This is a call for national awakening, directed especially to Professor Maurice Kamto and Barrister Akere Muna—two men whose stature, experience, and patriotism could offer Cameroon a credible alternative to the ruins wrought by more than four decades of catastrophic misrule.
Sirs, I may be preaching to the converted, but our national predicament demands repetition and resolve. Cameroon is overheating under the weight of its own failures. If it is not rescued, it risks imploding.
For decades, stagnation, decay, and the cynical betrayal of public trust have held our nation hostage. Now, more than ever, Cameroon stands at a historic crossroads—one that offers us a chance to embrace the modernity and progress long enjoyed by others.
Cameroonians are weary of being the continent’s punchline, openly mocked for our ageing leadership and for normalising dysfunction. After 42 years under the same predatory and incompetent regime, we have developed a dangerous tolerance for failure. We romanticise our hardship with hollow slogans like “l’impossible n’est pas Camerounais,” as though survival were a virtue. We excuse dysfunction with a resigned shrug; “that’s how we do it in Cameroon” as if mediocrity were a cultural trait. Cameroonians have become too comfortable with being uncomfortable.
This is not resilience; it is resignation. It is the mentality of a psychologically colonised people, resigned to a fate they believe they cannot change. The fact that so many young Cameroonians see their only future abroad is a scathing indictment of the state. Those who remain are conditioned to “make do” with broken systems and crumbling institutions. But this is not a natural condition. It is a man-made predicament—one that the people can overturn.
There comes a time in the life of every nation when silence becomes complicity, and resignation becomes betrayal. For Cameroon, that time is now.
This is not merely a moral exhortation. It is a reminder that we are not powerless. No constitution, no corrupt judiciary, no security force, and no autocrat can permanently suppress a people who have decided that they deserve better.
Since 1982, we have watched our roads deteriorate into death traps with potholes as permanent features. Our hospitals have become graveyards for the poor, while leaders fly abroad for expensive treatment at our expense. State institutions have been hollowed out into ineffectual bureaucracies that serve only themselves. Poor quality education and schools now produce graduates with no skills, while youth unemployment soars. Basic public services in other countries; like electricity, water, internet are now luxuries in the hands of unaccountable monopolies. In many parts of the country, particularly the Anglophone regions, the state is functionally absent, though it continues to extract revenue from their resources.
In 2018, there was a faint glimmer of hope. The opposition had a chance, albeit imperfect, to unseat a regime whose mandate had already expired but was fraudulently extended in 2007. They squandered the opportunity. A last-minute coalition between Kamto and Muna formed without any strategic depth and arrived too late. At 87, Paul Biya won with more than 70% of the vote. Seven more years slipped away due to decline.
Today, even the capital, Yaoundé, groans under mountains of uncollected waste. Stagnant pools of mosquito-infested water snake through neighbourhoods. Malaria and typhoid continue to ravage communities with the ferocity of 19th-century diseases. Our crumbling airports are national embarrassments, and usually manned by surly and poorly trained officials. Our youth drift without direction many seeing any hope only by relocating abroad. The state has defaulted on its social contract on every level.
And yet, the same elderly man still rules.
At 92, Paul Biya is no longer a president; he is a symbol of inertia, decline, and a system built to protect itself. He makes pre-recorded appearances on television during national holidays to read speeches that people forget by the next day. At international summits, he appears frail and often shows signs of confusion. He navigates corridors of power with the help of aides, while long-serving administrators run his government, with some holding the same office for two decades. His continued presentation as a presidential candidate serves not only as an insult but also as an indictment of our collective political imagination. It is also unkind. Biya deserves a dignified retirement, not this cruel spectacle by his handlers.
Let us stop pretending that change will come from above. It will not. It must come from below—from us.
Elections, however flawed, are not meaningless rituals. They are battlegrounds for legitimacy. If the process is rigged, we must expose it. When the rules are unjust, we must challenge them. If the candidates are unworthy, we must demand better. But above all, we must participate, and participate in a meaningful way.
To Professor Kamto and Barrister Muna: the time for political ego is over. Cameroon cannot afford another fractured opposition. We need a united front—formed early, with clarity and resolve, not a month before election day. This coalition must be substantive and impactful. Build it on substantive policy alignment, rooted in national duty, and commit to representing the full diversity of our people.
The Grand North, the Anglophone regions, and the marginalised and forgotten must all secure genuine space at the table. Negotiate ministerial portfolios transparently, and do not rule out collaboration with other political forces, including reformists within the CPDM, for the sake of national reconciliation.
And above all, Cameroonians deserve to see and hear those who seek to lead them.
That is why we must demand a national televised debate. This is not a staged media event; it is a genuine forum where all presidential candidates face intense questioning about their policies, competence, and their physical, intellectual, and mental fitness to lead. Let us hear their vision for the economy, for justice, for healthcare, for education, for resolving the Anglophone crisis. Let the people decide—not shadowy cabals of ageing men with no stake in the future they are mortgaging.
A stable, post-Biya Cameroon will not be born out of chaos or compromise. It must be built with transparency, inclusion, and moral clarity. And that work must begin now—in the courage to unite, in the clarity of vision, and in the unwavering belief that this country is worth saving.
Cameroonians are not children. We are not doomed to remain spectators in our own tragedy. We are citizens of a proud, pained, and beautiful country—and we hold the power to change its fate.
Let 2025 not be another mournful chapter in our national tragedy. It should be the turning point. Let it be the year Cameroon chooses vitality over decay, substance over symbolism, and hope over paralysis.
We have suffered long enough. It is time to lead ourselves.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of MMI.
