12, January 2022

Southern Cameroons Targeted Killings: Senator Kemende Henry is Biya regime’s latest victim ⁰

Armed Cameroon government army soldiers visited the home of Senator Kemende Henry in Bamenda early yesterday, the Southern Cameroons political elite spent months of self-imposed exile in Yaounde calling for an end to the war and upon returning home maintained a kind of deliberate silence, according to three acolytes of the senator.

But after anti-French Cameroun sentiments erupted in Bamenda this week against the Africa Cup of Nations, unidentified gunmen believed by Southern Cameroons activists to be working on behalf of the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde shot dead the senator at Mile II Nkwen, Bamenda III Sub Division.

“It is a message. No matter who you are, how peacefully you object – if you go out and criticize the 88-year-old President Biya, you’ll be killed,” said one of Senator Kemende’s friends, who sued for anonymity for fear of reprisal from Cameroon government troops.

Cameroon Intelligence Report interviews with three senior Anglophone officials in Bamenda and six pro Yaounde CPDM militants depict a pattern of mass arrests, intimidation and torture, and in many cases targeted killings of Southern Cameroonians by soldiers loyal to the Biya Beti Ewondo regime in Yaounde.

Southern Cameroonians still serving the Francophone dominated Biya government including the Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji are all viewed as corrupt and Southern Cameroonians now say federalism alone will not provide a long lasting solution for the English speaking people of Ambazonia.

Several Southern Cameroons activists have been shot dead recently in Bamenda, Buea and Limbe in what appear to be targeted assassinations, according to local human rights groups and the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima. Dabney Yerima said Ambazonia Intelligence hinted him that Cameroon government soldiers were behind the deaths because those killed had been openly critical of the Africa Cup of Nations and had also received threats based on their anti French Cameroun activism.

In a statement released by the Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs, the Ambazonia Interim Government stated that the killing of Senator Kemende Henry amounts to what they view as a campaign intended to silence Ambazonia Ground Zero leaders and causing them to abandon the struggle or consider fleeing the country.

The Biya regime’s declaration of war on English-speaking citizens following the killing of some four gendarme officers in Agborkem German in the country’s Southwest region some five years ago, will go down in history as a faux pas which will haunt the country for a very long time. Thousands have been killed and maimed in a war very much driven by arrogance and ego, and many families will be entering the new year with a lot of pain in their minds.

The war itself was avoidable. There was no justification for a full-blown armed conflict in a country that is still at grips with massive and complicated development issues. Cameroon needs all its citizens to come together to give the country a shot in the arm, but the government does not seem to see things this way.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

11, January 2022

Africa Cup of Nations: Iheanacho gifts Nigeria 1-0 victory over Mo Salah’s Egypt ⁰

Egypt went into their first Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) match with high hopes, boasting a magnificent asset in the shape of iconic Liverpool striker Mo Salah. But Nigeria dashed their hopes: A clinical Kelechi Iheanacho strike put them ahead 30 minutes in and they never looked back.

Egypt just about edged Nigeria on possession until half an hour into the match – when a great opportunistic Iheanacho goal put Nigeria ahead. They never looked back after that, making repeated fast-paced runs and running Egypt scared.

The great star on the pitch this evening, Mo Salah, barely got a chance as Nigeria took control of the game upon Iheanacho’s goal and kept it.

Nigeria look like strong contenders to take the trophy after that performance – but both sides could go far. Nigeria have historically been one of the best teams in African footbnall – in 1994 they came fifth in the FIFA rankings, the highest position ever reached by an African team. They have won CAN three times – most recently in 2013 – and came third at the last tournament in 2019.

Egypt have won CAN a record seven times, most recently in 2010. They were widely favoured to take the trophy in 2019 due to Salah’s presence – but crashed out in the last 16 in a 1-0 defeat to South Africa.

Source: France 24

11, January 2022

Who will be France’s next head of state? ⁰

In a presidential campaign dominated by a revanchist and nativistic far right, Christiane Taubira’s presumptive run for the Elysée Palace has more than a soupçon of poetic license, of quiet rage against the dying of the left. It may also be the last chance for her moribund camp to find a voice in an election it appears doomed to lose.

A former justice minister and icon of the French left, Taubira took another step towards a widely whispered-about presidential run on Sunday, saying she would submit to a citizen’s primary vote later this month, which she is tipped to win. The move all but confirms her second presidential run, 20 years after she became the first Black woman to seek France’s highest office.

News of Taubira’s candidacy has sent ripples of excitement among France’s increasingly despondent left-wing voters, of the kind only Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftist firebrand, can rival. However, it also adds one more name to an already cluttered field of candidates fighting over a diminishing pool of votes, prompting many analysts to question the pertinence of her belated Elysée run.

“If she somehow manages to unite the reformist left behind her, then her candidacy could be a game-changer,” said political analyst Thomas Guénolé, though quickly cautioning: “Without unity, however, she will become just one more element in a ‘Balkanised’ (and hopeless) left.”

Talk of the left’s chronic divisions is a sensitive issue for Taubira, a maverick who has long shouldered the blame for the far right’s shocking breakthrough in the first round of the 2002 presidential election. Running as a left-wing radical at the time, Taubira picked up just 2.3% of the vote – a relatively small tally but enough to keep the Socialist favorite, Lionel Jospin, out of the run-off.

“She was made a scapegoat for Jospin’s defeat, unfairly so,” said Guénolé, noting that others on the left had siphoned away more votes from the Socialist candidate.

Twenty years on, the once mighty Socialist Party has shrunk to a minor player in France’s political landscape, leaving the left as a whole rudderless and divided. Between them, the seven left-wing candidates currently in the race for the Elysée Palace account for just over a quarter of the electorate, according to polls. Only one – the far left’s Mélenchon – has touched double digits so far, but even he remains far off the 17% to 20% threshold deemed necessary to reach the crucial second round of voting.

Both Mélenchon and Yannick Jadot, the Green candidate, have repeatedly rejected the idea of a citizen’s primary, leaving only a motley group of struggling candidates – including the Socialist Party’s mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo – among Taubira’s potential challengers. According to her supporters, Taubira, a prolific writer and passionate orator whose words have even been put into song, is the only one with the potential to energise voters.

Rebel at heart

A staunch feminist and a champion of minorities, Taubira, 69, is best known for shepherding a same-sex marriage bill into French law in 2013 when she served as justice minister in François Hollande’s Socialist government. She did so while facing an angry backlash from the conservative and far-right opposition, and with only lukewarm support from her cabinet colleagues.

“Opening marriage and adoption to same-sex couples is an act of liberty, of equality and of fraternity,” she told lawmakers in one of several fiery debates in parliament, echoing France’s Republican motto. She met the opposition’s insults with lyrical flourishes and witty put-downs, remaining calm and composed even when anti-gay-marriage protesters levelled racised slurs at her.

“Taubira is a symbol of anti-racism by virtue of who she is, what she achieved, and the vile, racist abuse she endured,” said Guénolé. “The battle over same-sex marriage also made her an icon of equality.”

Taubira had already made her mark as a champion of progressives more than a decade earlier, authoring landmark legislation in 2001 that recognised slavery as a crime against humanity. It was a personal triumph for the then little-known MP from faraway Guiana, a former French colony in South America, where convicts from metropolitan France were banished up until 1953, a year after her birth.

One of 11 siblings, Taubira was raised in Guiana’s capital Cayenne by her single mother, a nursing assistant who died at age 49. As she quipped in a 2012 memoir, she was born a “[w]oman, Black, poor, what fabulous capital! Every challenge to take up, the promise of a life of exhaustion. But life is more seditious than one thinks.”

A seditious, rebellious streak would run throughout her political career, which began in the ranks of a Guianese pro-independence faction alongside her second husband Robert Delannon, who was jailed in the late 1970s for planning to blow up an oil and gas facility. Taubira soon abandoned the separatist cause and shifted towards more moderate politics, though she never lost her independent spirit.

“Sometimes to resist is to stay, sometimes to resist is to leave,” she tweeted decades later, in January 2016, as she quit the justice ministry in protest at controversial plans to strip French-born dual nationals of their citizenship when convicted of terrorism.

Prior to her departure, Taubira had championed a divisive overhaul of prison sentencing, seeking to institute probation in place of jail terms for petty crimes in an effort to reduce overcrowding in France’s penitentiaries. But her efforts met with resistance from cabinet colleagues and eventually jarred with the mood of a nation deeply shaken by a string of jihadist terrorist attacks.

Battle of ideas

Taubira’s perceived softness as justice minister gave France’s right wing a key line of attack. So did her stances on racism and the legacy of slavery, issues some candidates in the upcoming presidential elections are keen to brush under the rug. While France’s reckoning with its colonial past is still in its infancy, for the likes of far-right pundit and presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, “repentance” has already gone too far.

An advocate of the “Great Replacement” theory, according to which elites are plotting to replace French nationals of white stock with immigrants, Zemmour has dominated the early stages of the campaign in the raucous, aggressive and iconoclastic manner of a Donald Trump – albeit with the veneer of cultured sophistication generally expected of a French presidential candidate.

Some have suggested Taubira’s main aim is to lock horns with Zemmour in a battle of ideas, knowing full well that the Elysée Palace is already out of sight. In the words of Thomas Legrand, France Inter radio’s political editorialist, Taubira’s bid “would offer an alternative narrative, one that is republican, fraternal, racially diverse and universal, as opposed to Eric Zemmour’s bleak and depressing identity politics”.

A diminutive figure, like Zemmour, Taubira is known for her lofty rhetoric and frequent literary citations – particularly from the anticolonial poets of the Négritude movement, such as Aimé Césaire and her fellow Guianan Léon-Gontran Damas. She is equally at ease with talk of Black identity as she is with the French Republic’s core, universal values – a versatility that is anathema to the far right and to others from across the political spectrum.

Having surveyed voters from the immigrant-rich Seine-Saint-Denis area northeast of Paris, mainland France’s poorest department, sociologist Marie Peretti-Ndiaye said Taubira’s candidacy has raised hopes of a less toxic divide on certain issues, such as the place of Islam in France. Among those surveyed, the former justice minister “came across as intelligent, cultured and knowledgeable, far from the cheap shots and petty controversies of the presidential campaign”, she said. “At the same time, the respect and admiration for her combativity was tempered by scepticism about the chances of a woman winning the presidency.”

In recent months, Taubira has consistently topped surveys of left-wing voters’ preferred political leaders. However, she also scores highly in surveys of politicians who are most rejected by the broader electorate.

Should it garner momentum, Taubira’s candidacy “would instantly become a hateful obsession of the far right, whose worst nightmare she embodies”, Guénolé noted. Whether she can alter the narrative of the campaign will depend on her ability to rally the reformist left behind her, he cautioned, stressing the need to flesh out a political and economic platform of which little or nothing is known – and to fulfill at least two conditions.

“The first is to embody something powerful against the far right – and Taubira certainly does. The other is to be a contender for the all-important presidential run-off,” he said. “If she fails to meet the second criteria, all the media will talk about is Taubira’s miserable polling figures. And her candidacy will go the way of others on the left.”

Source: France 24

11, January 2022

French Cameroun: 25,000 displaced to Chad by intercommunal violence return homeless ⁰

Authorities in Cameroon authorities say at least 25,000 villagers in the northeast who fled communal fighting to neighboring Chad last month have returned. But hundreds were left homeless by the fighting between ranchers and fishers, and more than 75,000 are reluctant to go home.

Cameroon’s ministry of territorial administration says at least 25,000 civilians who fled intercommunal violence along its northern border to Chad have returned home.

A statement read on Cameroon state radio CRTV on Monday said the civilians are returning because the area is once again peaceful.

The governor of Cameroon’s Far North Region, Midjiyawa Bakari, said a December peace mission to convince armed men to drop their weapons was a success.

He spoke to VOA via messaging application from Maroua, the capital of the Far North Region.

Bakari said thousands of civilians who fled to Chad because of the intercommunal violence between Arab Chao and ethnic Mousgoum have been returning to Cameroon each week since December 16. He said the returnees are responding to Cameroon President Paul Biya’s appeal for them to return home, seek peace, and develop their communities.

But Bakari said several hundred returnees were left homeless because their houses were torched in the conflict.

Authorities say clashes between ranchers and fishers over water and land erupted along the border on December 7, leaving at least 10 people dead and scores wounded.

The U.N. says the violence between the two communities pushed at least 102,000 civilians to flee to neighboring Chad.

Among the civilians who escaped to Chad is 41-year-old mother of two Anne Djigoue.

She told CRTV she returned from the Chadian capital N’djamena on January 2 when envoys sent by Cameroon’s government convinced her it was safe.

Djigoue said fighting between Arab Choua ranchers and ethnic Mousgoum fishers has brought agony to both communities. She said a few returnees are privileged to live in tent houses while a majority sleep in the open air. She said all of them need houses, water, and food.

Cameroonian authorities say many of those left homeless were able to stay with relatives or in village mosques or churches.

Mounouna Foutsou is minister of youth affairs and civic education in Mayo Danay on Cameroon’s border with Chad.

He said some of the returnees are seeking help.

Foutsou said as community leader in Mayo Danay, he has an obligation to plead with citizens living in Cameroon’s northern border to help their brothers and sisters returning from Chad. He said people who are not affected by the clashes should share their lodging, food, and water with returning civilians whose houses or farms were torched during the conflict.

Cameroonian authorities say they have rebuilt three markets that were torched in the conflict and are supplying food, seeds, and mattresses to resettle people affected by the clashes.

But community leaders say over 75,000 of the villagers who fled to Chad are still reluctant to return.

The Cameroon Civil Society Organization says it will be difficult to convince many of those who fled to return without the government reconstructing homes and plantations that were destroyed.

Source: VOA

11, January 2022

Yaoundé: FIFA President saw Lions come from behind to beat Burkina Faso ⁰

FIFA President Gianni Infantino attended the opening day of the CAF Africa Cup of Nations in Yaounde, sending best wishes to the 24 participating teams and holding fruitful discussions with a wide range of delegates on football’s development and its significant role in society.

Mr Infantino saw the host nation come from behind to beat Burkina Faso 2-1 in Group A before Cape Verde edged out Ethiopia 1-0.

President Infantino was able to speak about various topics related to the impact of football development with the President of Cameroon, M. Paul Biya, President of Comoros HE M.Azali Assoumani, CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe and General Secretary Veron Mosengo-Omba as well as several representatives from Member Associations, football legends, government officials and leading administrators.

Source: FIFA

11, January 2022

Africa Cup of Nations a chance for Biya to unite the two Cameroons ⁰

Cameroon has not hosted the Africa Cup of Nations since the 1972. Optimists hope the goodwill generated by the tournament can be used to foster national unity, with the south west of the country still mired in violence.

After 40 years in power, President Biya is famously not a man fond of public appearances.

But Sunday’s opening ceremony of the 33rd Africa Cup of Nations was taken as an opportunity to be centre-stage – at least briefly. The 88-year-old entered the new stadium that bears his name in a motorcade that lapped the athletics track as he and the first lady, Chantal, waved through the open roof. His speech, when it came, was only a few sentences, a formal declaration of the tournament’s start.

Biya had more to say in his New Year address to the nation 10 days ago, pitching the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon or CAF) as part of a grand plan for infrastructure development, before calling “on our Beloved Indomitable Lions to do their utmost to ensure that they end this festival in grand style on the evening of 6 February 2022”.

Dose of reality

The optimism was, however, to be contrasted with the heart of the speech focusing on national disunity. “Many of our compatriots remain within the ranks of armed groups”, he warned. “They continue to engage in criminal activities, increasing attacks with improvised explosive devices and murders of unarmed civilians. The recent assassination of three students and a teacher of Bilingual High School Ekondo Titi added to their long list of abuses and atrocities.”

That attack in the Southwest region in November 2021 served as an inconvenient reminder that the five-year “Anglophone crisis” continues without resolution. If hasn’t been enough to undermine Cameroon’s hosting status this time round, memories are still fresh from enduring the humiliation of CAF’s decision in 2018 to strip Yaounde of the tournament and hand duties to Egypt for the summer 2019 edition. Delayed preparations and the “Ambazonia” crisis played a central role.

Politics at bay…for now

This year politics has not altered the itinerary – with Group F’s Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania and Gambia still set to train in the restive south-west regional capital Buea and eight matches to be played in coastal Limbé, where there were reports of an explosion as recently as 5 January and the security presence is heavy. The government will be hoping that a tournament without major incident will buttress the official position that the worst has passed.

If Cameroon make the final at the Paul Biya Stadium on the outskirts of Yaoundé, critics of the $300m facility will still be entitled to rail against the total costs of the tournament. Around $700m has been sunk into stadia and roads but home success at Afcons tends to drown out opposition.

There will have been relief that the Lions recovered from 1-0 down to Burkina Faso on Sunday, taking advantage of two rashly conceded penalties to squeeze home 2-1.

There is genuine excitement

After all, Cameroon has not hosted the tournament since 1972 (when it featured just eight teams in two groups) and have a formidable home record in competitive matches. The recent defeat of Cote d’Ivoire in the battle for World Cup qualification raised expectation further.

In 2017, a young, largely unfancied Lions side beat Senegal, Ghana and, finally, Egypt to lift the country’s 5th Afcon title in dramatic fashion. Aboubakar’s late win in Libreville sealed a tournament that entertained without ever quite hitting great heights. It had political resonance too.

In the week after that win, goalkeeper Fabrice Ondoa expressed solidarity on television with the country’s English-speaking minority. “My brothers, I am from Bamenda. For you, for you,” he said, a Francophone star dedicating the victory to the north-western anglophone city at a time of ongoing repression.

On the downside, the team hasn’t progressed significantly since that title win and exited at the last 16 stage in Egypt the last time out. Defending champions Algeria and an exciting Senegal side are a rank above on current form.

Greatest threat…Covid-19

The greatest threat to the tournament may yet come from Covid-19. CAF, having vigorously resisted calls for postponement, now has to cope with public health concerns, a complex testing regime and, inevitably, missing players.

It may be that things settle down once squads have fully entered the country and remain in their bubbles. But already Senegal has been badly affected, with nine players testing positive – including Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy and Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly – just days before their opening game against Zimbabwe on Monday. Gabon, Malawi, Ivory Coast and Tunisia also had preparations disrupted by new cases.

With only 2.5% of the population double-vaccinated, the tournament requirement for fans to prove their status to gain entry to stadiums is being watched closely. According to CAF, “supporters may only enter stadiums if they are fully vaccinated and are able to show a negative PCR test result that is no older than 72 hours or a negative antigen test result no older than 24 hours.” Cameroon’s matches are already restricted to 80% capacity to ease social distancing while all other fixtures are capped at 60%.

Biya’s name may be on the stadium but the popular figurehead for this Afcon will undoubtedly be the new President of the Cameroon football federation, Samuel Eto’o.

The four-time African Footballer of the Year and two-time Afcon winner has staked his reputation on a smooth tournament and a new era for the troubled domestic game. He was at the forefront of resistance to calls for delay at the end of last year and issued a warning to voices from Europe seeking to undermine Afcon’s credibility.

“The federation that I represent will strongly defend the competition,” he said. “The Euros were played in the middle of the pandemic with full stadiums. Why shouldn’t we play?” For all the politics and problems, there is once again no compelling riposte to that question.

Source: The Africa Report

10, January 2022

Football: Andre Onana signs five-year deal with Inter Milan ⁰

Ajax goalkeeper, Andre Onana has signed a five-year deal with Inter Milan. Onana will join the Serie A champions in July 2022 as a free agent from Ajax.

This was disclosed by transfer expert, Fabrizio Romano, in a tweet via his Twitter handle last night.

“André Onana has signed his contract today as new Inter player after medical tests successfully completed in Milano. Five year deal for €3m guaranteed net salary. He’s gonna join in July 2022 as free agent,” Romano tweeted.

Source: Dailypost

10, January 2022

Cape Verde sink 10-man Ethiopia in Africa Cup of Nations surprise ⁰

Julio Tavares scored the winner as Cape Verde began their Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) campaign with a surprise 1-0 victory on Sunday over Ethiopia, who played most of the game with 10 men.

The Saudi-based striker headed Cape Verde ahead in first-half stoppage time in Yaounde after Ethiopia had defender Yared Bayeh sent off with just 12 minutes gone.

Cape Verde, whose three Cup of Nations appearances at have all come since 2013, won for just the second time at the tournament and sit level on points with hosts Cameroon at the top of Group A.

Ethiopia were seen as an outside bet to perform well at this year’s CAN, after enjoying a big spurt of investment in their footballing infrastructure over recent years, cheered on by their ambitious manager Wubetu Abate.

But they faced an increasingly uphill challenge after Bayeh’s yellow card was upgraded to red following a VAR review for his tackle on Tavares as the Cape Verde player ran through on goal.

Teklemariam Shanko produced a brilliant save to claw the ball to safety after Ethiopia defender Mignot Debebe diverted a cross towards his own goal.

Cape Verde made their extra man count late in the first half as Garry Rodrigues hooked a cross back towards goal where it was nodded in from close range by Tavares.

An inspired Shanko kept Ethiopia in the game with a string of stops, but they created little in attack to trouble Cape Verde and already look set for an early exit with games to come against Cameroon and Burkina Faso.

Source: AFP

10, January 2022

Hosts Cameroon beat Burkina Faso 2-1 in Africa Cup of Nations opener ⁰

The long-awaited African football bonanza kicked off with a win for hosts Cameroon as they came back from behind to prevail over Burkina Faso, with two penalties from striker Vincent Aboubakar powering them to victory.

Burkina Faso stunned Cameroon in the first half when Gustavo Sangaré gave them the lead with a masterly finish into the left hand corner of the net in the 24th minute. Cameroon looked rattled for some time but prevailed thanks to two successful penalties by Aboubakar just before half-time, prompted by two clumsy challenges from the Burkinabé defence. The tournament hosts never looked back – dominating play in the second half.

Source: France 24

10, January 2022

Paul Biya: The falling president! ⁰

His collaborators have always projected him as the strong man, ordained by God to be eternal not only on earth but also on the throne, but the last years have proven that eternity here on earth is simply a mirage and that no man, including Paul Biya, born of a woman, will ever be physically eternal in a world nobody really understands.

For more than five years now, Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, has seen his energy waning. Though he seems to believe his own lies that he is still energetic, many events have continued to remind him that time is running out for him.

Cameroonians have seen him struggle to walk and when he dares to walk, he trembles like a 7-month baby who wants to try his luck at walking.

As his energy levels decline, so too do his muscles fall apart and that makes it hard for his clothes to fit him.

Not long ago, his own trousers sought to take French leave of him during an event where there were thousands of guests at the Unity Palace.

The humiliation was huge. His wife, Chantal Biya, who doubles as a live-in care-giver, is permanently on the watch when she is in public with the aging and ailing Biya.

She knows something bizarre might happen anytime as the tired 88-year-old president is gradually losing his mind and his physique, which once gave him the looks of an adonis, is crumbling under the weight of age.

The Unity Palace event wherein his trousers dropped to the floor left Mrs Biya with a pink face. It was a day she wanted to demonstrate that her husband was still alive and strong, but nature had an unpleasant surprise for her and it came in a way she least expected.

Cameroonians who were glued to their TV sets had the ill-luck of seeing Mr. Biya’s colorful pants and his withering legs. Time has a way of diminishing men who think they are indispensable and Mr. Biya has had more than his fair share of humiliation.

But the humiliation is far from over. Since he has opted to stay in the spotlight, he must accept that time will continue to expose him to ridicule.

If he is not sporting a tootless mouth, then know he will show up with a face that has been invaded by age-related scars and it is fair game for his critics to make fun of him, as he has always projected himself as the defiant dictator who will never quit power.

But the greatest humiliation came on January 9, 2022, when the Yaounde strong man finished reading his opening speech at the AfCON 2021 being held in Cameroon.

Things had gone on smoothly until Mr. Biya forgot that though alive, he was not as strong as those around him.

After reading his very short speech, insteading of calling on his guards and nurses to help him take his seat, he proceeded to do things by himself and, of course, he went down like a pack of old and tired cards.

Before his guards could reach out to save him, the old, sick and tired Biya was on the floor struggling to pick himself up.

Nature cannot be cheated. Such an incident was just a nasty reminder to a man who has simply overstayed his welcome and has outlived his usefulness.

Sources close to the president’s entourage said the fall resulted in him urinating, adding that thanks to his thick diapers, he would have left the stadium with a wet trousers.

Many Cameroonians are asking lots of head-breaking questions about Mr. Biya’s health and fitness as a president.

Many think his constant embarrassment of the country in public could be a justification for him to be relieved of his duty, but will the falling Biya ever leave power?

An observer, who spoke to Cameroon Concord News on condition of anonymity said the dying man might only leave on the day he defecates on his trousers.

“We should not think Biya will relinquish power. Power has gotten into his head like a drug and he clearly thinks that he should die in power,” a source said.

“Things have been made all the more challenging because he has surrounded himself with a bunch of emasculated sycophants who cannot speak truth to power,” the source regretted.

Biya may be putting up a strong man image, but it is clear that he is running out of time. Instead of humiliating himself, his family and country, it will be wise for him to exit through the big door.

However, if he insists on dying in power, he might do so in public during one of those events in which he might want to prove that he is physically strong to rule the country.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai