Paul Biya’s silence is becoming a political statement in its own right. A year after his so-called re-election, his ruling CPDM party remains without a clear public timetable for next year’s polls. The party that has dominated Cameroon for decades appears increasingly uncertain about the political calendar, while its own political bureau and its own Central Committee reportedly feels sidelined by a presidency increasingly associated with the powerful Minister-Secretary General, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh. That is not a normal situation for a ruling party.

In a political system built around the authority of one man, presidential silence cannot easily be dismissed as an accident, an oversight or mere administrative delay. When the head of state says little at precisely the moment when his party, government and electorate need clarity, the silence itself acquires meaning.

Biya’s silence is not accidental. It is deliberate in its political effect, whether or not its original cause is known.

For months, Cameroonians have been left to speculate. Is Biya preparing a major political decision? Is there a struggle over succession and control of the electoral timetable? Has power increasingly shifted toward those operating around the Unity Palace? Or is Biya simply unable, unwilling or not yet ready to publicly address the questions confronting his party and country?

The authorities have offered little that convincingly settles these questions. And that vacuum matters and includes the passing into eternity on Sunday of Clément Atangana, president of Cameroon’s Constitutional Council in France.

In politics, information does not disappear simply because a government refuses to provide it. It is replaced by speculation. The longer the silence continues, the more room there is for rumours to become political narratives. This is particularly true when the speculation concerns the president’s health.

It would be irresponsible to present rumours about Paul Biya’s health as established fact without credible evidence. But it would be equally irresponsible for the authorities to ignore the political consequences of a prolonged absence of presidential communication. When a president becomes unusually silent, when his ruling party appears uncertain about its own timetable and when questions about who is actually driving decisions begin to dominate public discussion, the government cannot reasonably expect citizens to remain indifferent.

We of the Cameroon Concord Group believe and fervently too that silence does not prove illness. But silence can make the speculation about illness harder to contain. That is the uncomfortable political reality facing the Biya system today in Yaounde.

The CPDM’s apparent unease is therefore significant. A ruling party even in North Korea or Iran should not have to guess about the intentions of the president under whose authority it operates. Its militants, officials and potential candidates need clarity. The electorate deserves clarity. The state itself requires clarity.

Instead, Cameroon appears to be drifting into another period in which uncertainty at the top is becoming a political fact. And the deeper problem is not simply whether Paul Biya is healthy or ill. The deeper problem is that Cameroon has built a political system so heavily dependent on one individual that even his silence can produce institutional paralysis and national anxiety. That is the real indictment.

If Biya is fully in command, he can end the speculation with a clear political message. If important decisions are being prepared, the public deserves to know enough to understand the direction of the country. If the CPDM has a timetable, it should not have to discover it through rumours or leaks. And if there are genuine concerns about the president’s capacity to govern, the responsibility of the state is not to hide behind silence but to provide institutional clarity.

After more than four decades at the centre of Cameroonian politics, Paul Biya knows better than all of us in the Concord Group that presidential silence is never politically empty. Every day that it continues, it says something. The question is no longer simply what is Paul Biya going to say? The more consequential question is why is a president whose political authority has shaped Cameroon for so long choosing not to say it? Until that question is answered, speculation will continue to fill the vacuum. And increasingly, Biya’s silence itself is becoming the story.

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

There comes a point in the life of every political movement when slogans cease to be enough. Promises lose their force, explanations become repetitive and citizens begin to judge their government not by what it says it will do, but by what they can actually see, touch and experience.

For Cameroon’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), that moment deserves serious national reflection.

The CPDM was born in Bamenda in March 1985, presenting itself as a new political vehicle for a changing Cameroon. More than four decades later, the party remains at the centre of national political life. Its own anniversary communications continue to associate it with unity, stability, peace and development.

But political longevity inevitably raises a fundamental question: what has all those years in power delivered and what remains to be delivered?

This question cannot be answered by another slogan. It cannot be answered by another promise that development is just around the corner. It cannot be answered by another ceremony, another speech, another political rally or another appeal for patience.

A government that has governed for decades must ultimately be judged against measurable outcomes: employment, electricity, roads, health care, education, security, public services, economic opportunity and the confidence citizens have in their institutions. But Cameroon’s challenges remain substantial.

The International Monetary Fund reported in 2025 that Cameroon needed stronger action on revenue mobilization, financial-sector vulnerabilities, public-financial management and governance including anti-corruption measures. Its 2026 assessment also noted slower growth in 2025, fiscal deterioration and continuing risks associated with reduced aid flows, security challenges and climate pressures.

This is not an argument that nothing has been achieved. There have been investments and areas of economic progress. The African Development Bank, for example, reports continued growth in 2025, supported by sectors including energy, construction and agrifood industries.

But the existence of projects and economic growth does not eliminate the larger political question: are Cameroon’s institutions and political leadership producing results commensurate with the country’s needs and potential? That is the question Cameroonians have every right to ask.

The danger for the ruling CPDM party now is that its political language has eventually become detached from the lived experience of ordinary Cameroonians.

When citizens repeatedly hear about Emergence 2030 while confronting unemployment, difficult public services, insecurity, inadequate infrastructure or limited economic opportunities, political rhetoric begins to lose credibility!

That is where the Cameroon Concord phrase “the CPDM has exhausted its lies” becomes politically powerful—not necessarily as a literal claim that every statement made by every CPDM official is false, but as a description of political exhaustion.

It is vital to state in this editorial that a governing party can exhaust the persuasive power of its old explanations long before it exhausts its ability to govern. That distinction matters. Cameroon does not need another generation of politics built primarily around defending the past. It needs a very serious conversation about the future.

There is also a new reality beyond Cameroon’s borders. International assistance can no longer be treated as an unlimited safety net. The IMF reported that major development partners including the United States, Britain, France and Germany had announced significant reductions in foreign-aid budgets for 2025–27 with potential consequences for Cameroon’s finances and development program.

At the same time, European institutions are committing substantial resources to Ukraine and responding to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and elsewhere. That does not mean Europe or the United States have abandoned Cameroon: the European Union, for example, continues to support Cameroon through its Global Gateway program and has allocated €244 million in grant funding for its 2021–27 partnership.

But the lesson is clear. Cameroon cannot build its future on the assumption that external partners will continually finance development shortfalls. The country must increasingly generate its own prosperity, strengthen its institutions, mobilize domestic resources and create an environment in which citizens and businesses can invest with confidence.

The real test is political credibility. The 2025 presidential election demonstrated that Cameroon remains deeply politically contested. Paul Biya was officially declared the winner with 53.66% of valid votes, while opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma rejected the result and claimed victory. Reuters reported allegations of irregularities and subsequent tensions, while noting that the government rejected those allegations.

Whatever one’s political position, this should lead to a sober conclusion: Political legitimacy cannot depend indefinitely on electoral victory alone. It must also be reinforced by public confidence in institutions, transparency, accountability and credible alternatives. The responsibility therefore extends beyond the CPDM.

Opposition parties and political movements must also demonstrate that they possess more than anger with the incumbent. They must present credible program, competent leadership, internal democracy, realistic economic plans and a convincing vision for a peaceful political transition.

Cameroon cannot afford a politics in which one side merely promises continuity while the other promises change without explaining how that change will be responsibly delivered. The country needs something more demanding: credible political actors capable of turning public frustration into constructive national reform.

The warning signs must not be ignored. The greatest danger is not that one political party may lose its political dominance. The greater danger is that citizens are losing faith in the country’s political system.

When people conclude that elections do not meaningfully change their circumstances, that political promises are interchangeable and that institutions are incapable of responding to their grievances, frustration can migrate from the ballot box into the streets. That is where political systems become vulnerable and that is what we are witnessing today in Anglophone Cameroon.

Cameroon therefore needs political competition that is credible, peaceful and substantive. It needs elections in which citizens can make meaningful choices. It needs institutions capable of commanding confidence across political, regional and generational divides. And it needs leaders prepared to accept accountability for both their promises and their failures.

The next chapter of Cameroon’s political history should not be about whether the CPDM can repeat the arguments that sustained it for decades.

It should be about whether Cameroon can produce a political culture in which performance matters more than slogans, institutions matter more than personalities, and the future matters more than the political mythology of the past.

The CPDM has governed Cameroon for more than four decades. That history cannot simply be erased and neither should every achievement associated with it be dismissed.

But history is not a governing program. Past victories do not constitute future solutions. And political patience is not infinite.

The central question facing Cameroon is therefore no longer simply who has governed the country longest. It is whether the political class—government and opposition alike—can convince a new generation that politics can still deliver security, dignity, opportunity and accountable government.

That is the test. And Cameroon cannot afford to fail it.

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

After nearly a decade of bloodshed in Southern Cameroons, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute’s renewed call for peace deserves attention. His recent engagement in Buea with administrative officials, traditional rulers, religious leaders, political and community figures is, in itself an acknowledgement that the conflict cannot simply be allowed to continue indefinitely. Reports from the September 2026 consultations indicate that authorities and community leaders are exploring dialogue, reconciliation and direct engagement with those still involved in the armed conflict.

But the central question is no longer whether Cameroon needs peace. The question is what kind of peace is being pursued and what political courage is required to achieve it.

Dion Ngute should listen again to the message Pope Leo XIV delivered during his April 2026 visit to Cameroon. Speaking to President Biya, the Holy Father said that peace must not be reduced to a slogan. He insisted that genuine peace must be lived and translated into institutional practice. The Pope also stressed that governing requires listening to citizens and involving them in the search for lasting solutions. That message goes to the heart of the Ambazonia crisis.

Peace cannot simply mean persuading a few remaining fighters to lay down their weapons while leaving untouched the political grievances that helped produce the conflict in the first place. Nor can peace be reduced to meetings in Buea, declarations from Yaoundé or the creation of another fund. Peace requires addressing the substance of the dispute.

If Ngute genuinely wants to leave behind a lasting settlement, he has an opportunity that goes beyond convening traditional rulers and religious leaders. As Head of Government and a prominent Anglophone figure, he can take the concerns emerging from the conflict directly to President Paul Biya and insist that the government examine the political questions that have remained unresolved. One such question is the fate of imprisoned Anglophone separatist leaders, including Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

The Sisiku Ayuk Tabe issue has acquired renewed legal significance. In March 2026, Cameroon’s Supreme Court reportedly annulled the previous appellate proceedings involving Ayuk Tabe and other separatist leaders and ordered a fresh hearing before a differently constituted panel. That development creates an opening for the government to consider whether continued imprisonment is compatible with a broader process of reconciliation and political dialogue.

A comprehensive peace initiative should therefore place the release of political detainees and prisoners connected to the Anglophone conflict on the negotiating table, alongside credible guarantees for justice and accountability for abuses committed by all sides. The second—and perhaps more fundamental—question is constitutional.

There is historical evidence that the Cameroon created at reunification in 1961 was a federation of two constituent states. Cameroon’s own National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism describes the establishment of the Federal Republic of Cameroon on 1 October 1961, while British parliamentary records from the period document the agreement that reunification would take place on a federal basis. The federal system was subsequently replaced by a unitary structure following the 1972 referendum.

Whether a restoration of the 1961 federal arrangement is ultimately acceptable to the Cameroonian state and its citizens is a political question for negotiation. But it cannot simply be dismissed from the peace conversation if it remains one of the central constitutional demands associated with the Ambazonia crisis. Prime Minister Ngute therefore has a choice before him.

Prime Minister Ngute can continue to promote community dialogue, peace funds and appeals to fighters to surrender. Those initiatives may have a role. But if they are not accompanied by a serious examination of the political grievances at the centre of the conflict, they risk treating the symptoms while leaving the underlying dispute unresolved.

Pope Leo’s intervention provides a useful standard: peace must be more than language; it must become reality. During his visit to Bamenda, the Pope listened to traditional, religious and community representatives and emphasized reconciliation and peace in a region deeply affected by the conflict.

For Ngute, the real test is therefore not how many meetings he holds in Buea. It is whether he is prepared to carry the difficult message from the people of the Northwest and Southwest to the highest level of government.

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group are of the opinion that Ngute should sit with President Biya and present an informed assessment of what is required for a political settlement: the humanitarian and legal questions surrounding detained Anglophone leaders, the release or review of cases involving conflict-related detainees, meaningful engagement with representatives of the various sides, and serious consideration of constitutional arrangements—including the federal option that existed at reunification in 1961. That would transform the current peace initiative from another government program into a genuine attempt at political reconciliation.

Dion Ngute has repeatedly occupied a difficult position: he is a senior representative of the government, an Anglophone son of the country with numerous wives coming from both sides of the river Mungo. That gives Ngute an unusual responsibility. His legacy will not ultimately be determined by the number of peace meetings he convenes, nor by the size of a peace fund. It will be judged by whether he used his position to confront the difficult political questions that have kept Cameroon’s English-speaking regions at war.

The time for peace slogans has passed. The time for political courage has arrived. If the current initiative is to succeed, Yaoundé must be prepared not merely to ask the remaining fighters to come out of the bushes, but also to ask what political settlement would make it possible for them—and the communities they claim to represent—to believe that there is a future worth returning to.

That is the deeper meaning of Pope Leo XIV’s message. Peace is not a slogan. It is a political commitment, a constitutional conversation, and ultimately a choice to confront grievances rather than postpone them.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

For more than four decades and with the full backing of the military, Cameroon has been governed under the shadow of one political system and one presidency. A nation that was once presented as a project of stability has become for millions of Cameroonians a story of stagnation, impunity and the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of a privileged few-that privileged few are members of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate and top military barons.

The time has come for the Cameroonian army leadership to ask themselves a question that can no longer be postponed: What kind of country do we want to leave to the next generation?

The governing establishment has long invoked the language of rigour and moralization. But what moralization means to an ordinary Cameroonian is very different from what it appears to mean within the corridors of power in Yaoundé.

When citizens struggle with unemployment, inadequate hospitals, failing infrastructure, poor public services and the rising cost of living while those in power and those close to power appear to accumulate extraordinary wealth and privilege, the government’s rhetoric begins to sound less like a moral standard and more like an insult.

A nation cannot be reduced to a marketplace for political insiders. The Unity Palace is not a family business. Public office is not private property. The resources of Cameroon belong to the Cameroonian people and not to a president, a political party, a network of associates or a privileged class deep within the Cameroonian army.

This is why the question facing Cameroon today is bigger than Paul Biya as an individual. It is about a political culture that has allowed power to become entrenched, accountability to become optional and citizens to become spectators in the governance of their own country.

For too long, too many Cameroonians have been told to wait! Wait for development! Wait for better institutions! Wait for opportunity! Wait for reform! Wait for tomorrow!

But a nation cannot build its future indefinitely on promises of tomorrow. The responsibility now belongs to the Cameroonian army. Not through violence. Not through vengeance. Not through hatred but through conscience, courage and a strong action like we witnessed in Gabon, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Algeria.

Every senior army officer must ask: What have I accepted that I should never have accepted? What injustice have I normalized because challenging it seemed inconvenient or dangerous? What kind of Commander-In-Chief am I willing to tolerate as a soldier? And what responsibility do I have for the Cameroon my children will inherit? These are not uncomfortable questions. They are necessary ones.

A functioning nation requires more than elections. It requires citizens who refuse to surrender their political agency. It requires institutions capable of scrutinizing those in power. It requires independent courts, a free press, transparent public finances and genuine consequences for corruption and abuse of office. Most importantly, it requires a security service including the army that understands that political power ultimately derives its legitimacy from the people. Cameroonian army soldiers should therefore put their consciences to the test.

Innocent Cameroonian citizens have died demanding transparency. Hundreds have been killed for demanding accountability. Thousands are in jail for demanding credible institutions. And thousands are living in exile for demanding an end to impunity. The Cameroonian army has been helping in stifling any political competition geared towards putting an end to the idea that Biya and his ruling CPDM party do not own the state of Cameroon.  The military is now the only constituency in Cameroon that can bring about change.

The objective of the Cameroonian army should not be to replace one group of beneficiaries with another. Cameroon does not need a new generation of political predators wearing different colors. It needs a new political ethic—one in which public service actually means service to the public.

Cameroon has enormous human potential. Its young people have ideas, ambition and energy. Its entrepreneurs create businesses despite enormous obstacles. Its teachers, doctors, engineers, farmers, workers and professionals keep the country functioning despite circumstances that would break the spirit of many societies.

Cameroon does not lack capable people. It lacks a political system willing to put the interests of its people first. That can change if the military leaders sit back, think and rethink things. Change will not come from Biya and his gang. It will not come from worshipping cabinet ministers in Yaoundé. And it will not come from pretending that the status quo is sustainable simply because it has lasted for so long.

The age of political fatalism must end. The leadership of the National Police Force, the National Gendarmerie and army must now commit to the idea that government exists to serve citizens—not the other way around. The military in every nation on earth is a constituency and so as a constituency the Cameroonian army too must reclaim their right to ask difficult questions, scrutinize those who govern them and participate in getting better commander-in-chief.

The fundamental choice before all the security apparatus of the state of Cameroon is therefore not simply between one politician and another. It is between impunity and accountability. Between stagnation and renewal. Between political entitlement and public service. Between accepting the status quo and exercising the will of the Cameroonian people.

The Cameroonian military leadership should remember that history will eventually judge every generation of the men and women in uniform by what they did when they had the opportunity to change their country’s direction. General Charles De Gaulle changed France. General Franco built Spain.  Cameroon is at such a moment.

Let every Cameroonian army soldier put their conscience to the test. Let them decide what kind of nation they want. And let them use every strategic means available to bring about the political renewal Cameroon desperately needs.

The country belongs to its people. It is time for its politics to reflect that truth.

To this I put my name

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

There is a question that the authorities in Yaoundé have so far avoided answering plainly: who really pushed for the return of the Vice President of the Republic?

On paper, the answer appears straightforward. President Paul Biya initiated the constitutional amendment that brought back the office abolished in 1972. Parliament subsequently approved it in April 2026, giving the Vice President a potentially decisive constitutional role as the successor to the Head of State in the event of death, resignation or permanent incapacity.

But politics is rarely as simple as the official paperwork suggests. If this was genuinely President Biya’s personal political project, then Cameroonians deserve to know why the idea became urgent now. Why, after decades without a vice-presidency, did the regime suddenly decide that the country’s constitutional architecture was incomplete? And why has the office remained vacant? That question has become even more difficult to ignore.

At the end of December 2025, President Biya promised that a new government would be formed “in the coming days.” Months later, Cameroon still has no new post-election government. Yet, in the midst of this institutional uncertainty, the authorities found the political energy and parliamentary machinery to amend the Constitution and create a new office whose principal significance is succession.

That juxtaposition deserves scrutiny. If it was Biya’s idea, where is Biya’s Vice President?

The President has the constitutional power to appoint the Vice President. The office was therefore not created as an independent institution beyond his control. It was created as an institution whose occupant depends entirely on the President’s choice. Yet months after its restoration, there is still no Vice President.

This creates a remarkable political paradox. The regime told the country that the new office was necessary for institutional continuity. But when the President subsequently spent more than two months abroad, the country still had no Vice President. Biya returned to Yaoundé on August 20 after more than ten weeks away, while the position remained vacant. If the Vice Presidency was principally about guaranteeing continuity, the prolonged vacancy raises a very obvious question: Continuity for whom, and for what purpose? Was the Vice Presidency really about succession? The timing is impossible to ignore.

Cameroon entered 2026 after one of the most contested presidential elections in its recent history. Issa Tchiroma Bakary challenged the official outcome and claimed victory, while the government maintained that Biya had won another term.

Biya, at 93, is the world’s oldest serving head of state. Against that backdrop, restoring an office that automatically places its holder at the centre of presidential succession cannot reasonably be treated as an ordinary administrative reform.

It is a succession reform. And succession is ultimately about power. This is precisely why the public deserves more than the official explanation that the Vice President will guarantee stability. Stability is the stated reason. Who benefits from the new constitutional arrangement is the more important question.

So who was behind the idea? There are multiple possibilities, but they should not be confused with established facts in Yaoundé. Maybe the idea originated with President Biya himself and reflects his assessment that the constitutional succession mechanism needed strengthening. It could be also that senior officials around the presidency persuaded Biya that the old system was too risky. Likely influential figures within the ruling CPDM establishment saw an opportunity to shape the succession before the inevitable transition at the top. Perhaps the proposal emerged from competing interests around the Biya family and the wider power network that has grown around the Unity Palace. Or imaginably several of these forces converged on the same conclusion.

At present, publicly available evidence establishes who formally submitted the proposal, but it does not establish who first conceived it, who lobbied for it inside the presidency or who influenced the precise constitutional design.  And that is exactly where serious journalism should begin. The unanswered question of the presidency! The most revealing development may therefore not be the creation of the Vice Presidency itself, but what happens next.

Who will be appointed? Why that person? When will the appointment be made? What political constituency will the appointee represent? And, most importantly, who will have persuaded President Biya that this particular person should stand next to him at the top of the succession ladder?

These questions matter because the Vice President under the new arrangement is not merely another government official. The office potentially determines who inherits the presidency when the current occupant can no longer continue. That makes the identity of the future Vice President a matter of national interest.

A nation deserves to know who is designing its succession

For more than four decades, Cameroon has operated around the extraordinary political longevity of one man. The question of what comes after Paul Biya has consequently been one of the country’s most sensitive political questions. The reintroduction of the Vice Presidency has now brought that question into the Constitution itself. But instead of clarifying the succession debate, the reform has arguably made it more intriguing.

If the office was urgently required to protect institutional continuity, why has it not yet been filled? If it was designed with succession in mind, why has the President not identified the person who will eventually stand first in line?

And if President Biya was indeed the sole driving force behind the reform, why has nobody publicly explained what changed his mind after decades without a Vice President?

Cameroon should not have to rely on rumours, Unity Palace whispers and social-media speculation to understand a constitutional change of this magnitude. The CPDM Central Committee should tell the country: Who proposed the Vice Presidency? Who pushed for it? Who advised the President? Who drafted the political strategy behind it? And whose interests does the new succession architecture ultimately serve? Until these questions are answered, the official explanation of “continuity” will remain incomplete. Because in Yaoundé, as in every political capital, the most important question is sometimes not who signed the document, but who persuaded the person holding the pen.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

President Paul Biya’s return to Cameroon after more than two months abroad should have been a moment of reassurance. Instead, it has once again placed the question of presidential visibility at the centre of public debate.

At Yaoundé-Nsimalen International Airport, Cameroonians were not given the familiar image of a president stepping out before the cameras, greeting the nation and demonstrating that he was firmly in command. Television images instead showed the presidential convoy leaving the airport, while a hand was briefly seen waving from inside the vehicle believed to be carrying the 93-year-old president.

That Biya’s hand has become more than a hand. It has become a symbol. For Biya’s supporters, the gesture can be read as a sign of resilience: the hand of a president who, despite his age and long absences, has returned to the country and continues to exercise the authority of the state. His subsequent reception of the Cameroon female national football team at the State House reinforced the message that he remains present and engaged in the affairs of the nation.

But for many Cameroonians, the same hand evokes an uncomfortable question: why must the country repeatedly search for evidence of its president’s presence?

A presidential hand waving through a car window may appear harmless, even reassuring. Yet when such a gesture becomes the clearest public image of a head of state, it also exposes the deeper problem of presidential communication. A country of nearly 30 million people deserves more than glimpses and speculation. It deserves clarity.

The hand is therefore both a source of glory and shame.

It is a source of glory because it represents survival, endurance and the remarkable longevity of a political career. Few leaders anywhere have occupied the presidency for as long as Biya has. To his admirers, his continued presence is evidence of political strength and stability.

But it is also a source of shame because it symbolises the extraordinary distance that has developed between the presidency and the people. When citizens must scrutinise television footage to determine whether their president is physically present and well, something has gone fundamentally wrong with the relationship between public office and public accountability.

The issue is not whether President Biya waved his hand. The issue is why that hand has been left to carry such an enormous political burden.

A modern presidency cannot be reduced to rumours, convoys, carefully controlled images and fleeting gestures. Leadership requires visibility, communication and confidence-building. Citizens should not have to interpret a movement of the hand as a political message.

Biya’s return should therefore be an opportunity for more than ceremony. It should be an opportunity to restore transparency around the presidency and to demonstrate, unmistakably, that the head of state is capable of communicating directly with the nation.

The hand that waved from inside that vehicle may have been intended as a simple greeting. Yet it has become a mirror reflecting Cameroon itself: proud of its endurance, but uneasy about its leadership; respectful of the office, but hungry for openness.

For nearly four decades, Paul Biya’s presidency has shaped modern Cameroon. His latest return should not merely answer the question of whether he is back. It should provoke a larger question: what kind of presidency does Cameroon want to see going forward? The answer cannot be found in a waving hand alone.

That hand may still command glory. But after so many years, it also carries the weight of shame.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai