There have been mixed reactions in Cameroon to 88-year-old President Paul Biya’s orders that his party-dominated upper and lower houses of Parliament re-elect officials who are over 80 years old to top positions. According to the central African state’s constitution, Marcel Niat Njifenji, the 87-year-old president of the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, would take over and organize elections if Biya were to die.

Members of the National Assembly, the lower house of Cameroon’s Parliament Wednesday applauded as Cavaye Yegue Djibril was re-elected speaker. The 81-year-old Cavaye said he appreciated Biya’s making his re-election possible.

Djibril said he is highly indebted to Biya for asking his ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, or CPDM, lawmakers to retain him in his position.

Djibril has been National Assembly speaker for 30 years. The lone candidate, he garnered 147 votes in the 180-seat body.

Many Cameroonians expected he would be replaced by a younger lawmaker. However, Biya summoned the 152 CPDM lawmakers together for an emergency meeting. CPDM Secretary General Jean Nkuete said Biya asked them to re-elect Djibril.

Emmanuel Banmi, a CPDM lawmaker from the English-speaking North-West region said they obeyed instructions from their party hierarchy. He said Djibril has enough experience as National Assembly speaker.

“Cavaye Yeguie Djibril is doing his work. I want to commend his devotedness. We know we have difficulties; we have concerns of security. We need to move ahead. Let the government work hand-in-hand with the representatives of the people (National Assembly) to see that the security issue is collectively addressed with the collaboration of the people,” he said.

Mukete, at 105, the oldest member of Cameroon’s Senate

Banmi said he was optimistic Djibril will work in collaboration with the government to find solutions to youth unemployment and the several armed conflicts Cameroon is facing. He said priority will be given to assisting people affected by COVID-19 and stopping the spread of the pandemic.

Djibril is Cameroon’s third most powerful state political figure after Biya and Marcel Niat Njifenji, president of the Senate, the upper house of Parliament.

The 87-year-old Njifenji, who has been Senate president since the body was created in 2013, was reelected Wednesday with 85 votes in the 100-member chamber. The CPDM controls 63 of the 70 elected Senate seats. The other 30 members, appointed by Biya, are loyal to him.

Niat said he was also grateful to Biya for his re-election.

Twenty-six-year-old Nguenang Cosmas, member of Cameroon’s National Youth Council, an independent state body that discusses issues related to the well-being of youths, says octogenarians are keeping young people from leadership positions in Cameroon.

“How could we elect people at the head of the legislature who could barely walk. The president of the Senate, Marcel Niat Njifenji, could barely walk to the hall. [The] same goes for the president of the National Assembly. Where are we heading to? It beats my imagination why the same people have been ruling. It is not good. They should leave the younger generation to show what they are capable of doing. Does it mean that only the old can rule? It is not good at all,” Cosmas said.

Under Cameroon’s constitution, if Biya were to die, were to resign or become incapacitated, Njifenji would take power, although elections would have to be organized to elect a new president in 20 to 120 days.

Culled from VOA

A senior Southern Cameroons academic with strong ties to the Ambazonia Interim Government, Dr Patrick Ayuk, says the much publicized Swiss talks for resolving the crisis opposing French and British Southern Cameroons has not offered anything to the suffering people of Ambazonia.

“Those who announced the talks are following the same policies as those of the Biya French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé. The talks are only on social media and the Swiss government has not offered anything to the English speaking people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia. Bern is rather helping the corrupt French Cameroun regime of President Biya” Dr Patrick Ayuk said in interview with Cameroon Concord News on Wednesday evening.

Dr Patrick Ayuk pointed out that the so-called Swiss talk is simply nothing. “Through the Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the people of British Southern Cameroons have offered their vision plan for a solution to the Southern Cameroons crisis which includes withdrawing all French Cameroun forces from Ambazonian streets, freeing all British Southern Cameroons prisoners, granting general amnesty to Southern Cameroonians in the diaspora and committing to an international mediated negotiation, in a neutral venue. The people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia are waiting for a response from La Republique du Cameroun.”

“The Ambazonia Interim Government is ready to engage in negotiations but as Vice President Dabney Yerima recently opined, due to the many Covid-19 deaths recorded in Southern Cameroons lately, the humanitarian issue should be separated from military and political matters” Dr Patrick Ayuk furthered.

The Swiss government is yet to appoint a special envoy for Southern Cameroons, but claims that consultations have been going on with some Southern Cameroons pro independence groups.

The Biya Francophone regime does not appear interested in a ceasefire at this moment, and is supposedly prioritizing a military campaign to stifle the Southern Cameroons uprising.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Jostled by the opposition during Cameroon’s last presidential election and regularly criticised for its inertia, the RDPC is determined to change.

However, despite the party’s best efforts, it’s facing resistance from many of its older leaders who do not have plans to retire anytime soon. On 10 February, Cameroon’s 88-year-old President Paul Biya in a speech to the youth talked about a “generational transition” that his young compatriots should prepare for by integrating various bodies within the public sphere.

Biya’s words did not go unnoticed. They have since been analysed, commented on, dissected and widely reported in the local press. Some even see it as a message or warning from the head of state to his most faithful colleagues, whose loyalty and obedience have allowed him to govern with peace of mind for over 38 years.

At a crossroads

Since then, Cameroon’s entire political landscape has been in a state of expectation. Especially since the president has awakened the heart of his political machine, the central committee of the Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais (RDPC). Under the leadership of 77-year-old Jean Nkuete, the party’s secretary-general, the central committee is busy preparing a major summit, which will be announced this year. This event, which is supposed to take place every five years, has not been held for 10 years.

After a tumultuous electoral cycle – which saw the emergence of Maurice Kamto’s Mouvement pour la Renaissance du Cameroun (MRC), while traditional opposition parties, which the government had learned to accommodate, were relegated to the background – the RDPC is at a crossroads.

Although it has an ultra-majority in all institutions, it has realised that it needs to rebuild its political base. It also knows that it will have to become more effective and get rid of some of its numerous bodies which were created mostly for electoral purposes, but which are empty shells with no identifiable leaders.

Above all, the RDPC is like the rest of the country’s police and administrative elite: ageing and less and less in tune with its citizens.

“As in all similar organisations, the lack of young people in prominent positions of power is due to two things: the longevity of those in power and the absence of alternatives,” says Cameroonian political scientist Moussa Njoya. “Those who are old today came to power when they were quite young, as is the case with the president of the Republic himself. But once established within the upper echelons of the administration, they preferred to safeguard their interests. And most young people now make up the opposition. One only has to look at those who surround Maurice Kamto in the MRC, from Mamadou Mota to Bibou Nissack.”

THE RACE TO TRANSFORM

A reconstruction of the party is therefore necessary, and this includes replacing deceased members of the political bureau and the central committee whose seats have remained vacant.

On 9 March, Nkuete gathered together the members of the committee responsible for carrying out a complete “cleaning” of the party at its headquarters. This operation – the first phase of which officially began on 13 March and will last until 13 April – consists of establishing the main roles of the party’s different bodies. New leaders will then be appointed. “These steps must be undertaken in order to hold the congress,” says Christophe Mien Zock, the director of RDPC’s media outlet.

Immobility and status quo

Will the RDPC succeed in its transformation? This question seems to be on everyone’s mind as this political party appears to be a breeding ground for immobility and the status quo.

Most have not forgotten that after his re-election in October 2018, Biya had already launched a similar appeal to the country’s youth saying that he had “understood [its] deep desire for change. I will take this into account, bearing in mind that the Cameroon of tomorrow will be made with you,” he said on that occasion.

Three years later, the president’s stated intention has been slow to materialise and has been met with resistance from within his own camp. Despite his reassurances that young people would be well represented during the February 2020 legislative elections, most of RDPC’s leadership positions in government are still being held by people who are much older than the country’s average age, which is around 19 years old.

Even though Biya feels that “many young people have integrated the various parliamentary, municipal and regional bodies”, they have not been appointed to key positions.

For example, the presidents of the National Assembly and the Senate, Cavayé Yeguié Djibril and Marcel Niat Njifenji, are respectively 81 and 86 years old. The former has been in office for nearly 29 years and the latter’s health is so fragile that he is frequently treated abroad and Yaoundé has not ruled out the possibility that they may need to replace him. And not one of their vice-presidents is under 60 years of age.

During the regional elections of December 2020, in which the RDPC was the favourite in nine out of ten regions, the infighting that occurred before the party’s candidates were selected was mostly instigated by the RDPC’s older members. As a result, none of its regional candidates was less than 65 years old.

“The absence of young people within the RDPC should be put into perspective,” says Njoya. “When we look at the municipal authorities of most cities, we can see that there are many young people. In Douala, for example, one of the deputy mayors is 34 years old. In the far North, a number of deputies are between 32 and 40 years old. Yaoundé’s sixth district is headed by a young man, Yoki Onana [43 years old]; the same is true of the 2nd, led by Yannick Ayissi [39 years old]. And it is important to stress that they are not there solely out of the goodness of these older members’ hearts!”

He concludes: “We must make efforts to include young people. In any case, this change will take place, it is the natural order of things, and it will come from the bottom up.”

Source: The Africa Report

Southern Cameroons Secretary of State for Communications and Information Technology Hon. Milton Taka says there will be no peace in sight for the Federal Republic of Ambazonia unless the French backed French Cameroun occupiers stop the killing of innocent Southern Cameroonians and the invading army soldiers leave the territory. 

In his press briefing on Wednesday Comrade Milton Taka observed that “There is no political solution until French Cameroun withdraws all its troops from Southern Cameroons streets, free all Southern Cameroons prisoners and commit to an international mediated negotiation in a neutral venue.”

He referred to the President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe Jeune Afrique interview and said, the position articulated by the Ambazonian leader has been accepted by the people of Southern Cameroons and their Interim Government and it is now for the French Cameroun side to seek to establish peace that will benefit both La Republique du Cameroun and the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The Southern Cameroons official said earlier this week that the Biya French Cameroun government has never been reputed for dialoguing and it views dialogue as a sign of weakness and it was in no mood in 2016 to change its old bad ways.

“This is a government that has a huge tool box but in that massive box, there is only one old rusty tool – violence – which has not been effective in recent times. Ambazonians are waiting for real action not mere words on peace coming from Switzerland.”

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

As the crisis in Southern Cameroons gets into a critical phase, so too has the Yaoundé crime syndicate decided to step up its clowning efforts.

While the government seeks to give the impression that things are returning to normal in the two English-speaking regions of the country, the reality on the ground points to a more dangerous situation, with fierce separatist forces bringing down some careless army soldiers who seem to believe the lies their government is spreading.

Last week, the minister of special duties at the presidency, Mengot Victor Arrey Nkongho, and the Senator from Manyu Division, George Tabetando, stole themselves into Mamfe where they were received by very few soldiers in order not to attract Amba fighters who have put a price on the heads of those two officials considered by Southern Cameroonians as traitors.

Though suffering from multiple illnesses, especially a bad leg, George Tabetando had to endure the 10-hour trip to Mamfe just to demonstrate that things are returning to normal.

But the CPDM crime syndicate is not deceiving anybody. Many soldiers are being brought down by separatist bullets and this is demoralizing many soldiers who get deployed in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

The situation on the ground is disturbing and not many people serving under the Yaoundé government are happy to serve in Southern Cameroons.

Even Tabetando and Mengot are not happy going to Mamfe in an armored car. They know a simple error on their part could be a death sentence that can never be commuted.

In the Amba court system, death sentences don’t get commuted. Once a person is declared guilty, theirs is the kingdom of death.

For Mengot and Tabetando, their trip to Mamfe was basically for the optics. They did not achieve anything and nothing will change just because they have visited the region.

If anything was achieved, it was just the huge amounts of food and drinks that the two CPDM enablers downed while hiding in their military protected zone as seen in the video attached to this story.

There is already a hike in food prices in Mamfe because of Mengot and Tabetando. The Yaoundé government has been looking for a way to hem in the Manyu population. It has now found a new and innovative way – sending Victor Mengot and Chief Tabetando to eat themselves into obesity and diabetes.

They had a treat from the military that they won’t be forgetting anytime soon. The sumptuous meal of puff puff and beans cooked by the military did only put them to sleep; it also triggered a diarrheal crisis during their return trip to Kumba. Luckily the bushes were happy to serve them and Amba boys were not close by. The story would have been different today.

According to a source close to the military, the arrival of Tabetando and Mengot in Mamfe is bad news to the local population that is really struggling to meet its food needs.

If this ugly situation is to be addressed then the farmers of the region will have to get to work to increase food production.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Between the economic and political capitals of Cameroon, misunderstanding turns into antagonism. Entrepreneurs and civil servants do not share a common vision for the country.

A stopover in Yaoundé? This will inevitably trigger a concert of “tchips” among Cameroonians leaving for abroad. And when the airline makes the opposite journey, those in the cabin also make a face.

Making a stop in Yaoundé does not make the Douala’s happy. The two metropolises cordially hate each other. Economic capital versus political capital, periphery versus centre. Two cities and, in a way, two countries, which do not tolerate their cultural, morphological and even meteorological differences.

Still no motorway!

In Douala, the bad taste of those stilted civil servants in suits and ties is mocked, their nostrils exhaling the omnipresent red dust that makes the capital so ugly… On the other hand, the inhabitants of the city of seven hills wouldn’t go to live in the sticky heat of the coastline for anything in the world.

This rivalry was not so bad when it was just about clichés. It became worse as the country sank into an existential psychodrama, due to political tensions and the Anglophone crisis.

Although separated by a distance of 218km, the two cities have never been so far apart. Since the fatal derailment of a passenger train in Eseka (Centre) in October 2016, the train linking the port to the capital has been carrying only freight.

Handicapped by colossal debt and contested management, Camair-Co, the national airline company, is no longer able to fly its planes. To ensure daily connections between the two cities, it is reduced to chartering a Ukrainian Boeing.

Moving on… Pompously baptised “a major axis”, the asphalt road that connects the two cities has been worn down by truck traffic, It also connects to Chad and the Central African Republic.

It is a silent and insatiable killer. It is a nightmare for Cameroonians, as it has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people annually.

The government has tried to replace this road with a motorway. It turned to China, which agreed to finance the project. However, of the 196km of road, only 60km have been completed. The work, which began in 2014, was supposed to be finished in two years. Seven years later, there is still no motorway.

An unbeatable path

“All these projects are at a standstill because of the corruption that reigns in Yaoundé”, said a journalist based in Douala. “These civil servants do not feel any sense of guilt when they delay our country’s development by taking public money.”

The journalist continued: “Those who have sworn an oath to protect the common good and serve the state only think of getting rich at the expense of the state. In what serious country are tax inspectors richer than business leaders?”

The fault lies with the École Nationale d’Administration et de Magistrature (ENAM). This elite school churns out officials who “serve the President instead of serving the people,” says Joshua Osih, a deputy from Douala. Osih, a member of the opposition Social Democratic Front, has promised to abolish this school if he is elected president.

“With 35.1% of companies based in Cameroon, Douala is the main industrial centre of the country and of the Communauté Economique et Monétaire de l’Afrique Centrale,” said economist Jean-Roger Essombe Edimo.

The early bird catches the worm. A real-estate boom is transforming the city, big hotel chains are opening establishments one after the other and malls are being built.

After studying in Europe, Gabriel Fopa returned to Douala to found an information technology services company. He developed it to the point where he was later able to buy the subsidiary of a multinational company. He loves his city more than anywhere else in the world. “In Douala, we create time. In Yaoundé, we undergo it, we consume it. There, they make young people believe that success comes through the ENAM competition and that the civil service is an unbeatable path. But we are in a capitalist economy. You have to create wealth to really succeed,” he said.

Stormy relations

In the “Doualian” sense, capitalism is a beehive that buzzes from 5am. In the offices on Boulevard de la Liberté, in the Akwa business district, and in the Bonabéri factories, people create and produce keeping the bottom line in mind. Managers bet their entire career on these people’s technical skills. They all sing the praises of technocracy, which is about action, as opposed to politics, which is about words and communication.

The “technos” of Douala have little appreciation for their compatriots in the ministerial district of Yaoundé. “They give you an appointment and then see you two hours late,” says a contractor who works with the government.

The former reproach the latter for being unable to adapt to economic upheavals, not caring about the fragility of companies and for not understanding much about the world. “To bid on a call for tenders, you need about ten signatures. Why isn’t the government doing anything to improve the business climate?” continues the contractor.

The denigration of civil servants and politicians is due to the arrogance of public officials (and vice versa). The stormy relations between business leaders and the tax authorities partly stem from this context.

“The directorate general of taxation has a punitive conception of taxation,” said Celestin Tawamba, recently re-elected president of the Groupement Interpatronal du Cameroun (GICAM) – located in Bonanjo, Douala – which represents more than 1,000 companies.

Instead of taxing based on a company’s turnover, the bosses have been asking, in vain for years, to be taxed on their profits. No one in Yaoundé is listening to them.

Hidden away in his glass and aluminium tower recently inaugurated in downtown Yaoundé, Modeste Mopa Fatoing, the director-general of taxes, “limits contacts so as not to compromise himself,” explain his family and friends. “These officials believe that entrepreneurs are all potential fraudsters,” said a small business owner.

Distrust and territorial stigmatisation have created a division between the political and economic spheres, corresponding to the one between the country’s two largest cities. During the last presidential campaign, no businessman or business leader spoke out in support of any candidate. During the same period, the directorate general of taxation implemented tax audits, a sort of sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Douala bosses who might have ventured to finance the opposition.

Napalm raid

Ever since Chief Rudolph Douala Manga Bell was hanged for high treason in August 1914 by the Germans, Douala has had a reputation as a rebel city. In April 1960, Ahmadou Ahidjo ordered a napalm raid that reduced the Congo market to ashes and silenced his opponents. In the 1990s, President Paul Biya had his opponents beaten up there before discovering the virtues of the fiscal weapon to “control” recalcitrant bosses.

But the latter do not intend to keep quiet. The “Livre Blanc de l’Economie Camerounaise”, published in November 2020, is a “right of interference that Gicam grants itself in the public debate,” said Francis Sanzouango, an executive of the employers’ union.

The country is now embarking on a process of decentralisation. As heir to colonial Jacobinism, the capital wants to maintain control, both over opinion shapers and those who create wealth.

In March 2020 – following the election of municipal councillors – Yaoundé appointed Roger Mbassa Ndine, a crafty politician who will not make waves, the central mayor of Douala. The regional councillors, also elected in this dual election, are waiting for the transfer of powers to get to work. Given the ministries’ resistance, they will have to be patient.

Water hyacinth

The old system is likely to continue. For instance, the decision to build a bridge in Douala was made by the planning ministry in Yaoundé. This is despite the fact that the very invasive water hyacinth is dangerously drying up the bed of the Wouri, the emblematic river of the city, which is also home to the indigenous Sawa people’s deities.

The elites of the two cities disagree over the best way to conduct public affairs. Nevertheless, they find themselves in the same places: funerals sprinkled with champagne, glamorous weddings and business-class flights.

However, this cordiality does not prevent the rivalry between the two cities from degenerating into recurrent deadly riots, as was the case in 2008. Although Douala and Yaoundé might view their differences as a strength, this rivalry could pose a problem to the stability of Cameroon.

Source: Africa Report

The Minister of State-Secretary General at the presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh is known more for his ruthless character as the de facto head of state of Cameroon. The ambitious next-of-kin is slowly but surely purging the Etoudi Palace of his critics and has thrown into the Kondengui prison many of his political opponents and is now teleguiding the bloody war on the English speaking people of Southern Cameroons, contributing to one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent African history.

Minister Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh is not only preoccupied with taking over from President Biya and the war or bloodshed in Southern Cameroons, the so-called President-In-Waiting and his family relations are living large. To be more accurate, Minister Ngoh Ngoh is leading an inconceivable life which Cameroon’s tax payer’s money and revenue from oil and gas have provided him with.

His in-laws and blood relations are reportedly splashing out hundreds of millions of FCFA on cars and private parties. Many are stunned today in Yaoundé as several anonymous investors are purchasing government buildings and shares in state companies.

Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh has the unflinching support of the First Lady Chantal Biya and now controls the members of the ruling Beti Ewondo gang with a huge property empire in France.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the members of the Chantal Biya family who pressed the 88 year-old Biya to publicly announced Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh as next-of-kin are spending outrageous amounts of Cameroon tax payer’s money, typically on really quite outrageous things, including, prostitution, alcohol, gambling, very ostentatious lifestyles that include buying huge houses in France, Belgium and the USA that they never even visit!

An official at the Cameroon embassy in Brussels hinted this reporter that Francophone cabinet ministers are spending tens and tens of millions of Euros to buy properties in France and Belgium and keep them up without actually ever going to stay even one night in those properties or to use them to raise revenue.

Like President Biya, Minister Ngoh Ngoh’s spending is not easily traceable and extensive investigations might just reveal the tip of the iceberg.

A cream of top barons of the Biya regime have regularly been flying models from Ethiopia, South Africa and Madagascar and elsewhere to party in Yaoundé. They arrive and are allegedly tested for HIV/Aids.

Other senior government officials from the Northern regions have also reportedly been travelling with their sea of mistresses to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj throwing huge amounts of money on things which are even against Islamic teachings. All these are going on under the watchful eyes of Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

To be sure, the system of government in Yaoundé as teleguided by Ministers Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and Joseph Beti Assomo is the feudal systems that dates back to the dark ages where the ruling families had the power of life and death, over all of their subjects and having the right basically to help themselves to whatever wealth the nation has. That’s La Republique du Cameroun that we know today.

Cameroon’s huge wealth comes from the country’s vast agro-industrial plants including oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves which supposedly belongs to the whole nation but in fact is the Biya family property which now has Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh as its operations manager.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai