie, the secret service and the police.

Our source revealed that a cream of prominent Francophone media gurus have been recruited and tasked with the responsibility of making public the plan to the Cameroonian people to appear as if it is still a rumour.

Yaoundé has hinted all its CEMAC allies who also have the same philosophy of a son succeeding a father. 

President Idriss Deby, who has ruled Chad for 30 years and recently got a nomination to run for a sixth term in the April election, is in support as he too has plans for his son to take over in Ndjamena.

Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Brazzaville, who like Idris Deby, has his children and blood relations as army generals, has reportedly given his blessings.

Sassou Nguesso has accumulated 36 years in office — he was most recently re-elected in 2016, after which the opposition was effectively sidelined and his two main rivals sentenced to 20 years’ forced labour.

It was a big yes from President Ali Bongo of Gabon bearing in mind that President Biya personally travelled to Libreville and supervised the handing over of power to Ali following the passing to eternity of his father, Omar Bongo.

It was not a big surprise to see more than six Cameroonian ministers, including Paul Atanga Nji of Territorial Administration and Joseph Beti Assomo of Defense in Equatorial Guinea after a series of explosions at a military barracks that killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 600 others.

Equatorial Guinea already has a President-in-Waiting who is the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

We also gathered that Franck Biya has been holding secret meetings with his father’s coterie of CPDM barons, many of whom supported him when he took over from Ahmadou Ahidjo.

As we write, Cameroon’s key institutions, such as the security services and military, including key ministries and state agencies are all headed by President Biya’s trusted allies.

Although these institutions are very weak politically, they serve as important vehicles of patronage and will provide an essential link between Franck Biya and his dad’s support base.

They are presently guaranteeing Franck Biya a strong sense of loyalty among state employees and beneficiaries and, in doing so; they are sturdy pillars of the Biya family’s continued stay in power.

French multinationals with interest in Cameroon are presently and carefully cultivating a number of journalists both at home and abroad, academics and policy-makers to help Franck Biya appear accessible, sympathetic and thoughtful.

If things go according to plan, then Cameroon is really in for tough times as many groups will emerge to make the country ungovernable.

Southern Cameroonians have already made their intentions very clear. They want an independent country that will not be part of the mess known as La République du Cameroun. They also want to run their country based on Anglo-Saxon political values and principles; a country that will be bereft of French baneful influence.

For the northerners, they are sick and tired of being treated as second class citizens in a country they think is also theirs. They too are already setting up their own militias designed to challenge Yaoundé’s authority in the northern part of the country.

The days ahead are challenging and if the international community does not come out of its loud silence to condemn the chaos being orchestrated in Yaoundé, it will be left with a sticky situation on its hands once Mr. Paul Biya exits the world and the different factions and militias roll out their plans.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai