For a second year running, the President of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, Maurice Kamto has like President Paul Biya addressed Cameroonians during the end of year.
In his December 31, 2020 speech, Maurice Kamto based his discourse on four main key points; The escalation of the Anglophone crisis by the Biya regime, the Social Regression of the Country, the Degradation of the economic and Political atmosphere of the country, and the complete assumption of an authoritarian approach of the CPDM party in the leadership of the country.
In a speech that was characterized by clusters of attacks on the Biya led government, Maurice Kamto was highly critical of the inability of the government to adequately handle the ongoing conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions of the country.
According to the MRC president, it is due to the incompetence of the government that had led the crisis be this deteriorated in the Anglophone regions. To him, the government was doing everything but nothing to solve the crisis.
In this regard, he outlined three major propositions through which the crisis can be solved.
He cited amongst others, a call for an imminent ceasefire from the troubled regions, the release of all prisoners in connection to the Anglophone crisis, laying special emphasis to Ayuk Sisiku Tabe, and a call for an unconditional dialogue that will involve discussions on the form of state as well as electoral reforms.
The MRC president was equally critical of the government handling of the global health pandemic, Corona virus. He noted that as a result of the pandemic, over 54,000 Cameroonians were placed on technical unemployment as hundreds of enterprises prematurely had to temporarily shut down, as well as over 14,000 other Cameroonians who equally lost their jobs.
This, Kamto Maurice blamed on the state’s inability to anticipate and manage crisis in Cameroon without a spilling effect of it being hard felt by Cameroonians.
Maurice Kamto equally dedicated a section of his speech to open up on the events of September 22, 2020 that saw he and other CRM party bigwigs placed under detention.
He called the acts of the regime to suffocate the CRM party and it’s ideologies as dictatorial.
He by this gave a call for the immediate release of all who had been arrested in connection with the September 22, nationwide protests.
He used the opportunity to salute the bravery of Cameroonians who had defied the odds to stand up to the forces of repression who had been sent out to foil the protests. According to Maurice Kamto, he and his allies are not going to back down unless Cameroonians receive the change they deserve.
The politician also made nonsense of the just ended Regional Elections. According to him, it was a non event and his party boycotted the elections because of the government’s inability to solve the Anglophone crises and the denial to institute better electoral reforms in the country.
In his speech, he equally brought up what was probably the most scandalous story of the repression of press freedom in the form of the Samuel Wazizi affair. Wazizi is a Buea based journalists who was abducted by military forces from Buea in August 2018 and was only discovered to have died 10 months later. Though there was wide outrage and a call for a proper Investigation on the affair of Samuel Wazizi, the government has somehow evaded the question. In Kamto’s speech, he did well to bring it up as he mentioned the year had finally come to an end without any concrete answers as to the case of Samuel Wazizi.