Regime barons dispel rumours of Biya’s death.

The varied outings surfaced Tuesday. But for the CDU, it remains unclear the capacity in which Fame Ndongo and Gregoire Owona issued statements in relation to the death rumours.

Fame Ndongo is member of the Political Bureau of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM and Communication Secretary of the same party. He is also Minister of State, Minister of Higher Education.

Gregoire Owona is Minister of Labour and Social Security and at the same time Deputy Secretary General of the Central Committee of the CPDM.

 According to Gregoire Owona, those spreading information claiming President Paul Biya is not alive “must pay a heavy price”.

Minister Gregoire Owona made the remarked in a statement on his social media handle, Facebook. According to the member of government, “those who attempt in various ways to deceive public opinion by announcing the death of the Head of State of Cameroon must pay a heavy price, following such a gross lie”.

‘Take action against impostors’ 

He lamented that the authors of such rumours whom he referred to as “impostors,’ will have to face the competent institutions of the Republic…since they no longer have any human conscience, the appropriate institutions must stand up against these impostors wherever they come from and wherever they broadcast”.

“Meanness, hate have limits”

In further condemnation of what he considers manipulation, Minister Greogoire Owona said though Cameroon is a democracy, there is a limit to being mean and  hate. “We are in a democracy but meanness and hate have a limit”.

Fame Ndongo says claim strange, crusades calm

For his part, Minister Fame Ndongo also expressed his outburst on the same matter on social media. He wrote describing the report of what he said is Biya’s supposed death as a strange ploy.

The CPDM Communication Secretary recounted that: "A foreign TV channel announces on this day (Tuesday October 8, 2024), the death of the Head of State, His Excellency Paul Biya. The news is totally unfounded. This phantasmagorical ploy should not shake the political maturity, lucidity and patriotism of Cameroonians and friends of our dear and beautiful country”.

 He added that: “Universal journalism is based on facts, not elucidations or doltish news. It adheres strictly to the approach inherent in experimental sciences (observation, hypothesis, verification, law) enshrined by Gaston Bachelard, for journalism is an art, a technique and a science".

Ministers Gregoire Owona and Prof Fame Ndongo are the first adherents of Biya and members of government to have come out without blinking to dispel the rumoured death of the Head of State.   

The video clip, which origin and source many say are fake, had generated a lot of mixed reactions within the public space. While some are arguing that the fake video is the handiwork of some persons based in the Diaspora to set confusion in Cameroon, there are those who are arguing that the development is not unconnected to local politics back home.

Opposition demands explanation

In a statement issued same yesterday, Tomaino Ndam Njoya, national president of the opposition Cameroon Democratic Union, CDU, pressed for answers from government on Biya’s whereabouts.

Ndam Ndoya denounced the silence on the President’s whereabouts and arguments surrounding his state of health among others. She equally said the Minister of External Relations, Lejeune Mbella Mbella, sat in for Biya at the summit of the International Organisation of La Francophonie, IOF, without any explanations given to Cameroonians as to why the Head of State was absent.

The CDU party leader observed that: “To date, His Excellency Paul Biya has still not returned to the country to continue assuming his high functions”, adding that: “… in view of his age and rumours about his state of health, which would have suffered a blow during the trip, public opinion is reduced to various speculations and from various sources including social networks”.

Such informal reports, she said, “are likely to dangerously influence the normal course of the daily life of citizens and institutions of the Republic”. 

Given his position as Head of State, the CDU said it is “the legitimate right” of citizens “to know at any time and in all circumstances the situation and his physical position”.

The CDU urged the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency, Government Spokesperson or other official institutions to provide vital information to the citizenry on the President’s whereabouts and his situation.

Such information, she said, “will put an end to these dangerous speculations, which will get worse,” adding that “there is no need to maintain a climate of suspicion in an already fragile context, which we all must protect”. 

Ndam Njoya further appealed to citizens to remain vigilant, ensure the respect of State institutions, social peace and cohesion in the present context.

The CDU, in its statement, also touched on what the law says in the event of vacancy at the helm of State, but remarked that: “As believers, we pray to the Eternal God to watch over the President of the Republic of Cameroon…”.

Context 

The outing came in the wake of rumours and the circulation of a video clip with content which experts say is Artificial Intelligence, AI, claiming the Head of State is no longer alive.

The rumoured death comes within a particular context. The information is surfacing following 31 days since the Head of State was last seen leaving the Chinese capital of Beijing, on September 8, 2024. This was after he took part at the 4^th Forum on China-Africa Summit.

Biya not new to death rumours

Biya, for one thing, is not new to such rumours.  In June 2004, similar rumours made rounds across the globe.  Yet, President Biya returned home buoyant from a foreign trip and dismissed the rumours as a non-event.  He had then even sarcastically replied those wishing him dead to wait for twenty years.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3254 of Wednesday October 09, 2024