Kamto spits fire ahead of 2025 presidentials!.

Prof Kamto issued what has been interpreted as a warning to the powers that be, during a press conference he organised at the MRC party headquarters in Yaounde, Friday May 10. 

Facing journalists among whom he said were secret service agents, Prof Kamto said he had gone through the worst in the hands of the Biya regime but warned that things won’t be the same again in 2025.

He dared the Yaounde regime to try him with regards to the 2025 presidential poll and face the outcome of “the music”. According to the former Minister Delegate to the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, the time for begging the regime in place to do things the right way had long passed.

As he settled down to face the press, blackout set in. This, he said, was done by the government to frustrate him. 

“They took away light. It was not taken by ENEO. I know that the police and security agents are in the hall more than journalists. They should do their republican duty. I am talking because of the gravity of the events that have transpired on the Cameroonian political scene without any appropriate response from those in power,” he declared. 

Kamto presented himself and the MRC as being ready to overcome all hurdles to make a mark in the next presidential election.

He however maintained that depending on the reaction of stakeholders in the country’s electoral process, particularly regime barons, his posture won’t be that of a weakling.

“Time for begging over”

“To CPDM elite, we are no longer watching your antics. We have been begging that you should respect the law. We will register and get to the polls in 2025, don’t try it. I am telling you. The police that are here, let them open their telephone lines so that their masters can follow us live. I am telling you in all calmness; in 2025, it will take whatever it will take and those who will be alive, will fix the country,” the MRC leader declared.

“We are ready for violence if you want…”

The MRC leader drummed massive voter registration, expressing the desire to see the names of at least 12 million potential voters on the electoral register. 

According to him, Cameroonians must register and vote massively in 2025, “to embarrass all enemies of peace by all pacific means”.

He was emphatic that: “I say register to go to the polls in peace. But if people want that the country should slip into violence, then we are ready for it. Nobody intimidates me, Maurice Kamto. I have gone through all the phases. I am fighting for my country. Whatever it will take, even if it means paying the ultimate price, I am ready. I am saying this so that security officers don’t waste their time”.

“We will dance to rhythm of your music”

He underscored that: “If you don’t want elections to take place in peace so that you pass through it and take my life, there is no problem.”, 

He added that the security should not bother to make meaning out of his utterances because going by him, the message is clear.

“Don’t suffer to interpret what I have said. I am saying all of us have died. It has been 12 years that we have been saying let’s do this in peace, reform the Electoral Code...It has not produced anything. We will dance to your music. I think you have understood me. We will dance to the rhythm of their music,” Kamto insisted.

Claims regime working multiple options to continue ruling

Further making a reading of the political climate, Kamto claimed the regime in place is already working out mechanisms to continue ruling. 

Going by Kamto, such mechanisms are absurd, given what he said are outright failures of the Biya regime in 43 years [by the time the current mandate expires next year, President Biya will clock 43 years in power]. 

Kamto did not rule out what he also claimed are some people working for what he termed “an electoral coup d’etat,” with the help of elections management body, Elections Cameroon, ELECAM. 

The second option, he said, is “a military coup d’etat”. 

Kamto said the military must denounce and reject a coup d’etat, because Cameroonians love peace. He added that this is in the mind of those who fear the CPDM could lose elections next year.

Claims ATP coalition creation of regime

Besides the above two options to maintain the Biya regime in power, Kamto said the opposition coalition, Alliance Pour Une Transition Politique, ATP, is a government-backed movement to drown his efforts.

He claimed the movement clamouring for political transition is a third option the regime is also nursing to keep Biya at the helm of state, depending on circumstances, given unforeseen political mutations.

Kamto claimed there are “two situations of coup d’états. An Electoral coupe d’état is being prepared with the complicity of ELECAM. There is also a military coup that is also being prepared,” he claimed.

He however sounded optimistic that: “Ahead of the twin elections [municipal and legislative] and presidential election, Cameroonians will have an opportunity to do away with a regime that has served them humiliation, injustice and sufferings for several years”. 

Even though he didn’t mention names, the ATP is fronted by the scholar, Prof Olivier Bile. It is said to enjoy the backing of key opposition movements. 

Kamto said the regime formed the movement, shortly after the Alliance for Political Change, APC, headed by Hon Jean Mitchel Nintcheu started mobilising support for him ahead of the 2025 presidential poll. 

Most of those supporting it, he said, are seeking for ministerial compensation to continue supporting the Biya regime.

He claimed that the ATP coalition “rather supports a transition led by the CPDM. While we fight constantly, those who are trying to organise a coup d’etat and others are working silently.  Cameroonians should take note. We will not continue like this.   We see the scenario. Their discussion has evolved. They say we should go to elections for transition. They want ministerial positions. Without this, they want a military take over. We have said, we want change in peace. Don’t say what we have not said”.

Calls for a political transition, he said, are “to maintain the regime in place. They see defeat and the army should intervene. Transition is a time to scramble for positions. We cannot re-establish a regime that Cameroonians don’t want”.

Notwithstanding the dynamics, the MRC leader said the Biya regime has lost touch with Cameroonians and should give way. 

“I solemnly warn those who have realised that their political rupture with the Cameroonian people is consumed and are trying to foment a military coup d’état that they are writing a very bad story,” Kamto underscored.

“Can’t light fire in a gas depot & expect to come out alive”

He further declared that those behind the multiple options he claimed are to keep Biya in power are “are planning a terribly scenario which they do not master”. 

The opposition politician argued that: “The authors don’t also master the history of Cameroon. The authors don’t also know the actual state of the country and the world that surround us. The Cameroonian people will not accept any form of forfeiture. You have to be a stupid dreamer or blinded by arrogance to open the Pandora box in Cameroon, thinking that nothing will come out. In trying to kill the devil against the wall, he will end up appearing”.

He warned that those who “think they can light fire in a gas depot and come out live, are lying. We all will die in the gas depot”. 

On this note, he warned the military to reject what he claims are maneuvers to stage a coup, in case Biya loses the next election, given that “Cameroonians are attached to peace”.

“MRC also has capacity to disrupt all CPDM gatherings” 

Kamto decried what he said has been the systematic ban of all MRC meetings nationwide. He cited cases in the Far North Region and other areas, which he said were triggered by CPDM regime heavyweights. 

According to him, Cameroon belongs to all citizens and nobody will stop the MRC again.

“It suffices for a CPDM elite to say the coming of MRC will disturb us and our meetings will be banned,” Kamto quipped but declared that: “It should also be said that we have the capacity to disrupt all CPDM meetings. Those who want that the country should be in disorder should take note”.

He added that: “Some people are not more Cameroonian than others. We are not a sleeping people. We are responsible men and women. We respect the institutions of the Republic and should be respected. We respect the laws and institutions of the land. We are not asking for anything. We are not asking for any favours. We are asking for the strict respect of the laws of the land”.

“We’ll function, whether they like it or not”

The former minister said it has become a tradition that wherever the MRC applies for authorisation to hold a meeting, administrators claim there will be confrontations. 

He then questioned: “Clashes with who?”, before responding in the affirmative that: “But we know that it is the CPDM elite who are always panicking. They burnt our party materials in Maroua. Today, they don’t want us to organise any meeting in our country?”. 

He also thundered: “Who told them that the Far North Region belongs to them? That the South Region belongs to them? Who told the CPDM that the West Region, Littoral or the Centre Region belongs to them? It is part of Cameroon; it is part of our country and we will exercise our rights, whether they like it or not. When the time comes to launch our political activities, I can assure you that we will do it, irrespective of what they do. It is enough, you should respect Cameroonians”.

“If you want a one-party state, tell us”

The MRC leader further raised worries over a situation he pictures as the regime in place rather working towards a one-party state.

Along this line of reasoning, he said: “If they want a one-party state, they should say it. They can do it through parliament, where the CPDM has an obese majority. If they claim we are a democratic country, they should allow political parties to function without applying speed brakes”.

“It is time for change”

Kamto postulated that circumstances signal the need for change in Cameroon. Without mentioning the name of the Head of State, he described President Biya as someone whom Heaven and his predecessor, the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo, handed power to, on a platter of gold. 43 years down the line, Kamto said everything signals the need for change.

“Give the right to Cameroonians. After 43 years, they should have the courage to do an introspection to see if they have done what is needed. We will respect the decision of Cameroonians.  We can’t claim to be patriots, yet working every day to destroy the country,” Kamto averred.

He said in the last decade, Cameroonians have been saying: “There is someone whom Heaven and his predecessor handed power to him. He has done what he was supposed to have done.  Circumstances say it is time. Give the chance to other Cameroonians to do what they can do for the country”.

Accuses ELECAM of collision, MINAT boss of hijacking electoral process

Still in line with ongoing workings ahead of future elections, Kamto accused the country’s election management body, ELECAM, of colluding with the regime in place to temper with voter registration and vital aspects of electioneering. 

He brought the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, in the picture as someone who has hijacked the entire process in violation of the laws in place.

Further reasoning on what he considers as an unholy entente between MINAT and the Director General of Elections at ELECAM, Dr Erik Essousse, and the Chairman of the Electoral Board of ELECAM, Dr Enow Abrams Egbe, Kamto called for their resignations. 

According to him, the two officials have surrendered the independence of ELECAM to the government.

Fingers ELECAM over statistics of potential voters

Kamto said ELECAM is working to prevent “as many Cameroonians as possible from exercising their civic responsibility, come 2025. Only seven million Cameroonians registered on the electoral register in 10 years”. 

He also claimed that: “We were at 20 million in 2020 and ELECAM said only about 7 million persons registered. In 2024, we are about 30 million, yet we are told the total number of Cameroonians who have registered on the electoral resister is 7.5 million!”.

Kamto claimed the announcement of 200,000 new potential voters registered in the first quarter of 2024 is against what he said has been ELECAM’s practice of registering averagely 28,000 new voters annually in the last decade.

“In my 2022 end of year message and at the end of our congress, I talked of manipulation of figures on the country’s electoral registers. On March 25, 2024, ELECAM published the list of potential voters showing some spectacular changes,” he said, but argued that the changes cannot clean the institution’s image.

In the reasoning of Kamto: “From January 2012 to 31 December 2022, and in the course of 2023, ELECAM claimed it had not registered more than 28,000 people yearly on the electoral register. Without doubt, wounded in their ego, they decided to raise the bar between January and March 2024, to around 50,000 new registered voters per month. These figures are below the reality, looking at the voter registration momentum. Every stakeholder can attest to that nationwide”.

He also accused the institution of conniving with a certain traditional ruler, Vincent Mohammad in Massangam, Noun Division of the West Region, to enroll CPDM supporters. He asserted that this was done in complicity with the police.

Enrolling Cameroonian Diaspora on voters’ register

He also queried ELECAM over Diaspora registration, which he claimed started only this month, whereas it was supposed to have started in January. 

Kamto said it also sounds strange that the institution is demanding for documents outside the Consular Card and passport to register Cameroonians in the Diaspora. He argued that the request is against the law.

He insisted that: “They have a right to political participation in the life of their country and must be allowed to register and vote”.

The MRC leader said ELECAM cannot be complaining of kits having problems, whereas it receives billions from the state annually for that purpose. 

He said he rather sees in this a calculated conspiracy to limit Diaspora Cameroonians from registering to vote.

Wants persons behind bars to vote 

Kamto used last Friday’s outing to also clamour for the rights of persons in detention to vote. He said those in pre-trial detention and those jailed with cases on appeal deserve to still enjoy the right of presumption of innocence.  On this score, such persons, he said, should be allowed to register and vote.

He also decried that the “non-respect of the law on the distribution of parliamentary seats in line with population statistics of the 2005 census, published on April 14, 2010, for the legislative election”. 

97 percent of young people fleeing Cameroon 

On other issues, Kamto said the poor management of the country has caused 97 percent of the youths to flee the country in search of greener pastures elsewhere.

He argued that the statistics of those fleeing the country tie with the reality on the grown because young people don’t have opportunities to excel. Kamto robbed in the situation of teachers and medical personnel as also fleeing in droves. 

The 2018 presidential election runner up, said the situation is persisting because of the “humiliation the government” has inflicted on those category of personnel”.