Editorial: 2025 elections; How not to trigger popular revolt.

The first of the categories of culprits will be "any person who calls for an uprising against the institutions of the Republic". 

The second type concerns the offender who "dangerously insults the institutions of state or the person who embodies them by any means of communication used in Mfoundi Division". 

The third categories are those the administrator will accuse, prosecutes and find guilty of "undertaking maneuvers likely to cause serious disturbance to public order”. 

The order does not only target leading opposition politicians who have promised hell on earth if there are no free, fair, transparent, inclusive and credible elections next year, but journalists too.

The divisional instruction has triggered critical reactions across board. 

Le Messager newspaper wrote that "with his order, the Prefect brought the capital of Cameroon back to an exceptional regime, the one that prevailed before the vote of the liberty laws of 1990”.

“Yaounde has now entered a regime of pure and hard dictatorship, where any person who dares to raise their head will simply be thrown out like trash, or in prison in some corners of the country, even if the order does not expressly say so,” the newspaper detailed. 

In echo, Hon Cabral Libii of the Cameroonian Party for National Reconciliation, PRCN, who came third at the last presidential election, said: “Assuming that the document bearing the signature of the Prefect of Mfoundi is not fake, it seems absolutely necessary to denounce this striking and unacceptable authoritarian drift”. 

He added: “Neither the law of 1990 on the maintenance of order, nor the decree of 2008 fixing the duties of the heads of administrative units...give the Prefect the power to prohibit a citizen from a temporary stay in a Division in Cameroon. This power doesn't exist even in a state of emergency”.

Cabral Libii also described it as “a violation of the constitution from which citizens get the right to live normal lives". 

He also argued that it is “a serious violation of all Cameroon's international commitments devoted to freedom of expression and opinion”.

On the disrespect of certain public office holders, he said such “is already included in the Criminal Procedure Code”, before maintaining that the order, if it is not fake, represents “a historical democratic regression”. 

In his own condemnation of the administrative decree, international lawyer and anti-corruption advocate, Barrister Akere Muna, in a statement on his X, formerly Twitter handle, wrote: “If authentic, this document is deeply concerning for our country. The Prefect claims the authority to determine offenses, judge individuals, and impose bans on them from residing in Yaounde, the capital city, for an unspecified period”.

Akere Muna then questioned: “How can one person claim to wield such power, disregarding the constitution and international agreements, tarnishing our nation's reputation? Are we regressing to a time when citizens needed a ‘Laisser Passer’ to travel within our own borders?

“Does this mean that individuals judged by the Prefect will be deported, regardless of their residency status?” he further questioned. 

The former president of the Cameroon Bar Council added that the “situation is alarming, and reflects a breakdown of our society's values of unity”.

The order, which has been trending in the social media and reported on the conventional media, has, however, not been refuted as false by the administrator.

Administrators generally have power to disband or prevent meetings, which at the spur of the moment they guess could lead to a breach of public peace.

There is also the criminal legal jurisdiction and the National Communication Council that sanction those who libel individuals, even if they do not "embody state institutions".

Some of the categories the SDO targets have previously been dragged to courts, NCC and even the military tribunal. 

Does he now want to replace them with his own draconian order?

Can such overzealousness not boomerang? Historically and beefed up by research, the uprising which the regime is scared of, and threatening opposition leaders like the MINAT boss did during the last Governors' Conference are often without leaders.

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organisation that supports democracy worldwide, in a research report titled: "A decade of popular uprising in Africa 2011-2021", notes that: "Consensus has formed among scholars that Africa’s popular uprisings are not always as impulsively triggered as they first appear to be. They are often the consequences of many years of bad governance, corruption and misrule; of poverty and socio-economic marginalisation of segments of the population; and of human rights violations and political disenfranchisement, all of which engender grievances that eventually boil over".

Even if the SDO and other government apologists are in the Halleluiah fraternity of the regime, which is their right, he should not compound the painful grievances.

For the interest of peace, "living together", freedoms and human rights, The Guardian Post advises the SDO to repeal his order that could do more harm than good to the country's nascent democratisation process.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3173 of Friday July 19, 2024