“I do so swear”: these words resonate with a majority of Cameroonian adults and even kids. They are the famous lines used by President Paul Biya every time he is sworn in as President of the Republic of Cameroon, an office he has held for 40 years today.
Biya who first took over in 1982 has since been sworn in many times, with the most recent being after he won the highly contested 2018 Presidential elections.
When Biya came to power in 1982, he was heralded as ‘Hero’ of his ‘New Deal’ ideology which was marketed under the banner of ‘Rigour and Moralisation’. Coming after President Ahidjo, many hoped the new president would catapult Cameroon into the new millennium as a country where citizens could hope for democracy and good governance.
In the forty years of his reign, Biya has continuously dashed the hopes of Cameroonians as they hope for a better country.
The 1984 failed coup d’état attempt was the first indication that Biya was already making many enemies. The onslaught of an economic crisis in 1987, marked the first visible signs that Biya was out of his depth and that Cameroonians were in for a nightmare, one that they have never woken from.
A ray of light appeared to shine on the dark horizon in 1990 as the winds of change across Africa, also saw the forceful introduction of multi-party politics.
Biya and some of his supporters have attempted to glide over the introduction of multiparty politics, riding the wave to make it seem like his idea. Cameroon today has hundreds of political parties but the question many are asking is whether Biya can claim credit for the introduction of multi-party politics in the country.
Politics
In the field of politics, Biya kept taking many by surprise with his way of doing things.
Though he tightened the noose after the attempted coup, he went on to liberalise the political scene, after surrendering to pressure for the creation of multiple political parties orchestrated by the Social Democratic Front (SDF) of Ni John Fru Ndi.
The momentum that began with the launch of the SDF on May 26th, 1990, snowballed into what many believe was a victory of John Fru Ndi over Biya in the 1992 Presidential elections. However, this period also saw the beginning of a new system of repression, where protesters were shot and killed, political agitation was treated as a crime against the state, and any form of political dissent was met with lengthy prison sentences. The liberalisation aspect has to many, become a myth.
Despite the prevalence of over 200 of these opposition parties, they are all a shadow of themselves, and in every instance, compete on unequal grounds with the ruling CPDM party. Many are owned by state officials answerable to the ruling party.
But that is not all.
President Biya’s political opponents remain jailbirds, wallowing in multiple detention facilities across the country. The only man that gave him a run for his money in recent times, Prof Maurice Kamto and his crew suddenly found themselves behind the towering walls of the feared Kondengui prison in Yaoundé.
“Belief in progress is the determination of peoples to establish democracy, guarantee human rights, roll back poverty and provide access to education and health care to all,” President Biya had said in his January 2015 speech after receiving members of Cameroon’s diplomatic corps.
The broken mantra of Decentralisation
After recording successive failures in almost every domain over 40 years, President Biya’s balance sheet is further stained by the hyper-centralisation of power in Yaoundé. This is in addition to his dismal human rights record and the wanton corruption that has led to the infamy of Cameroon within the world scene.
Many had hoped for a new ray of hope when the 2019 Major National Dialogue announced it was granting Special Status to the Anglophone regions. A few years down the line, however, it was unveiled as ‘just’ decentralisation that had been promised Cameroon for ages.
The regions were to remain tied to Yaoundé in many more ways than they would have wanted. Yet, even the decentralisation project that started with the 1996 Constitutional amendment remains an uphill task with all instructions still emanating from the central government in Yaoundé.
Many have argued that a smooth decentralisation process would have been an indicator of the government’s readiness to end the Anglophone crisis and listen to dissenting voices in other parts of the country. Yet, the method of operation has in 40 years, remained the same: Promise, fail, and then punish the people for asking questions.
Health Care
Biya’s many expressions have come to signify little as declarations have always never been worth the paper on which they are written. Just a few years down the line, Cameroon like the rest of the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic which laid bare its economic and health system inconsistencies, a shock the nation is yet to recover from.
To date, billions of FCFA from the COVID-19 fund have gone missing. What is more shocking, however, is that two years on, no one has been held accountable and even anti-corruption agencies appear to be scared of digging deep.
The pandemic also exposed Cameroon’s lack of readiness in emergency care for its people, as well as the flop of its supposed universal health plan for all. In his time, President Biya has overseen the construction of multiple health facilities, regional hospitals, and specialised centers. Yet, many Cameroonians continue to lack basic healthcare, while Biya and his ministers still rely on foreign healthcare systems for their treatments.
The structures, they believe, are meant to cater for the middle class who cannot afford to send themselves and their own kids abroad for treatment like the top state officials. To date, the image of Monique Koumateke – a pregnant lady who died seeking medical help at the entrance to the Laquintiinie Hospital in Douala – remains a reminder that health care like other resources, is for the highest bidder alone.
Education
Cameroon claims to have a high level of literacy, which is highly contested given the evidence of illiteracy across towns and villages. Under Biya’s New Deal government, ten state universities have been created, catering to millions of students across the country. Many, however, however, lack the basic infrastructure that is required of universities. Many Cameroonians continue to call out the mediocre nature of the educational system, advocating for significant reforms. The need for reforms remains one of the main reasons why Anglophones agitated in 2016, asking the government to preserve the Anglo-Saxon system of education.
“Government is not listening and it is so deplorable now that we have had a lot of killing…” a teacher, Gideon Tanda had told voice of America. Five years later, there remains no end in sight.
But even the Francophones are not satisfied. Many noted with dismay the protest of hundreds of Ph.D. holders asking the government for work. Months later, a nationwide teachers’ strike erupted over the no payment of salaries and allowances, as well as faulty transfers.
In 40 years, the regime and its officials who have often worsened situations with their uncouth remarks, are yet to learn the lesson: Education is way beyond signing decrees for the creation of institutions that have very low standards.
Terrorism and separatist conflict
Over the years, President Biya has come to be known as the ‘Lion Man’. He put this to the fore when in 2014, he declared war against the Boko Haram sect in the Far North of the country. President Biya’s Rapid Intervention Battalion, an elite unit, failed to make the expected progress.
Many questions about human rights abuses have however been registered with images and videos showing Cameroonian soldiers killing women and children, and burying civilians alive. The fight against Boko Haram quickly became a nightmare for Biya’s government and soldiers, leading to the creation of local vigilante groups to help in fighting the terrorist organisation.
The failure of the dreaded BIR in the Far North was further compounded by the Anglophone crisis which deteriorated into an armed conflict in 2017. Biya attempted to use the same force and tactic that had failed in the North of the country to quell the Anglophone Crisis. It similarly exposed a wide range of human rights abuses and crimes including enforced disappearances, torture, burning of villages, sexual molestation, and arrests without a warrant. The BIR wreaked and continued to wreak much havoc on the civilian population, alongside other units of the armed forces.
The absence of any commendable action to stop the carnage, experts hold, demonstrates Biya’s lack of concern for his people, dressed up over the years in beautiful patriotic slogans and songs. But beyond the smiles, beautiful suits, and patriotic chants, lies a deeper concern, that of a nation struggling to stand despite a 40-year period during which its peers have graduated and excelled.
Even the 2019 Major National Dialogue continues to be cited as a failed exercise, which is still being paraded by sycophants of the regime. The absence of core stakeholders in the crisis made futile the attempts of Prime Minister Dion Ngute to hold the chords together.
Today, what Cameroonians are left with is a reconstruction committee seeking billions, despite the continuous carnage taking place in the North West and South West regions. In all these, President Biya remains missing in action, and only surfaces to issue more threats, and declare supposed successes in a war, that has further blighted his 40-year stranglehold on Cameroon.
The question of Succession
One of the measures of a leader is often the person who succeeds them. On the eve of Biya’s reign, the person to take over the mantle remains one of the country’s biggest mysteries. A few years ago, any talk of succeeding Paul Biya as president could easily earn any Cameroonian jail time in an underground bunker. Everyone appeared scared of the dictator. Yet, the situation is fast changing. His continuous disappearance from the public eye as well as frequent visits abroad for medical care has been enough to tell Cameroonians what is next.
Yet, the fear growing in the hearts of many remains intense. This, as his close allies have expected to rule the nation based on the borrowed signature of ‘High Instructions of the Head of State’.
With this format, a lot more dirty water appears to run under the bridge. These include the release of a minister jailed for embezzling billions, as well as the alleged impunity of those believed to be responsible for missing COVID-19 billions – all on high instructions of the head of state, so it seems.
With the next presidential election in barely three years, the groundwork many believe is being laid for a successor, with very few options publicly available. However, it appears the 89-year-old dictator is willing to maintain the suspense until the very last minute: “when this mandate expires, you will be informed if I will stay or return to the village,” he told reporters in July 2022.
In a nutshell, after 40 years in power, Biya has left Cameroon a shadow of the country he inherited. With a slippery political landscape, an economy on its knees, a collapsing healthcare system, weak educational structures, a mass exodus of young people to seek opportunities in other countries, and the absence of a clear succession plan, Biya’s balance sheet seems to come up with a negative score.
(C) Mimi Mefo Info News Commentary
