There are reasons why Anglophones believe Biya is a loud sounding nothing ⁰

A huge influx of French speaking Cameroonians coming back every December into the country from Germany, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, UK and the USA and a swelling desire for infrastructural development as seen in English speaking countries such as Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya is now spelling the end for the 42 year-old Biya regime.

While Mr Paul Biya may have no intention of stepping down before this year’s presidential election as demanded by prominent Roman Catholic Bishops or giving up the chairmanship of his ruling CPDM party, change in Cameroon is now inevitable.

It has long been a French Cameroun’s policy to make English speaking Cameroonians feel inferior and marginalized in a union they voted to join via a UN sponsored plebiscite in 1961 and the French government in Paris has been helping them! France is happy when Francophones control everything in Cameroon and they also do not want Anglophones to have authority over their own internal affairs.

English speaking Cameroon political leaders have all along pursued a strategy of cozying up to hostile French Cameroun leaders including the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya, in the hope that a united and prosperous bilingual Cameroon will emerge in Africa.

But while Francophone Cameroun political elites have never taken any significant measures towards building a united, strong and democratic nation fully integrated in the African Union, Biya and his backers in Paris have actually strengthened his legitimacy and absolute rule over the Republic of Cameroon and for forty-two years, the President of Cameroon has virtually been living in the French speaking part of Switzerland. 

There are a lot of signs that French Cameroun under Biya is continuing its failed policy of assimilation of English speaking Cameroonians and, even with the present armed conflict in Southern Cameroons, the regime in Yaoundé is only following directives from Paris.

During a televised conversation with business tycoon Mo Ibrahim in France, Biya made it public that the French policy of assimilation has failed woefully in Southern Cameroons. But the French puppet is still not interested in abandoning the cuvee-type policy. Consequently, Southern Cameroonians over the last seven years have taken very resolute actions by increasing additional economic pain on the French backed Francophone regime in Yaoundé.

Biya and his Francophone political elites think that the only way to achieve victory over Southern Cameroonians is to buy time like what Nigerians did with Biafra. But this is not working!

Nigeria justified their continued acquisition of Biafra as a tribe within the federation. But British Southern Cameroons was already a nation before reunification with La Republique du Cameroun.

Recent developments in Yaoundé are very alarming. The reality is that no French Cameroun political leader is really serious about solving the Anglophone problem. And this denial is slowly but surely giving birth to a new state-the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

If you follow the propaganda in Yaoundé, it seems that everything is working for the 92-year-old President Biya and his men and that Cameroon is prosperous. But looking at the reality, the Biya regime is indeed a Francophone crime syndicate. The bones have a French structure, but the flesh has already turned English.

The number of French speaking Cameroonians sending their children to Anglophone schools in Southern Cameroons and to English speaking countries such Ireland, Nigeria, the UK, South Africa, Canada and the United States is increasing every year. In the next decade, Cameroon will be an English speaking country. Biya and his men are all aware but are simply deceiving their French supporters in Paris.

Take a look at the French speaking millennial generation of the so-called CEMAC region grouping Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo-Brazzaville, Central African Republic and Chad, they are the only ones deep within the African continent who have grown up with computers and there is a boom of English learning. And they are no longer interested in watching Bel Mondo, Bernard Tapie content or even the French Ligue 1 football competition. They are only interested in Nigeria movies, music and comedies. To be sure, the eyes of the new generation of French speaking Africans whether in Burkina Faso, Mali or Niger are not on this nonsense French ideological machine, but on material things. And even though Macron wants to stop it with a pro Nigeria stance, the French can’t stop this future in black Africa.

Change is coming to Francophone Africa and their militaries or security forces cannot halt this process because the new young forces are demanding it. Biya is a finished man and the people around him except his wife Chantal Biya and the Minister-Secretary General at the presidency Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh are all in their 80s! So power is no longer in the hands of the ruthless and merciless generation. Today, the young generation knows that if they stand up, there will be no crackdown! But they are waiting patiently for the demise of the butcher of Yaoundé which is coming soon and very soon and they will be brave enough to go to the streets and celebrate.

From every indication, Cameroon is Biya’s family business and there are some people in the military, the National gendarmerie and the police force who are thinking wrongfully that the Biya dynasty should go on and on. But Southern Cameroonians have come to the conclusion that the final change in the Republic of Cameroon will be the collapse of the Biya’s nonsense machine this 2025 presidential election.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai