Paul Biya Launches Campaigns in Maroua; Stakes and Challenges
The incumbent President, and flagbearer for the Cameroon People Democratic Movement (CPDM) party, H.E Paul Biya, is in Maroua, Far North Region, for a working visit.
According to information from the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency, H.E. Paul Biya, accompanied by wife, Chantal Biya, shall launch the national campaign, as candidate for the CPDM party.
His visit comes on the heels of invitation offered him by the population of Maroua last August 2018. The Mayor of Maroua I, Hamadou Idou, on August 24, 2018, invited the CPDM Presidential flagbearer, on behalf of the population, to launch his campaigns in the capital of the Far North Region.
Handing the invitation letter to the Minister of territorial Administration (MINAT), Paul Atanga Nji, the Mayor insisted that President Biya will secure 100 percent votes for candidate Biya, come the October 7 presidential polls.
It was during an occasion where the MINAT boss handed bags of rice, millet, soap, vegetable oil, tonnes of sardines, and financial packages, on behalf of President Paul Biya, to victims who suffered the ravages of floods in the nights of July 24 to 25, 2018.
Stakes and Challenges Of Biya’s Visit:
A lot has changed since President Paul Biya last visited Maroua in 2011. While he announced Agriculture as his topmost priority if he were elected in 2011, the population of Maroua and the Far North Region, has witnessed sweeping changes that have completely changed their way of life in that Muslim dominated Region.
The Boko Haram, insurgency has been the biggest challenge in the far North Region. Since 2014, the soaring socioeconomic emergence of Maroua seems to have been puncture by the battle to crackdown on the Boko Haram insurgency.
Concurrently, President Paul Biya declared war against Boko Haram militias in France, hence, the commencement of full-fledged war in the extreme North. This is the first time, Paul Biya, will set foot to the land he declared war, perhaps, to take stuck on the level of progress made in completely wiping out the militant group.
Another aspect that has been pre-occupying the population of Maroua, is the recurrent floods plaguing parts of the city and the Region.
It’s a normalcy that when rains pour heavily, the river Logon will overflow into people’s houses and properties. Such has been the case, every year since Biya last went there. Though the government has been assisting victims of such incidents, the population have however been crying for a long-term solution to the menace. Candidate Biya will surely use the opportunity to talk on the climate change challenges, and the measures that have been taken by to revitalise the Lake Chad basin.
The CPDM flagbearer shall no doubt, be dwelling on the huge investments that have befallen the Far North Region, since the resurgence of the Boko Haram militancy. Education, health, and socioeconomic revamp, have been the topmost priority of the government, in integrating the population to activities that will distract them away from being lured by the Boko Haram group.
He shall summarise all of that with a call for the population of the Far North Region, to give him another 7 years mandate.
Why Maroua is strategic:
There’s no gain saying that Maroua has always stood tall as the city with the highest number of electors. Maroua in particular and the Extreme North in general, have always facilitated President Paul Biya’s overwhelming majority at the previous elections.
Latest figures from ELECAM put the number of registered voters in the Far North at over One million which is above other regions in Cameroon.
That perhaps, tells us why there has been a huge trooping of the different presidential candidates to the extreme North.
Therefore, Candidate Paul Biya is returning to Maroua after his 2011 massive successes at the presidential polls, to thank the population for the previous confidences bestowed on him, and to request for a fresh mandate come Sunday October 7, 2018.
Y. Fonki