When the Constitutional Council declared the 92 year-old Biya as winner of the October 12 presidential election, it made his grotesque presidency stranger than political fiction. Biya cannot walk, talk, shake hands or even receive visiting dignitaries. He has not been seen in public ever since he was declared victorious in the election.

Yet his acolytes are planning an inaugural for the phantom president-elect next week. Biya no longer have the same physical strength as in 1982 and the will to serve the country has left him. While campaigns were going on, Biya flew to Paris for medical care.

More mass protests have been organized throughout the country and several people have been killed by the military.  It is shameful, disgusting and disgraceful watching young Cameroonians being killed because of a 92-year old man who ran a political campaign organizing rallies around large and framed portraits.

Fuel stations and government buildings have become targets for protesters. The military-backed regime is already showing signs of panic as it recently announced that the Holy Father Pope Leo is expected in Cameroon. The announcement has made matters worse.

Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the winner of the October 12 presidential election has ordered the entire political system to leave and to be replaced by a new democratic order.

The National Front for the Salvation of Cameroon (FSNC) reaffirmed on October 28 its rejection of the October 12, 2025 presidential election results and its leadership is drawing up a plan for political transition that would begin with a constituent assembly which would draft a new constitution to be approved by referendum, followed by legislative and council elections.

French President Emmanuel Macron who approved the ohne ende tenure for Biya during a visit to Cameroon now fears that in the event of violent conflict, millions would flee to Gabon and other neighboring countries including France because thousands of Francophone Cameroonians hold French nationality.

Paul Biya was chosen by the French in 1982 to end President Ahmadou Ahidjo’s reign and the Biya regime has stayed in power by sharing Cameroon’s oil and gas wealth with the French.

Coup d’états have bypassed Cameroon mainly because the population always claimed to dread instability and bloodshed.

The ruling CPDM crime syndicate is now run by the Minister-Secretary General at the presidency of the republic Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

The Yaoundé regime long prepared the figures that were announced by the Constitutional Council and every Cameroonian is now aware that it’s all theatre and all fiction.

The fact that the 92-year-old man who they say won the election remains in hiding is an indication that their pre-ordained scenario is now threatened by mass protests.

After 42 years of Paul Biya, and the humiliation of being governed by a first lady extremely lacking in political finesse, the security forces in Cameroon may also be ready for change.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

In July 1994, Yahya Jammeh stormed into power in The Gambia with a soldier’s swagger and the usual promises of salvation. He vowed to restore democracy; instead, he converted the country into a private chamber of fear. His opponents were jailed, tortured and many vanished. Elections were jokes. After twenty-two years of tyranny, Jammeh was voted out in December 2016. For a moment, he conceded defeat on live television only to rescind his concession a week later, claiming irregularities in the vote. But when ECOWAS, the UN and AU called his bluff and his own soldiers refused to die for his delusion, Jammeh fled to Equatorial Guinea. The dictator fell not through divine intervention, but through the exhaustion of a people who had finally remembered they were free.

In Cameroon, its 92-year-old president, Paul Biya, has been in power since 1982. On 12 October 2025, he presided over yet another election, the sort of ritualized farce designed to reassure foreign donors that democracy is alive in that part of central Africa. Biya himself was comfortably in Switzerland during the campaign, surfacing once about five days before the election perhaps to remind everyone he was still among the living. Yet, as surely as night follows the day, the country’s constitutional council declared him victor with 53% of the vote.

Cameroon’s tragedy feels unique in its endurance, because for forty-three years, Paul Biya has perfected the art of state capture. In Cameroon, elections are not civic drills but rituals to gain legitimacy, and everyone from Yaoundé to Paris participates in the fiction. In 2025, due to the miracle of the internet, social media and smart phones, dictators no longer need tanks on the streets, all they require are ballot boxes on television and nodding international observers.

The decay beneath Mr Biya’s state capture is appalling. According to the World Bank, over 50% of Cameroonians live on less than two dollars a day. A few months ago, I travelled to the country to visit family and it was a dreadful experience. Roads are disintegrating death traps, hospitals operate with candles, and medicines are as rare in the country as justice is. This, in a country blessed with fertile soil, minerals, oil and natural gas. A nonagenarian in any rational society would be tending his grandchildren while waiting to meet his maker. In Cameroon, he is in charge of the treasury. Around him, parasitic elite invoke his name as both shield and excuse with phrases like-We Thank the Head of State.

The Anglophone crisis of 2017 was the first genuine crack in Biya’s glass fortress. The English-speaking regions, long neglected and ridiculed, finally rebelled, declaring independence from a state that had treated them as an afterthought. The regime responded with predictable brutality, arrests, executions, imprisonments, abductions and burned villages. During the Anglophone crisis, French Cameroonians (the country’s 80% majority) watched in loud silence and complicity.

Cameroon’s institutions serve not the public but the man and his ruling class. The judiciary is an obedient choir and military courts are now a norm. The police and gendarmes are a network of ruffians while the military is a militia in uniform. The national broadcaster, the CRTV and other state-owned newspapers are theatres of absurdity praising the government’s ghost accomplishments with such fanaticism that even Joseph Goebbels may have found some of their positions preposterous.

To blame Biya alone is to study only half the portrait. His rule endures because Cameroonians by fear and lethargy have surrendered their agency. Bribery has become the national dialect and Cameroonian shave learned to navigate the system rather than confront it. Even the diaspora has perfected digital protests where intelligent people are mighty on WhatsApp forums and Facebook, but politically impotent in reality. AI-generated videos circulate frequently, often intended to stimulate laughter on forums about the ruling elite. It is truly a fascinating experience, and it would be funny if it were not so tragic.

After four decades of economic and moral decay, Biya’s most enduring legacy may be the industrial-scale production of alcoholics. The national pastime is no longer football but the consumption of lager. Men, women, and adolescents toast their hopelessness in pints. The country has found its anesthetic in booze.

Dictatorships do not thrive on cruelty alone; they flourish on the quiet complicity of the governed. For over four decades, Cameroonians have learned to live with their chains, with some, particularly French Cameroonians, even decorating their shackles with pride. The laughter and emojis on social media, the jokes about “We Thank the Head of State” are coping mechanisms and confessions of powerlessness. To speak of collective responsibility is not to vindicate Mr Biya and his ruling elite, but to indict the moral inertia that keeps him in power. A people’s silence is the dictator’s favourite hymn. Each shrug at injustice, cynical joke, emoji to arouse laughter at the depressing situation in the country is complicity.

Mr Biya himself, frail and fading, incapable of controlling his anal flatulence in public can barely walk unaided. Yet his image looms large and he is like an ancestor who refuses to die. To blame this relic alone for the nation’s rot is convenient but dishonest. Cameroonians may say they did not choose tyranny, but by adapting to it, they have normalized it and are therefore collectively responsible for the insanity.

Cameroon’s deliverance will not arrive by foreign rescue or spiritual intervention. It will begin the day Cameroonians grow tired of their amusement at their abuse. Dictators grow old; nations do not. Biya will one day pass, as all mortals must. The fall of Yahya Jammeh, is a reminder that the walls of fear, however ancient, are made of air. They collapse when enough people stop pretending they are rocks. No regime, however ruthless, can outlast a people that decide dignity is non-negotiable. Despots can jail, execute their opponents, kill protesters, jail journalists, burn villages, and rig elections but they cannot win against a determined people.

The story of Yahya Jammeh offers a mirror to Cameroon. For twenty-two years, Gambians endured a reign of fear, killing, torture, and electoral farce, convinced that Jammeh was unshakable. Yet in 2016, when the people refused to accept a stolen election and the army withdrew support, the dictator fell as the courage of the Gambian people met opportunity. Jammeh’s departure is a cautionary tale written in blood and determination. It is a fact that tyranny endures only as long as the people allow it. This may just be time for Cameroon to say enough is enough.

By Isong Asu

To absolutely no-one’s surprise, Cameroon’s Constitutional Council has proclaimed the re-election of 92-year old President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest head of state, for an eighth successive term.

Amid rumours of a close result and claims of victory by his main challenger, former government minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary, excitement and tension had been building in the run-up to Monday’s declaration. Hopes for a shock result were briefly raised.

Consequently, despite it being part of the long-term pattern, the official outcome, victory for Biya with 53.7%, ahead of Tchiroma Bakary on 35.2%, came as a disappointment and an anti-climax for many Cameroonians.

Biya’s decision to stand for another seven-year mandate, after 43 years in power, was inevitably contentious. Not only because of his longevity in power, but also because his style of governance has raised questions.

Extended stays abroad, habitually at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva or alternative more discreet locations around the Swiss lakeside city, have repeatedly triggered speculation about the extent to which he is actually governing Cameroon – or whether most decisions are in fact taken by the prime minister and ministers or the influential secretary general of the presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Last year, after making a speech at a Second World War commemoration in the South of France in August and attending the China Africa summit in Beijing the next month, the president disappeared from view for almost six weeks without any announcement or explanation, sparking speculation about his health.

Even after senior officials appeared to indicate that he was, once again, in Geneva, reportedly working as usual, there was no real news until the announcement of his impending return home to the capital, Yaoundé, where he was filmed being greeted by supporters.

And this year it was not really a surprise when he squeezed a further pre-election visit to Geneva into his schedule just weeks before polling day.

Biya’s inscrutable style of national leadership, rarely calling formal meetings of the full cabinet or publicly addressing complex issues, leaves a cloud of uncertainty over the goals of his administration and the formation of government policy.

At a technical level, capable ministers and officials pursue a wide range of initiatives and programmes. But the political vision and sense of direction has been largely absent.

His regime has shown itself sporadically willing to crack down on protest or detain more vocal critics. But that is not the only or perhaps even the most important factor that has kept him in power.

For it has to be said that Biya has also fulfilled a distinctive political role.

He has acted as a balancing figure in what is a complex country, marked by large social, regional and linguistic differences – between, for example, the equatorial south and the savannah north, or the majority of regions that are French-speaking and the English-speaking North-West and South-West, with their different educational and institutional traditions.

In a state whose early post-independence years were marked by debates over federalism and tensions over the form that national unity should take, he has assembled governments that include representatives of a wide range of backgrounds.

Albeit sometimes under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and international creditors, his administrations have averted debt disaster and, in recent years, gradually consolidated national finances.

Moreover, the past decade or so has seen Biya appear increasingly almost like a constitutional monarch, a symbolic figure who may decide a few key issues but leaves others to set the course on most policy areas.

And his continuation in this role has been facilitated by the competitive rivalries between senior figures in the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM). While he is there, the succession does not have to be decided.

However, with no designated or preferred political heir apparent, and with some one-time “next generation” CPDM figures themselves now getting on in years, Biya’s perpetuation in office has fuelled a constantly turning rumour mill about the succession.

Increasingly, the name of his son Franck has been cited, even though he shows little interest in politics or government.

Meanwhile, there is no shortage of either development or security challenges for the president despite Cameroon’s rich natural resource diversity.

Is it possible that today we are seeing a decisive erosion in popular tolerance of Biya’s self-effacing version of semi-authoritarian rule?

Are Cameroonians tiring of a system that offers them multi-party electoral expression but little hope of actually changing their rulers?

Has the bloody crisis in the English-speaking regions exposed the limits of the president’s cautious and distant approach?

When protests demanding reform first erupted there in 2016 Biya was slow to respond. By the time he did offer meaningful change and a national dialogue, the momentum of violence had accelerated, eroding the space for real compromise.

Meanwhile, so low-key in style, he has failed to really sell an economic and social development vision for Cameroon or instil a sense of progress towards a goal.

Biya was already testing the limits of popular tolerance with his decision to stand for a seventh successive term in 2018.

But ultimately he managed to face down a strong opposition challenge from Maurice Kamto, leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) – and when Kamto disputed the official results awarding him only 14% of the vote, he was detained for more than eight months.

But this time around, Tchiroma’s candidacy shifted the mood and sense of possibility in a way that no previous challenger has managed, at least since 1992, when even official results credited John Fru Ndi, of the Social Democratic front (SDF), with 36% of the vote, only just behind Biya on 40%.

And this time it is not just that Biya is seven years older and even more hands-off than before.

It is also that, in contrast to Kamto – who struggled to reach far beyond his core electorate – Tchiroma, a Muslim northerner, has attracted support from a wide cross section of society and of Cameroon’s regions, notably including the two anglophone regions.

This one-time political prisoner who later compromised with Biya and accepted a ministerial post, had the guts to go to Bamenda, the largest English-speaking city, and apologise for his role in the government’s actions.

And over recent days, as tensions grew in the run-up to the result declaration, Tchiroma shrewdly stayed in Garoua, his home city in the north, where crowds of young supporters had gathered to shield him from the risk of arrest by the security forces.

Now, after expectations that had built so high, there is intense frustration and anger among opposition supporters at the official result, however expected it may have been.

The security forces were already reported to have shot protesters in Douala, the southern port city that is the hub of the economy. And shooting has now been reported from Garoua too.

For Cameroon, Biya’s determination to secure an eighth presidential term has brought high risks and painful costs.

Culled from the BBC

There are currently massive military raids across Cameroon as the country prepares for the declaration of falsified presidential election results.

In Douala, Anicet Ekane, a leader of UPC Manidem, was arrested in his home without a warrant of arrest. Many say it was a kidnapping orchestrated by the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, who thought threats could cower the people of Cameroon into submission.

Since the arrest of Mr. Ekane, other politicians are being picked up in night raids. The writing is on the wall. The 43-year-old dictatorship is crumbling. Many Biya regime hawks are desperate. The tides are turning and power is slipping through their fingers.

But the arrest will not change much. Monday will reveal the extent of the people’s determination to bring down a system set up by the country’s president, Paul Biya, to oppress his people and spread corruption and nepotism across the country like an out-of-control fire.

Cameroonians across the world have made up their minds to stand firm. Biya and his group of kleptocrats must leave power for Issa Tchiroma, a man who has promised to clean up the Augean Stable created by the brain dead dictator, Paul Biya.

Mr. Tchiroma also known as Hurricane Tchiroma beat Mr. Biya in the 2025 presidential elections, exposing the incompetence of regime hawks to even fraud thought they claim they are expert at it. Polling station after polling station revealed how Cameroonians hate Mr. Biya and his regime which has brought death and hardship to the population.

The Biya regime noted for its exceptional manipulative and corruption ability is not convincing anybody, not even the international community which has seen the fall of a man who had the best opportunity in the world to immortalize his name by developing his country but decided to elevate corruption and intimidation into a political system.

Today, the ruling party manipulators are at work, demonstrating and calling for peace as if there is war in Cameroon. They claim they have won the presidential election but they are shutting down bars, banning gatherings and arresting ordinary citizens as part of their intimidation strategy. How do you win elections and you are afraid of war? How do you shut down bars and night clubs when your victory is supposed to be celebrated?

The die is cast. Mr. Biya has lost the election and his time at the Unity Palace is up. The arrests and intimidation are simply the kicks of a dying horse.

The people are determined and they are standing with Issa Tchiroma every step of the way. The government’s intimidation is not diminishing the people’s determination to call for change. The time for change is now. The government has a choice. Acknowledge defeat and make the transition smooth or keep on playing old tricks and incur the people’s wrath. The trend of change is irreversible.

For Mr. Biya, he has an opportunity to clean his image or whatever is left of it. He should call Tchiroma and congratulate him and work towards a peaceful transition or stick to his old ways which will only lead to a disgraceful exit from the political scene. Mr. Biya has hurt Cameroonians and many have been pushed into an early grave by the Biya-engineered poverty.

For 43 years, he has unleashed poverty and death on people he is supposed to serve and protect. Death is a common occurrence in Cameroon today. Many Cameroonians are dealing with financial stress. Their kidneys are blowing up due to stress. Their livers are being boiled in alcohol due to frustration.

The people need change. The era of the Internet has brought enlightenment to the people and Atanga Nji’s intimidation cannot reverse the movement that is currently underway.

Biya must salvage something. He has lost trust. He has lost his reputation. He has lost his dignity. Under him, Cameroon has become an Augean Stable. He could however help himself by demonstrating that he is a man with the fear of God in his mind by doing the right thing that might change perceptions in his favor. A word to the wise is sufficient.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

A stolen election, dressed in constitutional formality, is broad daylight robbery sanctified by cowards.

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” When Thomas Paine wrote those immortal words in the winter of revolution during the American war of independence, he was not speaking to soldiers alone; he was speaking to every soul faced with tyranny and called to courage. Today, that call echoes across Cameroon. The ballots have been cast, the people have spoken, and now the nation stands on the precipice of history. Shall we stand upright as citizens, or bow once more as subjects? The hour for cowardice has passed. History will not absolve those who championed loyalty to a dying monarch against fidelity to a living nation.

Cameroon stands at the threshold of deliverance or damnation. Every Cameroonian, from Maroua to Bamenda, from Mamfe to Bertoua, from Buea to Ebolowa, must understand this truth: freedom is never granted; it is won. As Nelson Mandela reminded the world, “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Today, to defend your vote is to defend your neighbor’s dignity, your child’s future, and your nation’s soul.

When Issa Tchiroma Bakary declared victory; not as an act of arrogance, but as an affirmation of the people’s will; he summoned the deepest chords of our collective conscience. “The people have chosen. And this choice must be respected.” His words were not mere rhetoric; they were a covenant, a reminder that sovereignty belongs not to palaces, nor to the aged throne of Paul Biya, but to the millions who braved sun, fear, and intimidation to cast their votes.

For 43 long years, Cameroon has been imprisoned in a gilded cage of stagnation. Paul Biya’s rule has become, in the haunting words of Václav Havel, “a system so entrenched in its own lies that it no longer knows the truth.” Our youth flee across deserts and seas because home has become a waiting room for the future that never arrives. Our economy drifts, our voices are muted, and our dreams deferred – all while the machinery of state rusts under the weight of arrogance and decay.

Yet in this moment, something ancient and indestructible has stirred: the will of a people who have had enough. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, “There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression.” That time is now. Let us be clear: any attempt to annul, distort, or hijack the verdict of the ballot is not politics; it is treason against the republic. To steal a people’s mandate is to desecrate the sacred altar of democracy. As Abraham Lincoln said, “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” But only if it is defended. For when the ballot is betrayed, the bullet is emboldened.

The Biya regime and its instruments must hear this clearly: legitimacy does not flow from decrees or uniforms. It flows from the consent of the governed. And consent withdrawn cannot be reimposed by force. If the Constitutional Council becomes the handmaiden of fraud, it will not be an arbiter of justice but a gravedigger of the republic. To the military and the security services; remember your oath. You swore loyalty to the flag, not to the man who hides behind it. “When injustice becomes law,” as Thomas Jefferson warned, “resistance becomes duty.” You are protectors of the nation, not the enforcers of one man’s vanity.

To civil society, to journalists, to the clergy: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” (Edmund Burke) Now is the time to speak truth with fire, to write with courage, to march with peace, and to refuse the narcotic of silence. Your pens, your pulpits, your cellphone cameras – they are the weapons of light. Use them. And to the international community; neutrality in the face of theft is complicity in the crime. Let no one pretend that the “electoral process must take its course” while the process is strangled in its cradle. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminded us, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

This is not about Issa Tchiroma alone. This is about every Cameroonian who still believes that tomorrow can be different from yesterday. It is about the farmer in Mayo-Louti who voted for a fairer market, the teacher in Bamenda who voted for peace, the student in Yaoundé who voted for a future, the mother in Douala who voted for dignity. The world is watching. History is recording. And generations yet unborn will ask: When the moment came, did we stand or did we shrink?

So, rise Cameroonians! Stand tall as guardians of your own destiny. Defend your votes with discipline, with courage, and with peace. Let your voices be firm but your hands be clean. For as the great poet Maya Angelou said, “We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.” The verdict of the people is not a rumor to be silenced; it is a revelation to be respected. No hand, no power, no decree must be allowed to steal this victory. The time for fear has passed. The time for courage has come. Let every heart echo this truth: Cameroon shall not sleep through its revolution. The people have spoken, and their voice must stand, sovereign, sacred, and unbroken.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

Presidential election campaigns are underway in Cameroon and from every indication the results of the elections are a foregone conclusion.

Elections in Cameroon have never been free and fair and this year’s election will certainly not be an exception. There is a lot of excitement in Cameroon about the possibility of change coming to Cameroon. Have regime hawks become saints or have Cameroonians forgotten the past and has ELECAM, the country’s election body and the constitutional council changed their ways?

Cameroon is a country wherein there are no political miracles and the same personalities who robbed John Fru Ndi, the premier SDF chairman of blessed memory whose party beat Cameroon’s ruling party, the CPDM in 1992 in an election whose results could have transformed Cameroon’s political landscape in 1992 if John Fru Ndi had been given a chance.

The same political actors are still in place in the country. In 1992, they were younger, leaner and hungrier. After thirty three years in power, many of them are older, bigger and even nastier and are even determined to mess up the country before quitting the scene. To them, the messier, the merrier!

The incumbent, President Paul Biya is very likely to win the election. He is a player, a referee and a match delay in a game in which he has no intention of losing. His desire to stay in power is even stronger than it was in 1992 and from every indication he is in no rush to leave this planet. Those who think Mr. Biya will leave power simply do not know the man’s mindset. Some people even think he should be tired of power but real political analyst with insight knowledge of the political game know that power only tires those who do not have it. Biya has been a steady fixture on Cameroon’s political landscape for forty-three years and he is determined to make it fifty as he believes that his ancestors will be proud of him.

Mr. Biya and his men have their game plan which is unfortunately unorthodox and they are counting on the fact that the CPDM is the only party with a national presence. The CPDM is not a popular party but the fact that it is in every nook and cranny of the country gives it a massive advantage in this election which is considered by observers as a two-race horse.

Mr. Biya and his men have already rigged the election to their advantage. By controlling ELECAM and the constitutional council, the ruling party has put the odds to its side.

The rigging does not start and end with controlling the election bodies. Disqualifying candidates with the potential to threaten the senile Biya was part of the game plan. Prof. Maurice Kamto, the main opposition leader who many thought could topple Biya in the election was surgically removed from the election by a constitutional council led by a Biya protégé. Atanga Nji Paul, the country’s territorial administration minister, a man noted for his ruthlessness and uncouth behavior, was responsible for kicking Prof. Kamto out and since poverty hardly breeds virtue, Atanga Nji found a hungry and desperate person in Manidem, the political party which endorsed Kamto’s candidacy, to challenge Prof. Kamto’s candidacy and this trick worked like a charm leaving Kamto with a bloodshot eye and his supporters with broken hearts.

With Kamto out of the way, the ruling party felt the election would be a walk in the park. Little did the ruling party know that there could be another dark horse in the race and the dark horse which has turned out to be Issa Tchiroma, a man who has held many ministerial portfolios in the Biya government. Issa Tchiroma, the northerner who had been imprisoned by Mr. Biya after the April 6, 1984 coup d’etat in Cameroon has triggered a wave of insomnia among CPDM supporters.

Currently, Cameroon has run out of sleeping pills as Issa Tchiroma is rally Cameroonians. His program includes a three-year transition which will engineer a new constitution and a total revamping of the malicious system Mr. Biya has set up in his own interest.

Yaoundé has been caught up in whirlwind of fear as Issa Tchiroma knits effective alliances. Tchiroma is even prepared to sign a pact with the devil. He has already reached out to secessionists in the country’s two English-speaking regions and his visits to Bamenda and Buea over the last week have put the government in a talespin.

Tchiroma is apologizing to the country’s English-speaking citizens for all the humiliating and mendacious statements he made at the peak of the crisis when he was Biya’s communication minister. Tchiroma is even prepared to ally with the dead. He understands that a snake which does not cast its skin will not live long. His objective is to win power and pull Cameroon from the brink although many Biya supporters see him as a man full of vengeance. They suspect that if power falls into Tchiroma’s hands, he might take his pound of flesh and he will surely look for that which is closest to the heart.

The Biya regime has exhausted all its tricks. The public is aware what Mr. Biya and his ruling are capable of. Their tricks know no bounds and since the ruling party controls the country’s national assembly, it used the parliament to delay council and parliamentary elections to ensure Prof. Kamto’s party, MRC, which did not any parliamentarians and councilors did not qualify as a presidential candidate.

Despite all these tricks, the truth is that the Biya regime is on its last leg. Its free fall has commenced and its life span is maximum two years. All the numerous political maneuvers, including the SDF senator joining Atanga Nji in a CPDM campaign in Up-Station, Bamenda, are all vain attempts to postpone the CPDM’s agony.

Akere Muna and Joshua Osih, well known French Cameroon surrogates who have a track record of obstructing the Southern Cameroons cause have been told to take part in the October 12 election to give legitimacy and a semblance of Southern Cameroons’ participation. This is also failing and will certainly give the government and the elections a very bad name.

Thousands of eligible voters were reluctant to register, citing fears of election rigging or retribution from soldiers loyal to the regime in Yaoundé.

ELECAM has excluded candidates without providing clear reasons. The process for candidate vetting is shameful, disgusting and disgraceful.

The constitutional council is a Beti/Bulu tribal institution seen by critics as insufficiently independent and only makes decisions that favour the 92-year-old Biya.

There are concerns that elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) often used to suppress dissent, protests, or opposition activities are no longer willing to play the nasty role they have been playing.

The deployment of gendarmerie officers to protect ELECAM officials and prominent judges of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Council has already taken place, signaling the Council’s readiness to declare Biya the winner.

Millions in French speaking Cameroon now see the outcome as a foregone conclusion, voter apathy in Southern Cameroons is very high, which tends to favour President Biya now known as the picture candidate.

Mr. Biya’s use of state resources to shape public perception, limit opposition campaigns, and control the flow of information has pushed Cameroonians to the brink.

Interfering in vote counting during this October election and using the Constitutional Council to declare Biya as the winner might be a grievous mistake that might trigger the end of a regime which has overstayed its welcome.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman/Editor-In-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

Presidential elections in Cameroon are scheduled for 12 October 2025 and 92-year-old President Biya who returned yesterday to the country after a 12-day health tourism in Switzerland remains the leading candidate. Mr. Biya has been in power since 1982 and for 43 years, the country has witnessed an escalation in corruption and poverty.

Following the introduction of multiparty politics in the country, the country’s political environment has been dominated by  the ruling CPDM which has total control over the country’s electoral institutions.

Biya is frail, unable to walk and most of his recent pronouncements have been through social media platforms. In a recent tweet, the man who has nothing to show for his long stay in power, pointed out that much remains to be done, an indictment of his government and testimony to the fact that he has failed the country.

Biya’s ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement has strong control over the government treasury and control over major media houses in the country. His rivals are disqualified, blocked, or weakened while he goes abroad during election campaigns to enjoy the sweat of other countries. Holiday InterContinental Hotel in Geneva has become Mr. Biya’s office when he issues his infamous and ridiculous high instructions.

Campaigns have started and CPDM militants are holding rallies parading Biya’s photos and some dying in accidents while the old CPDM chairman enjoys himself out of the country.

Issa Tchiroma who successfully emerged as Biya’s main challenger is already speaking of systemic bias while local and international media organizations are already treating Biya as the likely winner not because he is popular but because he is popularly unpopular.

Whatever Biya wants, Biya gets!! He is not involved in any campaign but simply enjoying his private trip in Europe. Cameroon is the only country in the world where if you want to lose an election you campaign but if you want to win, you leave the country while your picture represents you in rallies.

Biya’s complete absent from the campaign trail raises serious doubts about fairness in the electoral process. It also calls into question his patriotism and physical ability to rule a country he has willfully destroyed.

As credible opposition figures continue to face institutional barriers, Biya’s picture on seats during rallies is now set to win the presidential election in Cameroon. Mr. Biya has reduced Cameroonians to desperate clowns who even worship the picture of a dying scammer.

The election governing body, ELECAM, is at the mercy of Mr. Biya and his appointees, with opposition parties citing lack of transparency in the electoral processes.

The electoral drama in East Cameroon is not drawing attention in the two English-speaking regions of the country where Ambazonia Restoration Forces have reportedly shut down the English-speaking regions. Boko Haram has increased its violent activities in the north and there are reports that citizens in this areas will not be able to vote.

Biya’s advanced age and health are a matter of very grave concern. This explains why only his picture has been used to represent him in all CPDM rallies. Senior political figures such as Barrister Akere Muna have pointed out that in the current “set to win” picture situation, Biya may not be able to serve his full term and this may end up creating instability.

The legitimacy of the election has already been questioned by commentators both at home and abroad with many condemning the process as unfair. If Biya’s picture ends up winning the election, his victory will be the first of its kind in the world. Pictures have never won elections in any part of the world but it is becoming clearer everyday that Cameroon is well on the path to setting a new political record.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai