Exclusive: Cameroonian priest launches political movement for change

Father Ludovic Lado, a renowned Cameroonian Jesuit priest, has said that he wants to start a large political movement in Cameroon to bring about change.
In an exclusive chat with MMI, his communications team said that the movement called “Serve” will start in the coming hours. A spokesman for Father Lado, Kevin Fotso, told MMI on Tuesday, January 2, 2023, “The priest is getting ready to release an official video on this, and it will be made public tomorrow.”

Father Lado urged Christians and men of God to join what he called a “political movement for the change of the political class in 2025.”

“This movement comes from the fact that most people are Christians, but not many of them are involved in politics,” Fotso said.

Long-awaited change!
Paul Biya has been president of Cameroon for more than forty years. Many people say that his government has consistently failed to deliver on its promises and solve the many problems that the country is facing.
Fotso said, “Most Cameroonian leaders are also religious and are Christians, but nothing is going well for the country.” He went on to say that this is one of Father Lado’s goals.

Any political ambitions?
Priest Father Lado’s team has said that the priest’s goal is to bring about change and get Christians involved in politics.
“He doesn’t want to run for president. The priest wants to stress that prayers alone won’t make a difference; you have to do something, like take part in the electoral process and vote,” Fotso said.
Father Lado also wants more and more people to sign up for the voter list, he said. “He is not going to join any political party, not the party in power or the party in opposition.”

Not the first political move!
This is not the first time that Father Lado has tried to change things in Cameroon. 

He was apprehended in Edea in October 2020 while on a “walk for change and peace” in Cameroon. Before the police stopped him, he was planning to walk from Douala to Yaoundé.

He has also not kept quiet about the ongoing war in the English-speaking parts of the country. He wrote a book calling for the integration of children who had to leave their homes because of the growing Anglophone conflict that began in 2016.

It remains unknown what the Yaoundé government will do when the “Serve” plan finally sees the light of day.

Mimi Mefo Info