The floodgates are open: Who is next? ⁰

News of the death of Senator George Tabetando Ndiepnso has hit Yaoundé like a ton of bricks, causing many old and ailing government officials to scramble for cover and solutions to old health issues they have been managing for decades.

The spirits of the death are known to take away people’s life after midnight and that was when Chief Tabetando had his last breath, and many government officials who are over 85 years old are making plans not to sleep after midnight to avoid being carried away by the spirits of the death.

Many are now seeking to know who will be the next following Marcel Niat Njifendji’s opening of the floodgates.

Some are already analyzing that since the country’s senate has already lost two distinguished personalities – Marcel Niat Njifendji and George Tabetando – death might take a break from its senate attack to besiege other institutions of the Republic which are housing many old and ailing officials.

President Paul Biya, himself visibly old and tired, had announced during his inauguration late last year that his focus will be on empowering younger Cameroonians and reconciling and including the Diaspora in the country’s development agenda, and death seems to have head his plea.

There is a natural clean-up campaign taking place in Yaoundé, with many, especially those who are over 85 years living in total fear and spending more time praying than enjoying life. Many of them are now figuring out that prayers do not work all the time.

According to our source in Yaoundé, the country’s senators and members of Parliament living with debilitating health issues are no longer at ease. They are scared for their lives and they know that Senator Tabetando’s fate might be their anytime soon.

Some are already doubling their medication doses without their doctors’ knowledge and advice, arguing that they are their own first doctors, just in an attempt to stave off death.

The source adds that the former Speaker of the House, Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, has been on the phone with his doctors across the world just to obtain assurances that he is not the next in line after Senator Tabetando. Desperation is pushing the country’s octogenarians into taking overdoses of their own medication.

Some are proposing to their doctors that they be moved into their clinics just to be sure that when death comes, their doctors can at least give them a fighting chance. Some are already ensuring that pharmacies providing them with their medication put large stocks of their medication aside just for them. Many are even thinking of buying entire pharmacies just to be sure that they would not run out of medication when the spirits show up.

Their fear has been heightened by the fact that the situation of the President of the Constitutional Council is worrisome, as his diabetes and prostrate are acting up following the death of Marcel Niat Njifendji.

But death is not only looking at the three arms of government. It is spreading fear even in state corporations. Currently, Adolphe Mudiki, the SNH General Manager, is at death’s door. For years, his wife has been running the national hydrocarbons corporation on his behalf while he stays helpless on his sick bed.

The bilingualism commission is also going through a scary moment as the boss, Peter Mafany Musonge, a one-time Prime Minister, is fighting for his life in the USA, a source close to the bilingualism boss said.

The floodgates are wide open and many people in Yaoundé are in the grip of fear. The death of two senior political officials in less than a month has left many politicians in search of appetite.

Fear does not keep death away. Years of political and financial stress have taken a toll on the health of most of the country’s political elite.

The time to exit the political scene and the world has come. Nothing lasts forever and neither money nor power can stop death from accomplishing its mission, especially as lifestyle diseases have run down the health of those old politicians. Death is a certainty after a certain age and the question on many lips is: Who is next?

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai