Headline News

8, November 2022

French Cameroun: Traders Say Equatorial Guinea Border Closure Ahead of Elections Hurts Business ⁰

Traders in the Cameroon town of Kiossi, on the border with Equatorial Guinea, say business is suffering after the land border was closed last week ahead of November 20 elections. Equatorial Guinea says it closed the border to prevent what it calls “infiltration of mercenaries who want to destabilize the elections.” Political analysts say President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who came to power in a 1979 coup and is Africa’s longest still-serving leader, is sure to win.

Several hundred citizens from Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, most of them merchants, say they have not been able to cross the border from Kiossi, a Cameroonian border town, to Equatorial Guinea since November 3.

Dozens of heavily armed Equatorial Guinea government troops can be seen on the central African state’s side of the border.

Building material importer Dominique Essono says the troops are preventing him and many other Equatorial Guinea citizens from returning to their country to vote on November 20.

Essono said scores of businesspersons are stranded and cannot move to Cameroon from Ebebiyin, a town in Equatorial Guinea. Cameroon imports vegetable oil, wine, canned food and body lotions from Equatorial Guinea and exports building material, vegetables, tomatoes, rice and potato to Equatorial Guinea.

On October 25, Equatorial Guinea’s Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue said the border was sealed to prevent from the “infiltration” of groups that may want to destabilize Equatorial Guinea’s elections.

Obiang, 80, is Africa’s longest serving leader. The former military officer serving as the 2nd president of Equatorial Guinea took power in an August 1979 coup.

He will be facing two candidates in the November 20 elections.

Esono Ondo is running for the first time while Monsuy Asumu is running for the third time. Obiang told the Pan African TV Channel Afrique Media on Monday that he will continue to develop his country and reduce poverty in rural communities if reelected.

Obiang says it is by no error that continuity is the slogan of his election campaign. He says his exceptional program is to open Equatorial Guinea businesses to the rest of the world so that by 2035, the central African state can become an economically independent emerging economy.

Owona Wolfgang, a political analyst at the University of Yaounde’s political science research center in Cameroon, says Obiang is poised for another victory, as in the past six elections when he never got less than 90% of the vote.

Wolfgang says it will not be surprising if after the elections, the aging Obiang hands over leadership of Equatorial Guinea to his son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. He says Obiang’s son is Equatorial Guinea’s vice president and a very influential member of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea, the country’s ruling party.

The opposition says Obiang’s rule is marked by persecution and torture of political opponents, corruption and sham elections, charges Obiang’s party denies.

The ruling party holds 99 of the 100 seats in the outgoing National Assembly and all 55 seats in the Senate.

Equatorial Guinea’s presidential poll was initially scheduled for April 2023. President Obiang brought it forward to November 20 to coincide with legislative, senate, and local elections.

Equatorial Guinea has an annual oil revenue of more than $3 billion, but most of its 1.5 million people live in poverty according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

8, November 2022

Football: Bayern Munich to decide on Choupo-Moting’s future ⁰

Bayern Munich sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic has expressed the club’s desire to keep Cameroon striker Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting.

Choupo-Moting’s contract expires at the end of the season and while the player has confirmed his interest in extending his stay in Bavaria, the club also seems to be happy with him penning a new deal.

“We’d love to keep him. I have a good relationship with his adviser. We’ll meet and see if we can please him. The way he’s playing, he’s a big win for us. He’s a great guy, and that’s why we got him. I’m happy that he’s here and I’m happy if he stays here.”

Choupo-Moting joined Bayern from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2020 and has scored 28 goals in 72 games.

The 33-year-old Cameroon international is enjoying a rich vein of form, having scored in seven straight games, taking his tally for the season to 10 already better than the last two campaigns when he managed nine apiece.

Choupo-Moting scored twice in Bayern’s 3-2 victory over Hertha Berlin at the weekend in what was his fifth goal in the Bundesliga, taking him to third on the Bayern top scorer’s list in the league, behind teenage sensation Jamal Musiala who has eight and Sadio Mane who has bagged six.

The striker expressed his wish to stay longer at Bayern after his brace at the weekend. “I’m very, very happy at Bayern and can of course imagine staying here longer. I’m just concentrating on Bayern Munich and I am here for now.

Bayern host Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga on Tuesday with the striker keen to extend his scoring run as he also looks forward to making the final Cameroon squad for the 2022 World Cup.

Source: Goal.com

8, November 2022

Tension in Yaoundé as Indomitable Lions risk expulsion from Qatar 2022 World Cup ⁰

Cameroon may be barred from participating in the forthcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The country is involved in a legal battle with kit company Le Coq Sportif after terminating their contract.

A Paris commercial court has ordered the company to continue to produce kits for the Indomitable Lions, a ruling backed by FIFA. There are concerns in Cameroon over a legal battle that could see the Indomitable Lions miss the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Fecafoot – the Cameroon Football Federation – are reportedly having a showdown with kit and equipment supplier Le Coq Sportif. The Paris commercial court intervened in the dispute and ordered the squad to wear Le Coq Sportif shirts at the World Cup.

Complete Sports confirmed that FIFA supported the ruling and urged Le Coq Sportif to continue supplying their equipment to the country. FIFA was possibly angered by Fecafoot earlier decision to terminate the French kit company’s contract and partnering instead with One All Sport, an American company.

Cameroon’s lawyer, Barrister Ntimbane Bono, in a chat with Actu Cameroon, stated that the move could get the country expelled from the forthcoming World Cup. “A refusal to execute the decision by Fecafoot could lead to the disqualification of Cameroon from this World Cup, which one should not forget it’s a FIFA activity.”

Cameroon are in Group G with Serbia, Switzerland and Brazil. The Indomitable Lions are scheduled to face Switzerland in their first game of the tournament on November 24.

Source: Complete Sports

6, November 2022

Biya: Nowhere to be found in his own celebration ⁰

Cameroon’s ruling party supporters are celebrating their hero’s forty years in power although there is nothing positive to show for Mr. Biya’s long stay in power.

The celebrations are more explosive in the Northwest regional capital, Bamenda, where the ruling party, CPDM, was created.

But the irony in all the celebrations is that the man being feted, Paul Biya, is nowhere to be found.

Another irony of sorts is the fact that the celebration of incompetence has been taken to a different country, the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, which is so opposed to Mr. Biya’s dictatorial, incompetent and corrupt regime.

Mr. Biya, who came to power on a wave of popularity, has roundly disappointed Cameroonians with his dismal and appalling failure.

In 1982 when he took over, there was massive goodwill for Mr. Biya whom many thought was the right man to steer the country forward and in a different political direction, away from the brutality which characterized the first president’s rule.

But much to the dismay of those who had betted on Biya, he steered the country to even greater corruption, ferocious brutality and incompetence.

His regime has been characterized by arrogance and instead of listening to the people in order to understand the issues, he has always preferred the use of force, transforming the military into his personal toy which he unleashes on his political opponents even when uncalled for.

The 89-year-old Biya could not participate in his own celebrations because his demons have been at work since last week.

His enlarged prostate and heart seem to have connived to ensure that he does not go out to celebrate his own failure.

His right leg, which has made sure that he does not enjoy a good movement, went on a rebellion a few days ago and the desperate Biya has been crying like a baby.

Sources close to the presidential couple have informed the Cameroon Concord News that walking has become a chore to a man who loves walking around.

He now spends most of his time in his bedroom where he is reflecting on his fate after he transitions to the world beyond.

Mr. Biya will be remembered as a man who had a golden opportunity to change the unfortunate fate of his people but decided to squander the opportunity by adopting the wrong governance approaches.

By Rita Akana

6, November 2022

Biya’s 40th Anniversary: Meeting in Bamenda to celebrate incompetence and corruption ⁰

CPDM stalwarts were in Bamenda today to celebrate Biya’s 40 years of incompetence, corruption and arrogance.

Led by the CPDM Secretary-general, Jean Kuete, speakers at the event highlighted what they thought were Mr. Biya’s achievements – indeed his appalling failure – over the last four decades.

But Cameroonians cannot be fooled. The results are there for all to see. The country has been caught up in a downward spiral with corruption becoming the regime’s hallmark.

Since coming to power in 1982, Mr. Biya has legalized corruption. He and his followers hold that nothing can be achieved without corruption. They use money to buy loyalty, corrupt those who criticize the government and imprison those who refuse their bribes.

Cameroon’s jails are full of Mr. Biya’s former collaborators who have embezzled state funds and he and his wife have been involved in many financial scandals which have helped to erode the people’s confidence in the moribund government.

Regarding the economy, Mr. Biya’s government has disappointed millions of Cameroonians. Many had seen him as a savior when he came to power in 1982, but his incompetence has taken the country down the wrong path.

The country’s economy has been in a free fall in decades, spreading pain and death among desperate and hungry Cameroonians.

Millions of Cameroonian youth are without jobs and even those employed are simply eking a living. The country’s civil service is bloated with civil servants finding it hard to make ends meet.

This financial challenge has transformed many civil service workers into con artists whose main objective of joining the civil service is to line their pockets.

The regime’s failure to create jobs for millions of young Cameroonians has transformed the country into a net exporter of human capital as young Cameroonians look outwards for greener pastures.

Regarding infrastructure development, Cameroon lags behind most African countries in this regard. For forty years, instead of investing in infrastructure which could drive development and create jobs, Mr. Biya and his collaborators have transformed the country’s treasury into their personal ATM.

The country is bereft of roads, hospitals and educational facilities. Mr. Biya has created many primary and secondary schools, but these institutions only exist on paper as there is no modern infrastructure.

For tertiary institutions, there are many of them in Cameroon today, but the quality of training leaves much to be desired.

The country’s state universities have been transformed into brothels where lecturers with very high libido satisfy their sex needs. Young girls are being dehumanized and robbed of their self-esteem by unscrupulous lecturers just because there are no checks in government-run universities.

Some lecturers even demand bribes from their students, especially those seeking to defend their thesis. This unfortunate situation in the country’s state universities truly reflects what is happening in a nation where young girls are asked to have sex with company heads before they can be given jobs.

Today, even young men are required to sleep with unscrupulous employers for them to get hired. Mr. Biya and his bunch of godless, hell-bound and depraved collaborators have made of Cameroon a fertile ground for homosexuality.

Morals have simply taken French leave of the country and there are no signs that they will return even after Biya and his gangsters leave power.

Today’s meeting in Bamenda, the place where the demon-possessed CPDM was created, is indeed a celebration of evil in human form.

Incompetence, corruption and demonic powers have been firmly rooted in the country under Biya and there is no doubt that the CPDM is very pleased with its leader’s abysmal and appalling failure.

By Rita Akana and Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

5, November 2022

40 years in power: What is Mr. Biya’s legacy? ⁰

Cameroon’s eternal president, Paul Biya, has been in power for 40 years and his supporters will be celebrating a milestone they claim is important in the lives of many Cameroonians. The Cameroon Concord News Group has been monitoring things and has decided to focus on the failings and achievements of a man who many hold has not brought much to Cameroon, though he has been a major beneficiary of what Cameroon has to offer.

Education

Cameroon is noted for the quality of its education. Cameroonians are all over the world and they have proven their academic worth wherever they have been. Since coming to office forty years ago, Mr. Biya has created many primary and secondary schools albeit on paper and this has given many young Cameroonians access to education. Under him, many universities have also been created and this has endowed the country with a large pool of educated people.

Mr. Biya can take credit for this although many of the graduates are either unemployed or have left the country, enabling the country to have a huge Diaspora whose remittances are helping to change things in the country.

Politics

Politically, Mr. Biya’s supporters claim that he has reformed the country politically and thanks to him, multiparty politics is a reality in Cameroon. Mr. Biya inherited a single party state from his predecessor and due to intense political pressure in the early 1990s, he had to bow to the will of the people by opening up the political scene to other political parties. But before opening up the political arena, Mr. Biya had to kill thousands of Cameroonians and send many to jail for demonstrating against his brutal dictatorship.

Multiparty politics was finally granted in 1992 only when Mr. Biya and his dishonest politicians had found a way of rigging elections to perpetuate their stay in power and they have, indeed, been in power for forty years by rigging and stealing every single election in Cameroon.

Every constitutional amendment only comes to consolidate Mr. Biya’s grip on the nation. He appoints every single official in Cameroon, including night-watch men to ensure that everybody in Cameroon is loyal. The military is his toy, and his ministers are just a bunch of slaves he uses to achieve his personal goals and if any of them nurses any high political ambitions which he does not like, he simply sends him to the Yaounde Maximum Security Prison which is holding many of his former ministers who have either robbed the country or displayed the forbidden ambition of succeeding him.

For the political opposition, Mr. Biya and his ruling CPDM have worked hard to destroy all efforts which might threaten Mr. Biya’s power. Political opponents are permanently being jailed, especially after every election because the results which always favor Mr. Biya usually get manufactured even before the real election.

Mr. Fru Ndi, the leader of the Social Democratic Front was held in his home for three months in 1992 in a presidential election in which Mr. Biya lost woefully but ended up being proclaimed the winner.

The entire Northwest region was under a state of emergency in 1992 because Mr. Biya had stolen an election and the population was determined to stop him from taking what was not his. But the crooked CPDM did not yield, and Mr. Biya has been in power ever since.

In 2018, it was the turn of Professor Maurice Kamto, the winner of the 2018 presidential election, to taste Mr. Biya’s wrath. He was locked up for eight months when he refused to acknowledge that Mr. Biya had won the election.

Mr. Kamto had clearly beaten Mr. Biya, but the old and ailing Biya is not someone who throws in the towel. He has never won an election and he was not ready to accept that someone else would be the country’s president while he was alive.

That is the multiparty democracy Mr. Biya has brought to Cameroon and that will be one reason why his supporters will be celebrating on November 6. They have institutionalized and legalized electoral fraud in Cameroon, a great achievement which needs to be celebrated by his supporters.

Economy

For forty years, Cameroon’s economy has been struggling despite support from multilateral development banks and other global financial institutions. Corruption has become the country’s hallmark and all government institutions have been struggling as Mr. Biya’s one-man rule has destroyed the very foundation of those institutions. Parastatals are all suffering, as corruption has reduced them to empty shells. Recently, SONARA and SNH have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

The Glencore scandal has demonstrated how the Biya regime is corrupt and how officials of government-owned institutions use their power to enrich themselves. In a British court, trading giant Glencore admitted recently that it transported money via a private jet to bribe senior officials in Cameroon, using a Nigerian agent.

The Nigerian agent transported money by private jet to Cameroon where a Glencore trader used it to bribe officials of the state oil and gas company and the state refinery. Cameroonians are now waiting to see what will happen in the days ahead. However, many informed Cameroonians know that not much will happen as corruption is the CPDM’s life blood. This is how the CPDM government operates, and 40 years of corruption is something very important to be celebrated.

Unemployment

Youth unemployment has become a massive issue in recent times. The government’s job-creation policies have failed the country’s youths, leaving many university graduates unemployed. The civil service has become a place where people never retire, especially if they are loyal to the ruling party.

The deep-rooted corruption, nepotism and tribalism are bleeding the civil service. People of Ewondo, Bulu and Eton descent have become the lords of the Biya kingdom, and their languages have become national and official languages in Cameroon and those who do not speak the languages get excluded from many opportunities.

The Betis – Mr. Biya’s ethnic group – who account for less than 7% of the country’s population, account for 80% of senior positions in the civil service and they are doing a good job of embezzling state funds. A look at those who are currently being held in state prisons for embezzlement will clearly reveal that the Betis are adept at stealing.

Many of them have multiple civil service numbers, thus earning multiple civil service salaries. Some senior government officials have included their family members and girlfriends in the civil service even when they have no business being there.

Despite multiple operations and investigations to rid the civil service of those ghost workers, many Cameroonians, some living abroad, continue to earn salaries they do not deserve. Mr. Biya’s brand of corruption runs very deep and it is hard to be uprooted. This is a massive achievement for Mr. Biya. This is the Cameroon he has engineered and will bequeath to future generations.

Unemployment remains a huge problem and it has caused many young Cameroonians to look outward, causing the country to become a net exporter of human capital. Today’s youths do not suffer fools gladly and they are taking their destinies into their own hands. Many are leaving the country, using whatever means that are available to them.

Thousands of Cameroonians fleeing economic hardship at home have ended up in the Sahara Desert and on the high seas, but this has not caused the corrupt regime to change the way it runs the affairs of the state. Will Mr. Biya’s supporters really celebrate the economic hardship they have brought onto Cameroonians?

Infrastructure Development

In terms of infrastructure, Cameroon is among the least developed countries on the continent. Its roads are death traps and its hospitals have become consultation clinics. In forty years, Mr. Biya has not built a single dual carriage highway in Cameroon.

Thousands of Cameroonians die every day on the death traps which pass off as highways in Cameroon, but the number of deaths has not triggered any transportation policy change in the country. If Mr. Biya had been building a highway every five years, the country would have had about eight major highways. The roads which had been built before he took over are today eyesores.

Regarding railways, those built under the country’s first president, Amadou Ahidjo, have been left to rot due to a lack of resources and a maintenance culture. Today, the country’s towns and cities are like landfills. Lack of planning over the last forty years has reduced the towns and cities to slums. Yaoundé, the nation’s capital, is an Augean Stable begging for a thorough cleansing.

Political Stability

For decades, Cameroon was considered as an oasis of peace in a desert of chaos, but over the last 20 years, much has gone wrong in the country and the peace many people knew the country for has simply evaporated. Mr. Biya’s corrupt and incompetent rulership has transformed the country into a tinder box. Nepotism and overt injustice have resulted in the alienation of people from other regions of the country.

Over the last six years, the country’s English-speaking minority has been threatening to walk away from the lopsided union with French Cameroon which has only brought death, poverty and destruction to many English-speaking Cameroonians, although other French-speaking Cameroonians are also feeling the heat of Mr. Biya’s failed economic and political stewardship.

After fifty years of marginalization, the country’s English-speaking minority in 2016 complained about its unfortunate fate. Instead of listening to the people, the Biya government threatened to kill those who ever thought of complaining. Since the Biya government only believes in military violence, it promptly dispatched its forces to the country’s two English-speaking regions to teach the population a bitter lesson.

Little did the ailing and dying Biya know that his own troops would be caught up in a quagmire as the English-speaking minority would not take the threats lying down. When the troops started massacring the people, the English-speaking Diasporans, most of whom are based in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, South Africa and Nigeria, immediately mobilized resources and acquired weapons for those who were on the ground and were willing to fight the ‘army of occupation’ which was spreading death and destruction in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

A war Mr. Biya and his generals thought would end in weeks has gone on for six years and there is no end in sight. More than ten thousand Cameroonians have lost their lives as a result of the war including some four thousand soldiers and many are still struggling with physical and mental scars due to the war.

A conflict, which started with a demonstration by teachers and lawyers, has finally become a war of secession. The Biya government is not willing to negotiate, and the separatists are in no mood to down their weapons despite repeated calls by the government for the separatist fighters to abandon their positions and return to the fold.

Even calls by the international community for a negotiated peace settlement have fallen on deaf ears, as the government is stuck to its position, especially as Mr. Biya also known as the ‘Monarch’ had declared that the form of the state was non-negotiable.

However, it is not only the English-speaking minority that wants to walk away. Northerners are also prepared to walk away if power does not return to the North. They have a bunch of grievances, and they are ready to revenge on the Betis who killed many northerners after the 1984 coup d’état.

Cameroon is today more fragmented than it has ever been. It is indeed a ticking time bomb which if not diffused in time, could destabilize the entire sub-region when it goes off. Tribalism and nepotism have replaced patriotism. Most Cameroonians now hold that Cameroon is not a country worth dying for.

As the country’s ruling party prepares to celebrate Mr. Biya’s achievements, it should be asking itself many questions. One of those questions should be: What are we celebrating? The party has been in power for forty years just like Mr. Biya, but there is nothing to show for the long stay in power. Does the ruling CPDM and its leader, Paul Biya, really think they can convince Cameroonians that they have got a good deal in life?

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

5, November 2022

UK Energy Company to pay millions over oil bribes in Cameroon, Nigeria ⁰

Glencore Energy UK has been ordered to pay more than $ 314 million in fines after it bribed officials who worked in several African countries between 2011 and 2016. The company reportedly paid $26 million to the officials from countries like Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and South Sudan. Prosecutors stated that UK-based Glencore agents used private jets to funnel the cash that would fund the bribes.

According to a report from the UK government’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the money was used to guarantee top-grade access to larger cargoesand higher oil grades. The SFO brought the case against Glencore Energy UK and stated that the fine was the biggest that had ever been handed out for a corporate criminal conviction in the UK.

According to the SFO, between 2012 and 2015, an employee of the UK company and a representative from one of the Nigerian oil companies withdrew a total of $13.7 million in cash from Glencore’s Swiss cash bank. The cash was then transported on a private jet to Cameroon, where it was used to bribe officials in the country’s national oil and gas companies. Earlier in June, the conglomerate pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery at a London court. The judgment of $ 314 million was announced on Thursday and included fines, legal costs, and confiscation of the profit Glencore made from its bribes.

The United States Department of Justice launched an investigation in 2018 to examine Glencore’s compliance with US money laundering and corruption laws dating back to 2007. The query specifically highlighted concerns about the company’s dealings in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Venezuela. In 2019, UK’s SFO started its own investigation into the UK subsidiary of Glencore over what it stated as “suspicions of bribery” in Africa.

In a statement, Clare Montgomery, a representative for Glencore, said that the company regretted its actions.

“The company unreservedly regrets the harm caused by these offences and recognises the harm caused, both at national and public levels in the African states concerned, as well as the damage caused to others,” Montgomery said.

Source: OkayAfrica

5, November 2022

Indomitable Lions: Onana heading to World Cup one year after drugs ban ⁰

When Andre Onana plays in goal for Cameroon at the World Cup it will be exactly one year since his return from a drugs ban that he is still struggling to bounce back from.

The 26-year-old spent nine months on the sidelines after banned diuretic furosemide was found in his urine.

He took his wife’s prescription medicine, after looking for an aspirin to quell a headache, and his explanation was accepted on appeal when the ban was cut from a year to nine months.

“A stupid mistake,” he has said, although adding: “There is little humanity in football. We are obviously not allowed to make mistakes and are treated like robots. A hard lesson.”

The incident brought an abrupt halt in January 2021 to a career that was blooming at Ajax Amsterdam where he was fast establishing himself as one of the best keepers in Europe.

Onana has not played nearly enough football since.

Ajax used him sparingly on his return in November last year when it was clear he was not going to re-sign for the club, looking to run out his contract to move elsewhere.

He joined Inter Milan in the close season but played second fiddle to Samir Handanovic in Serie A while being fielded in the starting lineup in the Champions League.

It was with Ajax in Europe’s elite club competition that Onana had come to prominence, an integral part of the team that went from the early preliminary knockout rounds to the 2019 semi-finals, before a dramatic elimination by Tottenham Hotspur.

“A natural talent, an unbelievably brilliant athlete,” is how former Ajax coach Erik ten Hag described him.

Onana started out in Samuel Eto’o’s academy before moving to Barcelona’s La Masia aged 14. The Spaniards sold him to Ajax in 2015 when he was only 18 and a season later he was in the first team, going on to play more than 200 times for the Dutch giants.

His international career was slow getting off the ground with Onana turning down a call-up for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations finals, seeking to put club before country, and missing out as the Indomitable Lions proved surprise winners.

That, however, was quickly forgiven and he has played at two Cup of Nations finals since and, once he was back from the drug ban, made some telling saves to help conclude Cameroon’s successful World Cup qualification.

Source: Reuters

5, November 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Nine health workers kidnapped in North West ⁰

Nine health workers have been kidnapped from a government-run hospital in Cameroon’s restive northwest, one of two regions where armed separatists have been fighting government troops to create a breakaway state, the local mayor said on Friday.

Acha Kennedy Ngu, mayor of the town of Batibo where the kidnapping took place, said the health workers were abducted on Thursday and were still being held. Ngu did not give further details as he was not in town when it happened, he said.

The attackers’ identity and motives were unknown.

A spokesperson for the Ambazonia Governing Council, whose armed wing – Ambazonia Defense Forces – is the main armed separatist group operating in the area, denied responsibility for the abduction.

Medical workers have been frequently targeted since Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis turned violent in 2017. Thousands of people have been killed in the fighting, with atrocities committed on both sides.

The conflict stems from perceived marginalisation of Cameroon’s Anglophone community by the French-speaking majority in the central African state.

Source: Reuters

5, November 2022

Etoudi: Succession is taboo as Biya set for 40 years at helm ⁰

Cameroon’s 89-year-old president, Paul Biya, on Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of his rise to power amid splashy ceremonies where the word on everyone’s mind — succession — will almost certainly be absent.

The Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), which Biya founded in 1985, says it will hold “a big party” up and down the country to mark the anniversary.

The festivities will celebrate “political stability and peace — the biggest successes of these last four decades in Cameroon,” said Herve Emmanuel Nkom, a member of the party’s central committee.

At the RDPC’s headquarters in Messa district, a couple of dozen party members were busy selling caps, scarves, shirts and multi-coloured garments emblazoned with Biya’s face.

“Lots of people come by and look — we get a lot of orders,” said Sylvie Beyala, 42, a party member for 20 years, next to a photo of a beaming Biya and the slogan “Unity, Progress, Democracy.”

The crowning event on Sunday will be a “regional mega-rally” in front of city hall in Yaounde, the capital, but no word has emerged as to whether Biya himself will attend.

The anniversary bash aims to divert attention away from “the crucial question,” said Stephane Akoa, a professor and researcher in political science.

“It’s not whether Cameroon is doing well or could be doing better, but how the president is,” he said.

Biya rose to the top job on November 6 1982 after seven years as prime minister.

He is only the second president in Cameroon’s history since the central African nation gained independence from France. He is also the continent’s longest-serving leader after Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who seized power in 1979.

– Wily leader –

Commentators ascribe Biya’s extraordinary political longevity to a mixture of astuteness and ruthlessness — he has a constellation of loyalists in key positions and crushes or sidelines opponents and rivals.

But his public outings, except for a few choreographed TV appearances, have become rarer and rarer in recent years, stoking speculation about his health.

Any official talk of succession is taboo, and none of the most visible figures around Biya has publicly uttered a word about entertaining any wish to succeed him.

“Ministers have fallen into disgrace just for thinking about a theoretical departure of the president,” said Aimee Raoul Sumo Tayo, a defence and security specialist on Cameroon.

“Mr. Biya has put the saying ‘divide and rule’ into practice… forces which could have challenged him for power have been unable to get organised and, even less so, unify,” said Akoa.

Even so, conversations about a successor are rife.

Those most commonly named are Biya’s son, Franck Biya, and Finance Minister Louis-Paul Motaze. The younger Biya already has a discreet following among supporters called “Franckists.”

Another name in the mix is that of Biya’s right-hand man, the presidency’s chief of staff, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Reputed to have the backing of Biya’s influential wife, Chantal Biya, Ngoh Ngoh has been the longest-serving chief of staff in the presidency’s tenure.

He wields extensive de-facto authority through executive powers that have been delegated by Biya and, like his boss, also has his supporters in senior jobs, said Akoa.

– All-eclipsing debate –

“No (potential) candidate enjoys unanimity,” said Akoa, adding that the succession debate “eclipses all other concerns, such as strategies for health, education and infrastructure.”

The jockeying for power has been intensified by Cameroon’s weak mechanisms for handing on presidential power in an emergency, said Sumo Tayo.

If the president becomes unable to continue in office, presidential authority is handed down in the interim to the speaker of the Senate — currently 88-year-old Marcel Nial Njifenji, whose health is at least as much a concern as that of Biya.

The scenario stokes “the probability that certain parts of the army may intervene,” said Sumo Tayo.

Military leaders appointed by Biya may fear their privileges will be at threat once he exits the scene, which increases the risk of turbulence, he suggested.

Culled from AFP