30, December 2025
Issa Tchiroma Bakary is Cameroon Concord Person of the Year 0
For forty-two years, the people of Cameroon have been fed stories that political change was an illusion. Many political commentators opined that the Unity Palace was fixed in place and the country resigned to its fate. Then came a man Issa Tchiroma in the October 12, 2025 presidential election and the whole narrative changed forever.
Issa Tchiroma Bakary (to use his three names) stepped out of a system he once served to confront the very power structure that made him. Tchiroma organized a campaign that became an unexpected rallying point for the entire nation with sell-out crowds, igniting debates, and awakening a people long numbed by routine elections with predictable outcomes.
Tchiroma, a long standing cabinet minister under Biya, broke with the governing body to run as a leading candidate, energizing Cameroonians with promises of change after decades of entrenched rule by the ruling CPDM crime syndicate.
The Tchiroma campaign drew large crowds and the former Biya acolyte stated that the will of the Cameroonian people was on his side.
On October 14, less than 48 hours after polls closed, Issa Tchiroma Bakary declared victory in the presidential election and urged President Biya to concede defeat and honour the truth of the ballot box.
Tchiroma’s majority following mobilized in all the nooks and crannies of the country following his electoral victory, with protests and demonstrations pressing for recognition of what they said was a great win for the Northern Cameroon political elite. These demonstrations underlined both the deep dissatisfaction among many Cameroonians and the intensity of political tensions.
However, officially and according to the Constitutional Council — the only body authorized to proclaim election results in Biya’s Cameroon —92-year-old President Biya was declared the winner, securing approximately 53.66 % of the vote as concocted by the ruling crime syndicate, compared with 35.19 % for Issa Tchiroma Bakary. Biya’s so-called victory guaranteed his continued stay in power and extended his decades-long rule.
The opposition rejected the Constitutional Council’s outcome with its leader Issa Tchiroma asserting that state institutions manipulated the results to deny him victory. From his base in Garoua, Tchiroma pressed his supporters and political allies to resist what he described as an illegitimate outcome and he framed his challenge as part of a broader struggle for democratic accountability in Cameroon.
There are moments in a nation’s life when the truth does not wait for official stamps or ceremonial announcements. Issa Tchiroma gave Cameroon that moment in October 2025.
Whether Cameroonians and their partners accept the Constitutional Council’s figures or Issa Tchiroma’s own declaration, one fact is undeniable: Tchiroma achieved what no challenger had managed in decades- he shattered the aura of inevitability that surrounded Biya’s 42-year rule.
Cameroon Concord Group readers in their thousands watched Tchiroma when he declared victory — whether or not the corrupt security and judicial establishments endorsed it — Tchiroma accomplished something historic: he forced the Cameroonian nation to imagine the end of the nasty Biya era. He destroyed the psychological monopoly of one man, one party and one narrative. He made the possibility of transition feel real, tangible and of course reachable.
In that sense, Issa Tchiroma Bakary defeated not just a corrupt, vicious and malicious political figure but a paralysis of hope.
The so called official results may have returned Biya to office. But the story Cameroonians will always remember is not simply about numbers; it is about a perfectly bilingual Cameroonian who stood against a decades-old machine and convinced a nation that change could be claimed, spoken aloud and above all demanded.
Cameroon Concord News People have voted!! Issa Tchiroma Bakary, you are the Cameroon Concord News Person of the Year!!
Your stolen victory will forever remain symbolic, moral and political because you successfully made Cameroonians to believe again. And once a people begin to believe, no regime, no matter how entrenched, sleeps comfortably.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Chairman/Editor-In-Chief
Cameroon Concord News Group
31, December 2025
October 12: The truth about the Biya-Tchiroma affair 0
Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Anicet Ekane, Djeukam Tchameni and other allies did not agree to an early offer of appointments into the government of Paul Biya barely a week after the 12 October presidential election in Cameroon, even before the National Vote-Counting Commission had done its work.
Tchiroma declared he won the election but the Constitutional Council proclaimed the results a fortnight later in favour of Paul Biya.
“If this was not an acknowledgement of defeat and panic to pamper Tchiroma, what was it?” says a political commentator about Biya’s early offer, considered premature, considering the timing.
“Tell me who, sure to win an election, would undertake maneuvers to lure someone they were sure they have defeated. It’s all clear. Biya knew Tchiroma had won.”
In what appeared to be panic over early returns from the polls and perhaps state intelligence reports, suggesting Tchiroma was winning the election by a comfortable margin, henchmen of the Biya regime swung into action and approached Tchiroma and his allies. They offered him and them appointments into the government and certain government companies (otherwise called parastatals), according to authoritative sources, close to Issa Tchiroma Bakary.
A special envoy of the Presidency of the Republic, Philippe Mbarga Mboa went on a top secret mission to Douala on 19 October to discuss a deal with Tchiroma’s main allies Anicet Ekani and Djeukam Tchameni.
“That move was possibly both to use their influence to bring Tchiroma along, or failing which, they should abandon him and selfishly accept the appointments,” continued the commentator who sued for anonymity.
Mbarga Mboa who is Minister for Special Duties at the Presidency proposed to them appointments into the government as Prime Minister, ministers of state, ministers, minister delegate, secretaries of state, directors general and board chairs in government companies. Ekani and Tchameni did not accept the offer. Both men were later arrested. Ekani died in detention.
Tchiroma has said in several speeches and statements that he will not negotiate and will not betray the struggle to claim what he confidently calls his “victory in the 12 October polls”.
Contacted for comment via a WhatsApp call on 16 December, Mbarga Mboa asked me, “Why are you bringing this up now? To serve what purpose? When did this happen?”
When I gave him the date, he said, “That has been long. Is it necessary now?”
As a close collaborator of the Secretary General at the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, Mbarga Mboa was seen playing a key role in the pre-election consultations with political forces from different regions of the country. Ngoh Ngoh, described as the de facto Vice President or even the “acting” President of the Republic as the aged Biya is often considered out of form, is understood to be the main push behind the actions of aides at the Cameroon Presidency to desperately retain power, despite what observers describe as clear signs Biya lost the election to Tchiroma.
Mbarga Mboa’s visit to Douala was ostensibly to meet and strategize with local CPDM barons and allies there, especially the northern kingpin in Douala, Bayero Fadil.
Faced with the failure of Mbarga Mboa’s mission, higher level steps were taken to reach out to Tchiroma. There have been reports of negotiations at different levels, some reportedly involving the government of France and other foreign partners to coarse Tchiroma to give up his claim to victory in the 12 October presidential election. But Tchiroma has repeatedly said he will not negotiate.
Feeling unsafe at his residence in Garoua where several high risk incidents had been reported, Tchiroma relocated to Nigeria and later to the Gambia.
He or his appointed spokesperson Barrister Alice Nkom have continued to claim his victory was stolen by Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), the institution charged with organizing elections in Cameroon and the Constitutional Council, the highest judicial organ in the country, charged with deliberating over election litigations and proclaiming election results. They insist Tchiroma’s stolen victory must be restored.
*The author, Franklin Sone Bayen, is a freelance investigative journalist trained in Israel and an Alfred Friendly (US) Press Partners Fellow. He can be reached at +237 656969090 (Direct calls and WhatsApp) and sonebayen@gmail.com