Winners & losers should Biya quit power!.

Most are figured to be acting as though they know the end from the beginning and so are sure of where the nation could be headed at any given time. 

At the moment, all eyes are set on the 2025 presidentials. It is an equation in which incumbent President Paul Biya and the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, party seat at the front roll. 

Thus, Biya could be in the process of making his third run for office after the constitutional amendment of 2008, that removed term limits for the office of President of the Republic.

If the National Assembly, then did not approve of the changes, Biya would have normally quit office in 2011. 

Yet, motions of support poured in from across the nation, ‘begging’ him to seek re-election. The same happened in 2018, during which he carried the day.

We are now witnessing a replay of the same gerrymandering at almost all levels. Supporters, among them people who have been privileged to serve in government for over three decades and still counting, are vehement that Biya, for now, remains the best option to continue to lead Cameroon.

But unlike in 2011 and 2018, the context of such calls for 2025 is different, complex and difficult to tell. 

In 2011, it was easier and challenges such as the conflict in the North West and South West Regions, among others, were nonexistent in addition to Boko Haram attacks in the Northern Regions.

In 2018, these developments, coupled with a difficult global environment and new opposition figures, such as Prof Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, MRC, and Hon Cabral Libii, then under the banner of the Universe Party, had charged the atmosphere, drawing considerable attention. Yet, Biya won by landslide.

For 2025, while Biya has not confirmed if he will seek re-election or not, many are those who have no doubt about his experience as a leader but argue that given his age, the President may decide to take a deserved rest from politics. 

Those who hold to this school of thought say Biya, either by design or hard work, is a Statesman of a different breed who is already in the evening hours of everything God has offered him.

Amid all these prognostics, what remains dicey, especially for the President’s diehard supporters, is what will happen if he decides not to seek re-election come 2025.

As unpredictable as President Biya has consistently been known across the decades, such an idea is something most of those around him, analysts are saying, may not even want to hear about.

Within the opposition class, the option is good but often regarded as a pipedream, given the way Biya and the CPDM party have been entrenched into the soul of the nation. 

But as unpredictable as it may be and as finite and limited as all human beings are, pundits are already imagining what may happen if Biya decides to say a ‘thank you’ to compatriots and return to his native Mvomeka’a, Meyomessala Subdivision, Dja and Lobo Division of the South Region.

Biya unlike his cronies not afraid to talk retirement

While most of those who have been and are still in the corridors of power may be afraid to talk about Biya’s political retirement, the Head of State is at least, as per records, not afraid to discuss such a topic.

He gave Cameroonians and the world a foretaste of such during a press conference with French President, Emmanuel Macron, at the Unity Palace, in July 2022. Then, he was asked if he was still going to seek re-election.

In response, Biya gave what till date has been likened to a Maradona-like response. He was neither affirmative nor pessimistic. 

Then, he had said: "My mandate is seven years, subtract four from seven and you'll know the time I have to run affairs. Wait for my mandate to end, and then, you will know if I will continue or I will go to the village".

What if Biya decides to quit?

The time Biya had given for all to wait to know his next plan of action is already playing out. In the next 12 months, it is either he will be running for office or retiring to the village. What if he retires?  What will become of his many aficionados, whom many pundits say have been able to feed, make noise and command influence in Cameroon for decades thanks to President Biya.

Observers say if Biya quits, the Cameroonian political scene will be full of losers and winners. 

They analyse that even if the CPDM fields a candidate for next year’s election and the person wins or an opposition candidate triumphs, he or she would want to work with his/her her own confidants, classmates, loyalists and friends. 

Losers, winners if Biya quits 

Having been in the corridors of power for decades, rising through the ranks before landing the nation’s top job in 1982, Biya, some are saying, has raised men to the fore across all sectors of national life.

The number, analysts say, is even more in his over 41 years and still counting presidency. On the basis of this, if he quits power, many are those who say it would be a political tsunami of sorts that will rattle the nation.

In such a scenario, political scientists say, even if the successor is from within the CPDM, there will be a clean sweep across all sectors of public life. 

Those who are reading and making projections along these lines, say some of the dismissals from government may even be shocking. 

Annalistically, pundits say there may even be more losers than winners, given that Cameroon boasts of institutions with overlapping functions.  Others say, some of the institutions are creations of Biya to satisfy his associates and classmates.

From the Presidency of the Republic to the Senate, National Assembly, through the Prime Ministry, ministries, several state corporations and more, observers are unanimous, many people will go home, should a new president, either from the ruling CPDM party or the opposition, takes over power in 2025.

Beginning with both the Senate and the National Assembly, analysts say the two personalities who head these institutions; Hon Marcel Niat Njifenji and Hon Cavaye Yegue Djibril, already displaying poor health and fatigue, may not survive sack, even if a new Head of State is from the CPDM.

The same is being said of the aging presidents of the Economic and Social Council, Ayang Luc and the president of the Constitutional Council, Clement Atangana.

It goes without saying that a new president will want to work with a new Prime Minister, Head of Government, Secretary General at the Presidency and Director of the Civil Cabinet at the Presidency.

Given that a new Head of State will obviously want to have a new diplomatic policy, most Ambassadors and career diplomats would be recalled.   

Those hoping for change say they see in such a scenario ministers, Directors General and General Managers, for instance, who have become old and unproductive, among those likely to be sent packing.

Ministers, some of whom have clocked 20 years and still counting in the same ministries under Biya, it is also being projected, could be good material for firing. 

Others who are known to be harbingers for controversies and scandals, are also pictured to fall in that category.

Even at other echelons, the scores of retirees across sectors such as civil administration wherein all Governors are already on retirement with the same scenario for almost all Senior Divisional Officers, SDOs, is good ground for renewal under a new Head of State.

Supposing that a new Head of State will change the entire government, the tsumani could extend to Directors and Sub Directors in the Central Administration, Regional, Divisional and Sub Divisional Delegates of the various ministries with new ministers. 

Added to these, are heads of moribund institutions and other senior Statesmen, who are earning aggregately billions, either as Board Chairpersons or in other institutions. A new leader, it is being said, would waste no time sending them packing. 

All those who once served in high state offices, went home and were brought back to the fold of service, are also among persons whom, forecasters say, must go home if Biya leaves power.

Worst case scenario if opposition candidate triumphs 

The sweep, it is also being said, may be worst if it is an opposition candidate who wins the election. 

In such a scenario, the new president is analysed within the prism of coming in with his/her political party peers, political allies, friends, and loyalists. 

In the winning camp, new names, especially from the civil society and the Cameroonian Diaspora, it is also said, may be called to join the league of deciders-in-chief to shape the nation’s future.

Come what may, scholars say where Cameroon is, such a scenario, cannot totally be ruled out. They say and rightly so, that predictions and adjustments may become clearer when Biya reacts to the multiple calls for him to run for office again in 2025. The months ahead, bookmakers say, are pregnant for Cameroon. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3248 of Thursday October 03, 2024