As presidential and parliamentary elections are fast approaching, the various political parties, including the ruling party, are fine-tuning their strategies to make themselves more attractive.

The ruling CPDM, which has long lost its attractiveness, now thinks it’s time to build a new image which will make it a force to reckon with the youthful electorate which has been calling for change in Cameroon and this will surely start with a cabinet shake-up which will include more youthful and credible faces.

Years of corruption and economic stagnation in Cameroon have hurt the Biya government in a big and bad way, especially as the country’s unemployment issue has now become a national pandemic.

However, Mr. Biya, who has been resting in his native Mvomeka’a for some time now, is slowly refining his plans for a new and youthful cabinet.

According to a CPDM insider, a cabinet reshuffle is on the horizon; with rumors having it that Oswald Baboke would replace Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh as the Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic (SGPR).

Ngoh Ngoh has been playing a key political role in the current political dispensation. He has been doing the president’s bidding and it is even reported that he has been doing Chantal Biya’s dirty jobs in a brutal succession battle that will leave many bruised and bowed.

Mr. Biya recognizes Ngoh Ngoh’s loyalty to him and his wife, but his constant presence at the Presidency during an election year could be a liability to the ruling CPDM which has been struggling with image-related issues.

The CPDM is not a popular party and many Cameroonians hold that once Biya leaves the political scene, the party will dissolve as it is held responsible for all the issues which have dogged the nation for 42 years.

Sources close to President Biya have informed the Cameroon Concord News that Ngoh Ngoh will replace Lejeune Mbella Mbella who is neither young nor effective at the Ministry of Foreign affairs as a means of taking him away from Mr. Biya’s inner circle.

Lejeune Mbella Mbella, for his part, is staring down the barrel of retirement as he is really tired and retirement-worthy.

Meanwhile Louis Paul Motaze who has been in the spotlight recently for all the wrong reasons could be heading to the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison as the Sword of Damocles hangs over his head. It is rumored that his girlfriend is involved in some misappropriation scandals within the Ministry of Finance, especially the one involving Amougou Belinga.

According to the same CPDM sources, Ketcha Courtes also known as “Il y avait quoi avant” will be elbowed out of the Ministry of Social Affairs. Members of Biya’s inner circle are looking for someone from the Grand North to replace Courtes.

The Grand North is disappointed with the Biya regime which it has supported for decades. The north currently has no good road infrastructure and the economic crisis, which has hit the country like lightning, has caused many northerners to doubt Mr. Biya’s serious and sincerity in developing the Grand North which is the home of the country’s first president.

The sources also reported that Abba Sadou would head a ministry, probably the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, as a means of demonstrating to northerners that President Biya takes them seriously.

Like Lejeune Mbella Mbella, the oldest minister in service, Mbarga Nguele, will leave the government to deal with his old age related issues. Also,  Ayang Luc who has been the president of the Economic and Social Council for decades will be replaced by Beti Assomo who is grappling with serious health issues.

The greatest news will be the creation of the post of  Vice-President and this implies Biya will name his successor. The post of Prime Minister will be abolished to avoid duplication and conflicts.

But Biya’s current focus is on bringing new blood to the National Assembly and the Senate. The ruling CPDM is looking to bring in youthful faces to these legislative bodies and sources close to the Central Committee of the CPDM have reported that the President is insisting on having some members of the country’s Diaspora into the political landscape as a way of reducing tensions between the government and the Diaspora.

The sources said that many law-makers who are above 80 years might not be brought back to the National Assembly and the Senate. The president, it is said, is dissatisfied with many members of the legislative bodies as the grassroots are grumbling that their fate has not changed over the last ten years.

The sources added that there were still many serious issues to be dealt with, suggesting that the vice-president should be an Anglophone from the moderate Southwest region which believes in a united and indivisible Cameroon; a suggestion which does not sit well with Cameroon’s French-speaking politicians.

There is a lot of pressure in Yaoundé as many ministers are aware that the president is preparing a new cabinet. The usual lobbying has been intensified and the below-the-belt punches have increased.

Cameroon is at the crossroads and if prompt and correct decisions are not made, the country, which is slowly sliding into chaos, could become another failed state in the months ahead.

President Biya is aware of his mortality and he understands that at 92, anything can happen. 92 years is his age on paper and nobody knows his real age. When he was born, there were no birth registries in Cameroon and from the way he looks, it is obvious that he is older than 92 years.

With a lot of pressure coming from the West and the clergy, Biya understands that it is time to get a successor before things fall apart. He is old and his mental capacity has been diminished by age and the burden of responsibility and guilt he has carried for decades. There is no better time than now for him to do the right thing.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The country, at the crossroads of Central and West Africa, faces uncertainty across political, social, economic, and security environments. This is happening at a time when the United States’ global competitors are opportunistically seeking engagement in Cameroon and the region, boxing out the United States as it looks to protect its interests there.

Paul Biya, Cameroon’s ninety-two-year-old leader, has been in power as president since 1982, and from 1975 to 1982, he was the prime minister. Currently rumored to be in poor health, Biya is not seen frequently in public, has little direct contact with US or other foreign officials, and remains relatively recluse. The country faces economic and security challenges despite having a resilient, young population and a capable (yet stretched) military—one with significant experience gained from navigating armed conflict (at home and abroad); counter-piracy, counterterrorism, and peacekeeping, campaigns; and efforts to contain an insurgency in the English-speaking regions of the country.

Biya’s age and the country’s elections, due to be held in October 2025, bring into question what comes next for Cameroon. Navigating the aftermath of Biya’s presidency will require a coordinated and elevated strategic approach by senior US officials. If crisis breaks out in Cameroon, US missteps could play a part in thrusting the country and the region into significant upheaval and instability.

On paper, the president of Cameroon’s Senate, Marcel Niat Njifenji (who was appointed by Biya), would succeed the Cameroonian president in an untimely vacancy. Njifenji—currently at ninety years old and reportedly in poor health—would be tasked with holding elections between 20 and 120 days after the office becomes vacant, as outlined by Cameroon’s constitution. That is a relatively difficult job, even for the nimblest governments. As the ruling political party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement and its allies retain all facets of political power in the country. Many key opposition leaders have been divided, fled to self-imposed exile, or have passed away over time. Those in government hold relatively little power for actual change. In recent years, it has seemed possible that Biya would elevate his son as a successor in what has become a trend for the region, but the success of that approach is far from guaranteed.

Absent a unifying leader—one that is unlikely in a country not easily unified by ethnicity, religion, or language—a dangerous and violent scenario could unfold. Acute political instability would unsettle both West and Central Africa and would provide oxygen to armed groups in the Anglophone Crisis as well as in the Chad Basin (where the extremist groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State—West Africa Province are active) and in the porous eastern border with the Central African Republic. Opportunistic criminal networks could exploit any power vacuum in Cameroon and nearby, including next door in southeastern Nigeria.

The question remains: Why should the US government care about Cameroon, a country roughly the size of California with a gross domestic product around the size of Alaska’s, internal and external security issues, and a paralytic gerontocracy? Thus far, despite Cameroon’s strategic location, large economy, and incredible diversity, the United States and Cameroon have been unable to set up a winning partnership that benefits the Cameroonian people. As Cameroon increasingly looks to China as a development partner of choice, the United States should realize that its influence in Cameroon can’t be taken for granted.

US-Cameroon relations have historically been prickly and sometimes even outright rocky. Cameroon has come to distrust the United States after a series of real or perceived slights, including misunderstandings about contested presidential elections in 1992 (that ultimately saw Paul Biya prevail), suspension from the African Growth and Opportunity Act during the first Trump administration, and certain US policy decisions regarding conflict in the Anglophone regions of the country, which led to severe restrictions on US foreign assistance and military cooperation. US-Cameroon relations have also been affected by the fact that a small minority of the Cameroonian diaspora in the United States has engaged in the Anglophone Crisis, including by rallying funding, commanding fighters, and publicly coordinating messaging campaigns for militia groups seeking independence from the Francophone-dominated government. While the US government took some steps to reign in these actions, Cameroonian officials saw extended timelines on the US response and limited results as fundamentally unhelpful. At the same time, some members of the Cameroonian diaspora felt that the US government should have exerted more pressure on both the Biya-led government and armed groups to negotiate an end to the conflict. Back in Cameroon’s capital, the Biya-led government (in keeping with its history as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement) kept its options for international partnership open by engaging with Russia and China, in addition to France, Israel, and the United Kingdom.

From Cameroon’s standpoint, US engagement lacks consistency, seeing as Washington has been one to walk away, reduce foreign assistance programming, or limit security cooperation when Cameroonian human-rights or governance issues (which Cameroon perceives as domestic issues) become bilateral foreign policy irritants. Regardless, US policymakers expect Cameroon to accept the US worldview even if it doesn’t meet the country’s development, security, or economic goals.

One reason the United States should care about Cameroon is because of the country’s role as an economic hub for the region. Cameroon, located on the Gulf of Guinea, connects landlocked Central African countries such as Chad and the Central African Republic to the Atlantic Ocean. Cameroon’s ports at Douala and Kribi (the latter a project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative) provide a significant economic lifeline, facilitating the export of crude petroleum, natural gas, and timber and the import of refined petroleum, food, and clothing. Like many global ports, these port facilities also function as hubs for criminal networks and conflict actors. For example, according to the Africa Report, the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group used the port of Douala to enrich themselves and move their assets further inland.

The United States also has an economic interest in a secure and transparent Cameroon. Currently, Cameroon struggles with corruption, although efforts to combat such corruption remain ongoing. A loyalty-based patronage system as well as paper-based procurement processes (through which it is easier to exchange bribes) contribute to this climate. According to the US Department of State, US firms have said that corruption is most pervasive in government procurement, the award of licenses or concessions, monetary transfers, performance requirements, dispute settlements, the regulatory system, customs, and taxation. Efforts to hold officials accountable for corruption are mixed. In 2012, Cameroonian authorities found former Minister Hamidou Marafa Yaya guilty of corruption, but Marafa denied making any attempt at embezzlement and said his detention is politically motivated—and a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded his detention is arbitrary, saying his right to a fair trial had been violated. In 2023, a Cameroonian court sentenced former Minister of Defense Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o, his wife, and three other co-defendants to prison for corruption charges involving military contracts (Ngo’o and his wife denied any wrongdoing).

There is much at stake in Cameroon. Here are ten recommendations for the Trump administration.

Recommendations for the immediate term

Develop a high-level interagency Cameroon strategy. It should include visits by senior US Department of State and other executive-branch officials. This effort can reinforce the work of the US ambassador to Cameroon as a potential crisis looms. In an era of great-power competition, this strategy should include a clear definition of US goals in Cameroon, in addition to a review of the US foreign policy tools available to assist Cameroon with its development, security, and governance challenges.

Intensify engagement and meetings with all parties involved in the upcoming presidential elections. Avoid statements or appearances that could be interpreted as picking potential successors, which were the source of ruffling in the US-Cameroon relationship in 1992.

Focus on creating stronger economic ties with Cameroon while also supporting human rights and good governance. This is what Cameroonian officials tell US officials that they want. Previous US policy reduced economic and commercial ties in Cameroon out of concern for human rights and governance, using standards that may not be universally applied to other non-African countries facing similar challenges. Instead, the United States can push for improved human rights and governance (for example, by advocating for the release of high-profile political prisoners such as Marafa) while also pursuing stronger economic and commercial ties.

Seek wider perspectives beyond government-to-government contact. Engage credible voices on Cameroon in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere in real and consistent policy discussions instead of one-off roundtables that lack staying power and impact. Doing so can ensure that the United States has access to a full range of views about the political process and to networks that the administration can draw upon in a crisis.

Proactively engage congressional leaders and their senior staff on Cameroon matters. This can be accomplished through testimony, hearings, the Congressional Research Service, and other legislative branch tools. Encourage congressional staff and member delegations to Cameroon to inform other congressional staff and members of what is at stake.

Recommendations for the short-to-medium term

Task the intelligence community with assessing the political, economic, social, and security situation in the country. This assessment should outline critical public messaging themes that can help unify Cameroon in a potential crisis, the key players in the country’s future, and potential successors among the political, economic, and military elites. The assessment should include listings of monetary assets, real estate and commercial holdings, and any US dollar-denominated bank accounts. The intelligence assessment should also shed light on money laundering and terrorist financing vulnerabilities for this regional banking hub, and it should map and analyze the relationships key Cameroonians have with Russia, China, and Israel for potential leverage points during a crisis.

Hold a tabletop exercise to plan for realistic political scenarios. The tabletop exercise should include agencies from across the US government and also the US embassy in Cameroon. Such an exercise would help the US government understand what the various scenarios mean for US personnel, Peace Corps volunteers, and US facilities in the country. In Cameroon, most official US personnel and facilities are based in Yaoundé, so evacuation may be difficult: While Yaoundé has an international airport, the Cameroonian international airport that offers the most flights and destinations is in Douala, nearly five hours away. Such challenges require early contingency planning.

Learn from past mistakes in Cameroon and more recent ones made elsewhere, for example in Sudan. Political transitions can happen quickly. Ensuring that the US government has a strategy and network to draw from in a crisis or post-crisis scenario can help decisionmakers as they articulate what a positive relationship with Cameroon could look like—potentially with an untested or unknown leader. Doing so may go a long way toward building credibility.

Develop a quick response package. Drawing on an interagency Cameroon strategy, an intelligence assessment, and lessons learned from the past, the US administration should take proactive steps to prepare diplomatic and economic statecraft tools that can be rapidly deployed in the event of crisis. For example, the US administration should consider sanctions targets and be ready to announce them quickly. Government departments and agencies—including State, Defense, Treasury, the Development Finance Corporation, the Millenium Challenge Corporation, and others—should have humanitarian aid, economic support, and incentives for security sector reform ready to deploy quickly in a crisis.

A recommendation for ongoing strategy

Do not wait on traditional allies such as the United Kingdom, France, or others to act in concert. US and ally interests in Cameroon often do not align. France, now on the back foot in several African countries, may not be able to help. Russia and China are in Cameroon for themselves. Global competitors are already aggressively pursuing their political, economic, and security goals in Cameroon.

Cameroon faces an uncertain future. US policymakers have the opportunity to change Cameroon’s trajectory by accompanying the country as it navigates its future uncertainties. Should Cameroon’s future bring wider violence, the potential for the country to fracture around ethnic, linguistic, religious, or other lines could look similar to, or potentially worse than, the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in southern Europe in the 1990s. But if Cameroon can successfully navigate the period ahead with the United States as a viable partner, it will have contributed to stabilizing the heart of Central Africa, building a brighter and stronger future, and keeping US global adversaries at bay.

Source: Atlantic Council

A leading Cameroonian priest and intellectual, Father Humphrey Tatah Mbuy, says electing the right candidates during elections help in achieving one of the Church’s overarching goals: Building a community of love.

Speaking during his weekly sermons distributed on social media, Mbuy’s message comes at a critical time as Cameroonians prepare for the upcoming presidential election scheduled for October this year.

President Paul Biya who turned 92 on February 13 is likely to seek an 8th term in office. The world’s oldest head of state has been in power since 1982 when he took over from Cameroon’s first president.

But the president’s advanced age and failing health has raised concerns over his candidature. In any event, the ruling CPDM party candidate – whether it is Biya or not – could face a slew of opposition candidates, the most formidable being Prof. Maurice Kamto who has been endorsed by a coalition of 30 political parties known collectively as the Political Alliance for Change.

Kamto, who officially scored 14 percent of the vote in the 2018 disputed presidential election, is running on a campaign of extending health and education services and reducing the acute inequities in Cameroonian society.

With the October election expected to be an inflection point in Cameroon’s political journey, Mbuy said he believes the Church may be called to play a leading role in guiding the electorate towards making an informed choice.

“We must participate in politics because politics is one of the highest forms of charity because it seeks the common good and Christians, lay people, must work in politics,” he said, quoting Pope Francis when asked about how and what role the Church should play to ensure free and fair elections anywhere in the world.

“The role of the Church is to educate, to encourage, and to enlighten people about basic human values and moral principles involved in the process of registration, voting, counting of votes, and proclamation of elections thereafter,” the Cameroonian priest said.

He went down memory lane, explaining the contribution of the Church to the growth of democracy around the world – a history that reached a high point on April 2, 2004, when the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, then led by Cardinal Renato Martino, published a compendium of the Church’s social doctrine, endorsed by Pope Saint John Paul II.

The compendium encompasses the entire social teaching of the Church, guiding its actions in socio-economic and political matters.

Mbuy recalled that ahead of the UK’s 2024 general elections, the bishops of England used this compendium to create a Christian voter guide. Similarly, on March 28, 2022, the Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines issued a pastoral letter urging voters to consider the common good in the May 2022 general elections.

In the same way on August 24, 2018, the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon addressed a pastoral letter on the presidential elections that came up that year.

And in May 2023, the Bishops’ Conference of Sierra Leone wrote a similar pastoral letter to guide the people about the elections which were to take place in June 2023.

“So, from north to south, east to west, it is common for conferences of Catholic bishops to address a pastoral letter to Christians and people of goodwill before and after elections,” Mbuy said.

Mbuy explained that a careful study of bishops’ letters about elections across Africa, Europe, Asia, and America typically reveals four common themes.  The first theme, he said, is to educate people about their civic duty and moral obligation to vote. The second theme is a call for voters to choose candidates who can work for the common good. The third theme emphasizes the need for everyone involved in the electoral process, from registration to proclamation, to ensure that elections are free, fair, transparent, and honest. Lastly, the fourth theme is a plea and prayer for peace during, before, and after elections.

“The bishops usually write as pastors, as spiritual leaders and as moral guides to the people,” he said.

“Few, if any bishop at all, are interested in chaos, confusion and violence,” Mbuy said.

The priest said that citizens have “the right to know facts about the people from whom they have to choose one or more. Many citizens are hardly aware of their natural and civic right to register and cast their vote which matters. The Church has the obligation to educate them on the vital civic and moral duty.”

“The Church is and should always act as mother and teacher, martyr and magistrate because she has the moral obligation to lead society always towards that which is good, especially in free, transparent and fair elections,” he said.

“It is such free, fair and transparent elections, the cleric said, they will lead the Church to achieve one of its most cherished goals-building “communities of love,” Mbuy said.

Source: Crux

President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest head of state, turns 92 years old on Thursday after more than four decades in power but remains tight-lipped on whether he will run for another term in elections this year.

Many people including the deeply divided opposition are in little doubt that the leader, who first won election in 1982, will stand for an eighth term in the October vote.

After highly contested elections in 2018, Biya further toughened his autocratic grip on power, with dissenting opinions firmly met with repression, arrests and prison terms, human rights activists say.

“The president has already said that he will make known whether or not he is a candidate in this election at the appropriate time,” government spokesman and Communication Minister Rene Emmanuel Sadi said last month.

Biya has refrained from picking a successor and the subject of who would replace him remains taboo.

“In the current context, even if he were lying on a stretcher, candidate Biya will be re-elected,” said former minister Garga Haman Adji in an interview with the daily Mutations in July.

Concerns about Biya’s health grew last year when he disappeared from public view for several weeks.

Persistent rumours prompted authorities to release a statement saying Biya was in Switzerland, where the leader has regularly spent long periods staying at luxury holiday resorts.

The government then formally banned local media from discussing the state of his health.

Since his return to the country on October 21, Biya’s public appearances have been limited — a few official photos at the presidential palace, a regional summit in the capital Yaounde and a handful of speeches broadcast on television.

As in previous election years, voices from across society are calling on him to again stand for office.

“My determination to serve you remains intact and is strengthened on a daily basis, given the scale of the challenges we face,” Biya said in his end-of-year address, welcoming a “massive support”.

In January, traditional leaders expressed their “total and unwavering” support. On Facebook, some supporters said Biya was “still strong” and can withstand two more terms.

– ‘Cries of distress’ –

Biya and his government are regularly accused by international human rights organisations of repressing opposition.

The long-serving president was re-elected for a seventh term seven years ago after a contested vote that sparked a wave of political repression.

Few openly call for him to relinquish power.

“In recent times, the anxieties of the vast majority of Cameroonians have increasingly transformed into cries of distress in the face of the misery they are experiencing and the degradation of our beautiful country,” Catholic bishops at an episcopal conference said.

They also criticised the “corruption”, unemployment and deadly violence that plagues parts of the country.

Since 2009, the far north of Cameroon has suffered attacks from Boko Haram jihadists and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

In the west of the country, a deadly conflict has pitted armed independence groups against security forces in two English-speaking regions since 2016.

Biya, for his part, praised in his last speech “the tremendous progress seen in recent years”.

In a hoarse, wheezy voice, he hinted at “the next electoral deadline” and called on young people “not to listen to the sirens of chaos that some irresponsible people are sounding”.

The government has not been reshuffled since January 2019 and the seats of four ministers who died in office are still vacant.

More than a dozen lawmakers — out of 180 — and five of the 100 senators have also not been replaced after their death.

Source: AFP

Not many people within the ruling CPDM party are aware that even the most powerful men and women in Cameroon are still human beings with bodies and families who sometimes need to take time off, whether for medical reasons, personal matters, or just to recharge. But the Cameroonian people who rely on them still need to know where they are.

That’s the issue at hand with Justice Minister Laurent Esso who recently disappeared from the nation’s capital Yaoundé. Mr Esso reportedly left Yaoundé for Paris and later moved to India and was placed in intensive care. But the Cameroonian people were not informed until Cameroon Intelligence Report published an update on the minister— and, even more surprisingly, neither was Mr Esso’s ultimate boss, President Paul Biya.

That is shockingly disturbing mindful of Laurent Esso’s job as Minister for Justice and Keeper of the Seals, one whose command of the Cameroonian judiciary is second only to the president.

The Minister for Justice plays a crucial role in the chain of command in Cameroon. He controls solid aspects and areas of national security on a 24/7 basis. That’s an important function in a country. Laurent Esso is an important personality in a way that even some of the other cabinet ministers are not.

Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute has still not commented on the where about of his Justice Minister who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer in India. There are rumours that Biya is planning to get rid of him amid continuing demands for him to be interrogated on the journalist Martinez Zogo affair.

The Biya administration is already stretched trying to manage the crisis in Southern Cameroons, the reemergence of Boko Haram in the Far North and is facing a tough reelection battle in October.  Laurent Esso’s absence from the country is apparently a national security own-goal that has come at a worse time for Biya and his ruling CPDM crime syndicate.

Esso has been Minister for Justice for more than three decades without a distinguished judicial career.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai