It is becoming obvious that Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya, will no longer rule the country as his health takes a turn for the worse.

While Mr. Biya is fighting for his life, there is a huge battle brewing in Yaoundé as different factions seek to take control of things. The king is dying but the princes are more interested in his succession.

In the event that President Biya gives up the ghost in the days ahead, his constitutional successor, Niat Njifenji Marcel, is supposed to step in to run the interim, but he too is very ill and it is being reported that he is in a deep coma. Mr. Niat has been out of the country for almost three months and it is gradually emerging that he is not responding to treatment. 

In such a situation, a vacancy can be declared at the Senate and Aboubakary Aboubakar, the 63-year-old Senate Vice President, will take the reins of power and run the country for at most 120 days.

The Lamido of Rey-Bouba was invited last week to Geneva where Mr. Biya is battling for his life and was asked to resign. The ruling mafia does not want him to run the transition period. He was not allowed to see the President. He left Switzerland disappointed and devastated.

Aboubakary has no plan to resign and is not in a rush to yield to any pressure and he is sticking to his guns. The ruling mafia does not want a northerner to be anywhere close to power and there are fears that if Mr. Aboubakary runs the show, he will deploy a game strategy that will not sit well with Chantal Biya and Ngoh Ngoh. The battle lines have been drawn and the pressure is mounting.

Meanwhile, the country’s finance minister, Louis-Paul Motaze, who was called to Geneva was refused access to the ailing 91-year-old Biya. Mrs. Biya who is now restricting access to the dying President rejected Motaze’s request to see his boss.

There is a lot of political drama playing out in Geneva and Yaoundé and the French are principal architects in the break dance. Nicolas Sarkozy, a former French President,  is reported to be rooting for Franck Biya and he is insisting that power be handed to the young Biya who has no place in the country’s constitution.

Several regime insiders are against Franck Biya though not many of them have the courage to openly express their minds.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the ruling CPDM is quietly planning an extraordinary congress for the end of this year. Though not many party stalwarts are talking about it, the plan is for members to choose another candidate for the 2025 Presidential Election, given that the party’s natural candidate, Paul Biya, is caught up in another battle that he might not win.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Several political leaders have called on the president to seek a new mandate in the 2025 election, despite persistent concerns about his health.

As with every presidential election in Cameroon, the calls for Paul Biya to run again—now 91 and facing many questions about his health—are multiplying. The leaders of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC, the ruling party) began these efforts as early as 2023, but now the movement is spreading to smaller allied parties.

On October 6, the Democratic Movement for the Defence of the Republic (MDR) made its move. At a special convention in Maroua (Extreme North region), the MDR announced that it would keep to its long-standing policy of supporting the president.

“Implementation of Congress Recommendations”

“Remaining true to the path set by its founder, the late Dakolé Daïssala, the MDR will continue to back President Paul Biya’s candidacy in the 2025 election,” said a resolution signed by its president, Senator Paulin Djorwe. “We are preparing calmly. The party is ready. We are urging our supporters to follow this direction,” added the lawyer, who was officially installed as the new leader after serving two years as interim.

A few days earlier, another call for Biya’s candidacy came from the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC) in Yaoundé.

After an October 4 meeting between Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji and Robert Bapooh Lipot, who leads one faction of the historically divided UPC, Lipot said his party would support Biya in 2025. “We are carrying out the congress’s recommendations and honouring the commitments made by our late Secretary-General, Augustin Frederic Kodock, to support the man who made sure our heroes, Ruben Um Nyobe, Ernest Ouandié, Abel Kingué… are celebrated in this nation,” he added.

Battle of Coalitions

The MDR and the Lipot-led UPC are both part of the ruling majority. The MDR aligned with Paul Biya’s RDPC after the March 1992 legislative elections. Defeated by the opposition that year, the ruling party gained a majority only after the MDR’s six deputies joined them. That same year, the MDR entered the government, securing four ministerial posts.

The UPC joined a few months later. After tough negotiations with its then-Secretary-General Augustin Frederic Kodock, it also joined the government in October 1992, gaining four ministries and a position as Minister of State in 1994. However, decades later, both parties have greatly weakened.

Hampered by internal infighting, both the MDR and UPC have lost much of their influence. In the 2020 legislative elections, the MDR managed only one seat, while the UPC was barred from running due to its divisions. Nevertheless, these parties remain symbolic, and the RDPC continues to rely on them to promote its policy of inclusiveness. In 2018, the ruling party leaned heavily on the support of the G20—a coalition of allied parties—to counter the opposition, particularly the campaign of Maurice Kamto.

Who will mobilise more this time? As the next elections approach, the battle for coalition support has resumed in full force.

Culled from The Africa Report

The voter registration process for the 2024 elections in Cameroon has ended.

According to an official announcement from the Director of Elections, registrations were to officially close on Saturday, August 31, at exactly 2:00 PM local time.

Main political parties were seen making a final push to enroll as many eligible voters as possible. Their efforts focused on encouraging citizens to register before the deadline, aiming to maximize voter participation.

In the final days leading up to the registration cutoff, parties deployed a variety of strategies to mobilize voters.

These include door-to-door campaigns, leaflet distributions, and extensive media and digital outreach, all aimed at ensuring that citizens aged 20 and above are registered.

As of the last count by the electoral body, more than 7 million Cameroonians have registered to vote.

In July, Cameroonian lawmakers passed a bill extending their mandate by one year, effectively postponing the legislative elections initially scheduled for early 2025.

The 89-year-old President Paul Biya is expected to run in the forthcoming election.

Maurice Kamto and Cabral Libii are among the main opposition leaders who will face it off against the long-serving president Biya.

Source: AP

91 year-old President Paul Biya on Wednesday evening signed a decree postponing municipal elections scheduled for February next year.

The decree extended the mandate for current municipal councilors for a year from its expiry date of Feb. 25, 2025 to May 31, 2026.

The decree came barely two weeks after the country’s National Assembly, or the lower house of parliament, approved a bill extending the mandate for its current lawmakers for a year.

Biya did not say why the elections have been postponed but officials of the ruling party, Cameroon People Democratic Movement (CPDM), explained that it was part of efforts by the government “to lighten a congested” electoral calendar.

“Cameroon is expected to hold four major elections next year, namely presidential, parliamentary, municipal and regional council elections. This is a real heavy burden. That is why it was necessary to postpone the municipal and parliamentary elections for a better organization of all the four elections throughout 2025 to 2026,” CPDM senior official Elvis Ngolle Ngolle said.

Source: Xinhuanet

Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji said on Thursday that the government will “not tolerate” any pre-election disorder in the country.

“Any act to destabilize the elections will not be tolerated. The political leader who tries to disrupt the elections will regret having joined the political game,” Nji told reporters at the end of a two-day conference which brought together governors of the 10 regions of the country to deliberate on how best to organize general elections scheduled for next year.

The warning came barely a month after opposition leader Maurice Kamto of Cameroon Renaissance Movement granted a press conference and threatened that “if people want the country to fall into violence, then it will fall into violence”.

Nji said such a declaration was “unacceptable” in a democratic country.

“These people in the opposition, you must be humble and speak in measured tones,” he said, adding that the 10 governors have been instructed to “stop” any pre-election disorder.

Legislative, municipal and council elections are scheduled to take place in Cameroon next year.

Source: Xinhuanet

John Ewume Eko is the pro Biya traditional ruler known as Chief Moja Moja who reportedly became a prominent member of Cameroon’s elite force the Rapid Intervention Battalion-BIR in Buea.

On May 7, 2024, Chief Moja Moja made public a video on social media and claimed that some top military barons in the nation’s capital Yaoundé had contacted him to be part of a coup against Biya.

Moja Moja was never a military tactician. He was never respected by any Cameroonian in and out of power. So, when his power deep within the Fako constituency crumbled like a pack of cards recently over a fake coup revelation on social media, the man who had killed dozens of innocent English speaking Cameroonians and was seen as a star officer and star traditional ruler of the finest Biya Francophone tradition, was arrested as he attempted to escape to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Moja Moja has now been moved from Buea to the Secretariat for Defense in Yaoundé and he will eventually face a public trial over the alleged coup plot.

Moja Moja is only 41 and described by many as a young man with a criminal mindset who never had a great career in the military but took advantage of the war in Southern Cameroons and made himself relevant to the ruling CPDM crime syndicate in Yaoundé whose policies are driven purely on incompetence.

His Royal Highness Chief Moja Moja announced a phantom coup which led to his arrest and the matter promises to be hot.

We of the Concord Group gathered that five other acolytes of Moja Moja have also been arrested.

Moja Moja has now come to understand that he was dealing with a regime headed by a man drunk on autocracy. He is now in Biya’s drag-net.

Moja Moja with the support of BIR elements reportedly carried out several raids on the Buea University Campus and in Molyko stressing that his action was in support of a one and indivisible Cameroon.

Today, the regime in Yaoundé is accusing him of being the initiator, coordinator and executor of the so-called coup.

By Rita Akana