When portraits rule: The presidency becomes a shrine! ⁰

Ah! What a grand spectacle of democracy turned into pilgrimage, where citizens no longer travel to Jerusalem or Mecca, but to Etoudi—armed not with rosaries or Qur’ans, but with envelopes of pledges and pockets emptied of 5 to10K contributions. The Presidency has become a shrine, and Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh its high priest, who, like the Pope’s emissary, receives all delegations on behalf of the invisible God-King.

Here is the paradox: to meet the Head of State, one must never see the Head of State. His presence is too divine, too sacred, too holy for mortal eyes. Instead, portraits hang like sacred icons on the walls, absorbing prayers, oaths of allegiance, and the groveling of chiefs. Some even went further: dragging a lifesize statue as if Israel’s golden calf had found a rebirth in Yaoundé. Indeed, Biya is no longer a president; he has been canonized into an idol, an untouchable effigy, the Fon of Fons, the deity of marble and ink.

The absurdity glitters like a carnival: chiefs who once commanded warriors now parade as errand boys; student leaders and academics, who ought to grade truth and knowledge, now grade their own loyalty before the altar of the portrait; women examiners, included for “gender balance,” chant in chorus, proving that even equality can be prostituted to idolatry. And for this grand pilgrimage? Each member must pay their own offering—2,000 CFA—like indulgences in medieval Europe, except here it is not for salvation, but for a photo-op with a frame.

What greater hypocrisy! A regime so petrified of its own mortality that it hides behind paper portraits and lifeless statues, yet insists the nation believes the ghost still breathes, still rules, still reigns. The people are told: do not look for the man, only believe in the image. It is politics turned into a cargo cult—where the mere sight of a statue, a portrait, or a signature photocopied a hundred times is enough to summon the aura of authority.

If irony were oxygen, Cameroon would have long suffocated. For in this land, the living leader is absent, the absent leader is omnipresent, and the portrait of the absent leader rules more firmly than the man ever did.

So what’s the purpose of leaving all the way from Bamenda, Garoua etc to Yaoundé when you will still end up talking with a portrait? Millions of whose copies are available nationwide? Let the Chief priest save people the inconveniences by telling them to pledge loyalty at all district levels, just like local congregations worshipping the almighty God!

By Wepngong Moses