Monthly Archives: July 2025

14, July 2025

Paul Biya: A requiem for the mummified despot of a dying nation ⁰

After 43 years of zombified rule, Biya’s candidacy at 93 years, is a declaration of war on Democracy

There are tyrants – and then, there is Paul Biya, the nonagenarian necromancer of Yaoundé, who has shamelessly decided to plunge the grotesque theatre of Cameroonian politics into yet another farcical act of brigandage-the world’s oldest head(ache) of state has announced his intent to cling to the presidency once more, seeking an eighth term at the antediluvian age of 93; when most men kneel before memory and prepare for judgment. There are tyrants – and then there is Paul Biya, the decomposing sun-king of Mvomeka’a; who has made a mausoleum of the Cameroonian presidency, embalmed in arrogance, hubris and mummified in deceit. Like a moth drawn to the flame of self-deification, Biya stumbles forward, blind to the rot he has sown across 43 years of zombified rule. Biya’s candidacy is not courage. It is not continuity. It is not service. It is vanity wrapped in delusion; a final insult hurled at a people he long ceased to care about. Let no one be fooled by his empty phrases and digital proclamations. The emperor has no vigor, no mandate, no soul. Only a seat he refuses to vacate. He rules not as a leader, but as a fossil clinging to the illusion of motion, while the nation stumbles from one avoidable tragedy to the next. It is not only time for Biya to step down. It is time for his memory to be expunged from the pantheon of history. Let future generations learn of him only as a political poltergeist, who mistook a nation for his armchair, and ruled until time itself rejected him. And let the Cameroonian people, especially the youth, rise up at last, to bury this era of gerontocratic tyranny and claim the national rebirth and new dawn they have long been denied.

This is no longer governance. It is taxidermy in motion – the marionette-like twitching of a regime so old, so ossified; it has forgotten the difference between life and performance. And yet, the frail, aged despot shamelessly dares to whisper on social media: “Rest assured that my determination to serve you matches the urgency of the challenges we face,” adding sarcastically that: “…The best is still to come.” No, Mr. Biya. You are now the challenge; you have nothing more to offer. This latest insult to national dignity – a 93-year-old autocrat seeking an eight extension of his personal kingdom – is not an act of ambition. It is a declaration of war on youth, on democracy, on the very idea of national renewal. The justification is laughable: “numerous and insistent” calls by people from all regions in Cameroon and the diaspora. Which people? The hungry, poor and destitute masses who are scavenging for survival? The displaced IDPs and victims of Boko Haram? The war-orphaned Anglophone children? Or the cabal of sycophants fattened on patronage and corruption; the same parasites,greedy for another drop of the poisonous nectar the regime offers them? Which people? He dares to call it “service.”But his service is not to the nation; it is to the great altar of self-preservation, where he burns time, dignity, and present and future generations for the sake of his own shadow.

The Cadaver in Chief

There is a cruel poetry to the sight of a man who has become a waxwork of his former self; a living corpse and walking relic presiding over the funeral of a nation, under the guise of leadership. Paul Biya, has mutated from president to pharaoh entombed in the presidential palace, ruling through silence, absence, and “on-high instructions” whispered decrees. He governs not from Yaoundé but from his Mvomeka’a palace, or the marbled suites of Geneva’s Intercontinental Hotel, while Cameroonians sleep in darkness, choke on dust, and bleed in the streets of Buea and Bamenda. His rare public addresses are relics, his political instincts reduced to mechanical repressions. If governance is an act of presence, of listening, of sacrifice; then Biya has not ruled Cameroon in decades. He has haunted it. Under Biya’s gaze, Cameroon has not lived. It has endured. The country has become a mausoleum of squandered opportunities, shattered dreams, and broken promises – a land where roads dissolve like sugar in rain;

where hospitals resemble war zones; where students graduate into despair; where the Anglophone regions smolder in genocidal silence, and innocent blood is the mother tongue. Forty-three years of corruption, embezzlement, tribalism, nepotism, poverty, bad governance, and fatalism – and now he is asking for seven more?

Biya’s governance is an entrenched dictatorship kept alive by bureaucracy, brutality, and ritualized elections and nourished by apathy, silence, and the poisoned loyalty of cowards in tailored suits and agbada. He has never truly led; only loitered. He has not presided; only sat, slept, and signed useless decrees, appointing his Beti kith and kin to all commanding heights of authority positions in the army and public service. What began in 1982 as a hopeful transition from Ahidjo has festered into a monarchical parody, where term limits were abolished, institutions hollowed out, and elections turned into ceremonial endorsements of despotism. In Biya’s Cameroon, ballots do not measure the peoples’ will. Biya imagines himself eternal, and sees the presidency as his personal inheritance, not a trust of the people. He has turned Cameroon into a caricature of post-colonial failure; a textbook example of how a nation dies – not by war, but by the glacial tyranny of tired old men who mistake power for purpose.

A Dynasty of Decay: this Is Necrophilia

Biya’s 2025 re-election bid is not an act of patriotism. It is a necromantic spectacle – the dead ruling the living; a grotesque attempt to stitch eternity into the skin of one man, while 27 million Cameroonians decay under the weight of his denial. What man seeks to rule until he is a centenarian corpse propped up by protocol and improvisation lies and official deception? Which country of sound minded people will allow such a mockery to continue? This is no longer tyranny; it is senile theocracy, with Biya as its high priest, chanting decrepit slogans over a nation in chains.

Biya’s legacy is a nation betrayed with abusive patronage and ethnic-inspired clientelism as the official currency of governance. A bilingual state fractured into violent conflict due to his lethargic indifference to Anglophone grievances; a youth majority strangled by unemployment and hopelessness; a judiciary in chains, a legislature emasculated, a cabinet neutered, a press gagged. Over $300 million in public funds looted annually, according to various watchdogs, while hospitals rot and schools crumble. He has not merely misruled; he has institutionalized failure. Cameroon under Biya is a living contradiction: rich in resources, poor in purpose; blessed in geography, cursed in leadership. His CPDM co-travelers have also perfected the art of doing nothing, besides looting the public treasury. This is not stagnation. This is national asphyxiation.

The End of the Farce

Biya fancies himself immune to the fate of Ali Bongo, toppled next door by a fed-up military after a fraudulent election propped up another decrepit dynasty. He believes his regime is eternal. But power decays faster than flesh, and no throne lasts forever. Paul Biya is not the president of Cameroon; he is its plague, its undertaker, its oldest curse, which doesn’t deserve to be eulogized. Let his statues fall like ash, let his portrait rot in moldy government offices, let history remember him not as a statesman and father of the nation, but as a human vampire.

So, let his 2025 re-election bid be the final insult. Enough is enough! Let the youths, awakened from forty-three years of coma, rise like rivers after drought, and nail the coffin of this regime shut. Let the bell toll not for Biya, but for the rebirth of a republic that was never allowed to breathe, never allowed to dream, because one man refused to die – or quit the stage even after the curtains were down. The sword of history is unsparing. And when it falls, it does not ask for clarifications. To the elites of CPDM, to the doddering politburo of geriatrics who toast champagne while the people drink from dry taps -take heed. There comes a day when even the most docile nation remembers how to roar. Even termites know when to abandon a collapsing pillar. And so, we say: Go, Paul Biya. Go – not with thanks, not with fanfare, but with the full weight of our rage, our grief, and our judgment. Go before the wind of history blows you away like the dust of all failed emperors. Your time is not just over. It is damned.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

14, July 2025

Global shame as Cameroon ordered to repay €1.3 million of Looted Covid-19 Funds ⁰

In a searing indictment of embezzlement and misappropriation and reckless corruption, Cameroon has been thrust into the eye of an international storm; its name dragged through the mud by the very scandal that ought never to have happened: the mismanagement of precious funds meant to save lives. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world’s leading financier of health programs in low-income countries, has delivered a damning ultimatum: repay €1.3 million, (FCFA 852,744,282) or face severe consequences. This comes after an April 2025 delegation to Yaoundé unearthed a tragic litany of fiscal chaos, ineligible expenditures, and grotesque misuse of Covid-19 relief funds. What was meant to preserve life has now become a theater of disgrace.

In what reads like a tragic poem of state dysfunction, auditors and investigators scoured ledgers and warehouses, only to find a tale of 238 second-hand freezers, alleged medicine thefts, and vanishing equipment – all under the shadow of a health system gasping for breath. At the heart of the storm is Cameroon’s own Ministry of Public Health, led by Minister Malachie Manaouda, whose name is now etched into the global ledger of embarrassment. Even more damning: the delegation met with the Secretary General of the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, and the Minister of Finance, Louis-Paul Motaze; clear evidence that this scandal has touched the upper echelons of Cameroonian power. Despite promises and posturing, the rot ran deep.

The Global Fund’s Head of Grant Management, Mark Edington, delivered a stinging rebuke during a high-level meeting at the 78th World Health Assembly in Geneva. He did not mince words. Cameroon must comply with its co-financing commitments or face a brutal 20% slash in future grants. A blow that could leave millions without medicine, testing kits, or hope. Is this another shameful legacy of Paul Biya? That funds meant to shield our people from death are turned into a feast for the corrupt?

This is not the first time Cameroon has danced dangerously close to international condemnation. A 2022 report placed the nation among a quartet—alongside Mali, Mauritania, and Zambia—that had allegedly misappropriated a staggering US$25 million in grants. That revelation triggered Sweden to withhold its Global Fund contribution. Even earlier, in 2021, the Global Fund’s Inspector General had warned of weaknesses in Cameroon’s financial governance. And now, the chickens have come home to roost.

Where is the outrage? Where is the accountability?

In an era where every franc counts and every vial of medicine could mean the difference between life and death, the Cameroonian government has, in spectacular fashion, fumbled the moral imperative of stewardship. This is more than a bureaucratic blunder; it is a betrayal of the sick, the poor, and the vulnerable. It is a moral crime.

The silence from Etoudi is deafening. President Paul Biya’s administration, already marred by decades of opacity, now finds itself facing international censure and domestic indignation. With public health on the line and national honor under siege, the government must act swiftly.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Launch an independent, international audit with full transparency.

• Prosecute those responsible for embezzlement, no matter how high their rank.

• Publicly commit to a reform of all Global Fund grant management processes.

• Restore public trust through regular and transparent communication with Cameroonians.

• Establish an oversight task force comprising civil society, international observers, and anti-corruption experts.

Cameroon stands at a moral crossroads. It can either cleanse its institutions and restore dignity, or wallow in the mire of disgrace while the world watches in horror. The time for spin is over. The era of silence must end. History is watching; and it will not be kind.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

13, July 2025

CPDM Crime Syndicate: 92-year-old Biya to seek eighth term ⁰

President Paul Biya said Sunday that he would be seeking an eighth term in office in October’s elections in a bid to extend his nearly 43 years in power.

Biya, 92, posted the announcement on X in French and English.

“I am a candidate for the 12 October 2025 presidential election. Rest assured that my determination to serve you is commensurate with the serious challenges facing us,” he wrote.

“Together, there are no challenges we cannot meet. The best is still to come.”

Biya was already the de facto candidate of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), of which he is party leader.

Several longstanding supporters of Biya have appeared to distance themselves from him in recent months, and there have been two high-profile defections from Biya’s camp in recent weeks.

But the opposition is deeply divided and is struggling to unite behind a single candidate.

Source: AFP

13, July 2025

Former Nigerian leader Muhammadu Buhari dies aged 82 ⁰

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, who has died age 82 in a London clinic, was a former military ruler and self-styled converted democrat who returned to power through elections but struggled to convince Nigerians he could deliver on the change he promised.

Never a natural politician, he was seen as aloof and austere. But he retained a reputation for personal honesty – a rare feat for a politician in Nigeria.

After three failed attempts, Buhari achieved a historic victory in 2015, becoming the country’s first opposition candidate to defeat an incumbent. In 2019, he was re-elected for another four-year term.

Buhari had always been popular among the poor of the north (known as the “talakawa” in the Hausa language) but for the 2015 campaign, he had the advantage of a united opposition grouping behind him.

Many of those who supported him thought his military background and disciplinarian credentials were what the country needed to get to grips with the Islamist insurgency in the north. Buhari also promised to tackle corruption and nepotism in government, and create employment opportunities for young Nigerians.

But his time in office coincided with a slump in global oil prices and the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

His administration also came under fire for its handling of insecurity. While campaigning he had promised to defeat the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. But the group remains a threat and one of its factions is now affiliated to the so-called Islamic State group.

There was also an upsurge in deadly clashes between farmers and ethnic Fulani herders in central Nigeria. Mr Buhari, a Fulani, was accused of not being tough enough on the herders or doing enough to stop the crisis.

The activities of so-called bandits in the north-western part of the country saw the abduction of hundreds of secondary school students.

Under his watch armed forces were accused of human rights abuses – like opening fire on anti-police brutality protesters at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos in October 2020.

Who was Muhammadu Buhari?

Muhammadu Buhari was born in December 1942 in Daura in Katsina state in the far north of Nigeria, near the border with Niger. At the time, Nigeria was controlled by the British and it would be another 18 years before the country gained independence.

Buhari’s father, who died when he was four, was Fulani, while his mother, who brought him up, was Kanuri. In a 2012 interview, Buhari spoke of being his father’s 23rd child and his mother’s 13th. He said his only recollection of his father was of the two of them and one of his half-brothers being thrown from the back of a horse.

AFP Buhari campaign poster — After three failed attempts, Buhari won victory at the polls in 2015

The young Buhari attended primary school in Daura and then boarding school in the city of Katsina. After leaving school, he was admitted to the Nigerian Military Training College, joining the Nigerian army shortly after independence.

Buhari undertook officer training in the UK from 1962-1963 and then began his steady climb up the ranks.

In later years, Buhari attributed his disciplinarian bent to spending his formative years at boarding school, where corporal punishment was the norm, and in the military. He was “lucky” to have experienced such tough environments, which taught him to work hard, he said.

In 1966, there was a military coup and then counter-coup in Nigeria – a time of upheaval for army officers but Buhari always maintained he was too junior to have played any significant role.

Less than 10 years later, under a military government, Buhari had risen to become military governor of the north-east, an area then comprising six states.

After less than a year, Buhari, now in his mid-30s, was promoted again, becoming federal commissioner for petroleum and natural resources (in effect oil minister) in 1976 under Olusegun Obasanjo in his first spell as Nigerian head of state.

Indiscipline and corruption

By 1978, Buhari, then a colonel, had returned to being a military commander. His tough stance in 1983 – when some Nigerian islands were annexed in Lake Chad by Chadian soldiers – is still remembered in the north-east, after he blockaded the area and drove off the invaders.

The end of 1983 saw another coup, against elected President Shehu Shagari, and Buhari, now a major-general, became the country’s military ruler. By his own account, he was not one of the plotters but was installed (and subsequently discarded) by those who held the real power and needed a figurehead.

Other accounts suggest he played a more active role in removing Shagari than he was willing to admit.

Buhari ruled for 20 months, a period remembered for a campaign against indiscipline and corruption, as well as for human rights abuses.

About 500 politicians, officials and businessmen were jailed as part of a campaign against waste and corruption.

Some saw this as the heavy-handed repression of military rule. Others remember it as a praiseworthy attempt to fight the endemic corruption that was holding back Nigeria’s development.

Buhari retained a rare reputation for honesty among Nigeria’s politicians, both military and civilian, largely because of this campaign.

As part of his “war against indiscipline”, he ordered Nigerians to form neat queues at bus stops, under the sharp eyes of whip-wielding soldiers. Civil servants who were late for work were publicly humiliated by being forced to do frog jumps.

Some of his measures might have been seen as merely eccentric. But others were genuinely repressive, such as a decree to restrict press freedom, under which journalists were jailed.

Buhari’s government also locked up Nigeria’s greatest musical hero, Fela Kuti – a thorn in the side of successive leaders – on trumped-up charges relating to currency exports.

Buhari’s attempts to re-balance the public finances by curbing imports led to many job losses and the closure of businesses.

As part of anti-corruption measures, he also ordered that the currency be replaced – the colour of the naira notes was changed – forcing all holders of old notes to exchange them at banks within a limited period.

Prices rose while living standards fell, and in August 1985 Buhari was ousted and imprisoned for 40 months. Army chief Gen Ibrahim Babangida took over.

Historic election victory

After his release and, he said, having seen the consequences of the break-up of the Soviet Union, Buhari decided to enter party politics, now convinced of the virtues of multiparty democracy and free and fair elections.

Despite this, Buhari always defended the 1983 coup, saying in 2005: “The military came in when it was absolutely necessary and the elected people had failed the country.”

He also rejected accusations that his measures against journalists and others had gone too far, insisting that he had been merely applying the laws that others had been breaking.

AFP Muhammadu Buhari and his wife Aisha Halilu — Buhari’s wife, Aisha, joined the criticism of her husband’s administration

He was elected president in 2015, becoming the first opposition candidate to defeat an incumbent since the return of multiparty democracy in 1999.

As president, Buhari made a virtue of his “incorruptibility”, declaring his relatively modest wealth and saying he had “spurned several past opportunities” to enrich himself.

He was plain spoken by nature, which sometimes played well for him in the media and sometimes badly.

Although few doubted his personal commitment to fighting corruption and there were several notable scalps, some questioned whether the structures enabling mismanagement had really been reformed.

And attempts to improve youth employment prospects were, at best, a work in progress.

‘Bag of rice’

On the day Buhari left office, some Nigerians were asked in a video that was widely shared on social media, what they would remember most about his time in office, and all respondents said the same thing: ‘Bag of rice’.

The reason was simple – rice is the staple food in the country.

A standard 50kg (110lb) bag of rice, which could help feed a household of between eight and 10 for about a month, cost just 7,500 naira ($5; £3) under President Goodluck Jonathan, who was defeated by Buhari in 2015, but went up to 60,000 naira a few years afterwards.

This led to hunger in many parts of the country.

The huge surge in the price of rice was because, in an echo of his earlier policy as a military ruler, Buhari banned the importation of rice to encourage more Nigerian farmers to grow the crop.

However, local producers were unable to meet the high demand and many of his supporters lost their faith in him.

Ismail Danyaro, a resident of the northern city of Kano, said he had backed Buhari since he first contested the presidency in 2003.

“I used to buy a 50kg bag of rice under Goodluck [Jonathan] but when Buhari came, I found it difficult to buy even a 25kg bag of rice because it became so expensive,” he told the BBC.

At one point, even Buhari’s wife threatened not to support his re-election bid.

AFP Muhammadu Buhari — Buhari never accepted that his measures as military ruler were repressive or over-zealous

‘Baba go slow’

Nigerians love nicknames and some of the country’s leaders’ nicknames have stuck even long after they left office.

For example, former military leader Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida is still called “Maradona” for what people perceived as his tactical dribbles on issues and situations.

For Buhari, it was “Baba [Father] go slow” after it took him six months to name his first cabinet on assuming office in 2015.

Responding to his nickname years later, Buhari said it wasn’t his fault that it took so long to get anything done.

“Yes, we are slow because the system is slow. It’s not Baba that is slow but it is the system so I am going by this system and I hope we will make it,” he said in 2018.

Nigerian politics in 2022-2023 remains one of the most interesting in the country’s democratic history.

In the minds of many, it was the first time that a sitting president wasn’t really bothered about who his successor was going to be.

Openly, Buhari declared he would support whoever won his party’s (All Progressives Congress) nomination but insiders say behind the scenes he was ambivalent.

Buhari’s body language emboldened all five candidates seeking the APC’s endorsement and their supporters all went around saying they had his backing.

At one point it felt as if Buhari opposed the candidacy of his eventual successor, Bola Tinubu.

What followed was the declaration of the “naira swap policy” which the Buhari administration announced would, among other things, limit the influence of money in the 2023 elections.

Many Nigerians believed that the policy was targeted at preventing Tinubu from becoming president even though he had been chosen as the APC candidate.

The policy involved the confiscation of trillions of old naira notes and their replacement with new notes for the highest denominations.

However, there were not enough new notes, leading to shortages and suffering by millions, particularly the less well-off, who rely on cash for their daily transactions.

The policy was only suspended after a Supreme Court ruling, just days before the election.

Tinubu won narrowly, with 37% of votes cast, as the opposition was divided.

Any assessment of Buhari’s presidency must take account his declining health, which caused him to take significant absences from work, especially during his first term.

The former military ruler may have reinvented himself as a democrat but there was no such commitment to transparency concerning his own health, with Nigerians left uninformed about the fitness of their head of state for office.

Muhammadu Buhari married twice, first to Safinatu Yusuf from 1971-1988, and then in 1989 to Aisha Halilu, who survives him. He had 10 children.

Source: BBC

12, July 2025

Goalkeeper Andre Onana ruled out of Man Utd’s pre-season ⁰

Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana has been ruled out of playing in the club’s pre-season tour of the United States with a hamstring injury.

The 29-year-old Cameroon international has responded well to initial treatment and will join his team-mates on the flight to America later this month, but he will focus on recovery and will not feature in the Premier League Summer Series.

Altay Bayindir, 27, is expected to deputise during United’s pre-season campaign, which begins with a match against Leeds in Stockholm on July 19 before they head to the US to face West Ham, Bournemouth and Everton in a tournament that takes place from July 27 to August 3.

United’s final pre-season friendly will be a match against Fiorentina at Old Trafford on August 9 before they begin the Premier League campaign at home to Arsenal on August 17.

Veteran goalkeeper Tom Heaton, 39, signed a new one-year deal to remain with United earlier this week.

Source:Independent.co.uk

12, July 2025

Ngoh Ngoh Palaver: Biya sets presidential election for October without saying if he will run ⁰

Cameroon on Friday set the next presidential election for Oct. 12, according to a statement from the country’s longtime president. The vote comes at a key time for the west African nation whose 92-year-old leader has not ruled out that he would seek another term.

Paul Biya, Africa’s second longest-serving president after Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, is frequently sick and abroad, and last year, talk spread that he had died, prompting the government to publicly deny the rumors.

The over 40 years of Biya’s stay in power has left a lasting impact. His government has faced various challenges, including allegations of corruption and a secessionist movement in Cameroon’s English-speaking provinces that has forced thousands out of school and triggered deadly clashes with security forces.

Cameroon has also had to deal with spillover violence by the Islamic extremist Boko Haram group, based in neighboring Nigeria.

Recently, several of Biya’s longtime allies defected to announce their own candidacies for president.

Bello Bouba Maigari, Cameroon’s tourism minister, quit last week after Issa Tchiroma Bakary resigned as minister of employment and vocational training, both pitching themselves as the right candidates to succeed Biya.

Biya, in power since 1982, is also Cameroon’s second president since independence from France in 1960. Though he has not announced whether he would seek another term, he has hinted at accepting the ruling party’s requests for him to run again.

He cruised to victory in 2018 with over 70% of the vote in an election marred by irregularities and low turnout due to ongoing separatist and jihadi violence.

In a region threatened with shrinking democratic space, several other African countries also have presidents accused of using state mechanisms to prolong their stay in power. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni recently sought nomination for a seventh term, a move that would bring him closer to five decades in power in the East African country.

Source: AP

12, July 2025

Celebrating a Manyu icon Pa Atem Akoh-Arrey in the UK ⁰

The Cameroon community in the United Kingdom is celebrating the great life of Pa Sampson Atem Akoh-Arrey today Saturday, 12th of July 2025 at The Crowne Plaza Hotel, Langley Drive, Crawley, RH11 7SX, United Kingdom. Among the groups attending the occasion are the Sasse Old Boys Association (SOBA) UK, Ossing Development and Cultural Association (ODCA-UK) and Mamfe Government Grammar School Old Students Association (MAGGSOSA).

The event is twofold: a Presbyterian Church in Cameroon-focused service, followed by cultural festivities until midnight. ODCA UK and the Manyu community in the UK are leading the cultural celebrations of this devoted son of Manyu.

Pa Sampson Atem Akoh-Arrey passed away peacefully on May 22, 2025, at the Buea General Hospital, at the age of 90. Throughout his remarkable life, the renowned educationist was a true trailblazer. He was among the first batch of students at CCAST Bambili, became the founding Principal of Grammar School Mamfe, and served as the first Inspector of Education for Schools in SW Province, and later as the first Provincial Sub-Delegate for Education in Manyu Division until his retirement in 1993.

On the 29th of December 2024, his children put on a remarkable celebration at the Mountain Hotel in Buea to mark his 90th birthday and 62 years in marriage to his lovely wife, Mama Sophine Akoh-Arrey.

The legendary Anglophone Cameroon citizen was a man of silent strength, faith and unlimited kindness who served as the President of ODCA in Buea for more than 30 years. He stretched a helping hand to many, and the Manyu community in Buea is stronger as a testament to his kind-heartedness. His two sons in the UK, Ayuk and Atem, have followed in his footsteps as community coordinators in England.

AA as his generation often referred to him leaves an unforgettable family and community memory and is survived by his dear wife Mami Sophine Ebanga Akoh-Arrey, nine children, twenty grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, a brother and sister and a wider community who mourn his loss. The funeral rites have been arranged for July 23rd and 24th in Buea.

By Sessekou Isong Asu, ODCA-UK

11, July 2025

Biya-Ngoh Ngoh sets election date as October 12 ⁰

Cameroon’s national elections will take place on October 12, the country’s president and president-in-waiting announced Friday. The vote is expected to be another closely watched affair in a nation with a history of violent and disputed elections.

The announcement through a presidential website also set 8 am for opening of polling stations and 6 pm for closure.

Opposition parties have already made allegations of violence and intimidation against their supporters in the buildup to the elections, and human rights groups have said the corrupt Minister-Secretary General at the presidency of the republic now running state affairs is silencing criticism.

The Central Africa Sub region state has only had two leaders since it gained independence from both the French and the British. Biya has led Cameroon for 42 years ever since he took over from the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo and he also served as a prime minister under Ahidjo.

Paul Biya is not expected to run but his ruling CPDM party is already facing a strong challenge from cabinet ministers and opposition parties.

After the elections, the world will see Cameroon as a nation and not as a person.

Cameroon has faced severe economic problems for years and has been under a ruling tribal crime syndicate for more than three decades.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

11, July 2025

Indomitable Lions falls to 51st in FIFA World Rankings ⁰

Cameroon has dropped to 51st place in the latest FIFA World Ranking, moving down one spot from 50th. The Indomitable Lions now rank eighth among African teams.

The team’s slip comes after two mixed friendly results in June in Morocco. On June 5, coach Marc Brys’s squad beat Uganda 3-0 in Marrakech. Three days later, Cameroon drew 1-1 against Equatorial Guinea, missing a chance to impress.

Cameroon gained 1.25 points in the FIFA system. However, Slovenia surpassed them by collecting 7.1 points with two straight wins over Luxembourg (1-0) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2-1). Slovenia reclaimed the 50th spot, pushing Cameroon down.

At the top of the global ranking, Argentina holds first place, with France and Spain following. On the African continent, Morocco remains the top team, a position strengthened by its strong 2022 World Cup performance. Senegal, Egypt, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Tunisia follow Morocco in the African rankings.

Ivory Coast, the current African champion, fell four places globally to 45th and dropped to sixth in Africa.

Source: Sbbc

11, July 2025

Paul Biya’s candidacy dividing the CPDM ⁰

The ruling party has had an uneasy several weeks. Ministers and party officials are now in open disagreement about the possible candidacy of President Paul Biya in the upcoming October elections.

While some see this as a diversionary tactic, for residents of the capital, the country is no longer being governed.

“This internal battle says it all, and we can say that the country is no longer governed because there’s no leader to bang their fist on the table,” says Yves Tuya, resident of Yaoundé. “The silence of the President of the Republic is what’s causing all this disorder.”

It’s an unprecedented situation for the party and is starting to raise questions about the CPDM’s legitimacy.

“We have Minister Sadi, for example, who doesn’t know what to say, and Minister Jacques Fame Ndongo trying to reassure people — but in reality, Cameroonians are not fooled,” says political analyst Landry Atangana. “Even more so, party members themselves don’t know who to turn to. And what’s most dangerous in this kind of situation is that everything depends on just one man. We are left wondering: in such circumstances, does this kind of party even still have the legitimacy to speak on behalf of the people, when they can’t even agree or speak with one voice internally?”

Inevitable transition

For Atangana, it’s clear that the ruling party is now on the verge of implosion in Cameroon, as its top officials have shown their limits and inability to prepare a successor.

“The chaos we are witnessing in the CPDM lately can be explained by three factors. First, the absence of a clear direction. Second, the lack of an identified successor. And third, the fear of a power vacuum at the top.”

This is no longer about hidden dissent, but rather an open fracture within the CPDM. According to the expert, political transition is now inevitable by October.

“Opposition parties, including former allies, have decided to reshape the political landscape in Cameroon. Whether we like it or not, the country is now facing a transition,” Atangana says.

According to observers, the breakup of the CPDM’s historic alliances and the current situation could give the opposition one last chance to bring an end to the ruling party’s 43 years of undisputed dominance in October.

Source: Africa News