Kamto's return: Stop disgracing President Biya!.

He added that the parties will help “stimulate a contrasting and constructive political debate”. 

But what Cameroonians and the world watched in awe last Sunday in Douala as the leader of one of the political parties, Prof Maurice Kamto, returned after a rally in Paris, was at variance with the liberties President Biya preaches on a numerous occasion abroad and at home.

According to concordant and consistent national and international media reports, Kamto had informed the Douala authorities of his arrival on Sunday to follow with a meeting at the party's headquarters in the city.

It was panic as if a foreign force was about to invade the economic capital. Both the police, gendarmes and the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, of Wouri, Mvogo Sylac Marie, signed fiats proscribing commercial motorbikes on Saturday and Sunday from the airport to the down town MRC office.

The bustling areas of the economic capital came to a standstill. Even taxi drivers were afraid of the unknown and avoided the streets as shops around the area closed down.

Sensing the tension, Kamto arrived on Saturday as his supporters and sympathisers, estimated by party officials at 10,000, trooped to the streets on Sunday for a triumphant welcoming.

At the Deido neighbourhood, where the MRC headquarters is located, thousands of supporters assembled, singing songs in praise of the MRC leader, and the national anthem of Cameroon under the gaze of apparently helpless law enforcement and security personnel, deployed in large numbers.

The crowd continued to grow throughout the day, raising the possibility of clashes between the activists, enthusiastic about meeting their leader, and the police and gendarmes assigned to supervise them.

A video on social media showed a senior police officer telling the teeming crowd that: “There will be no meeting at the MRC headquarters. The message is clear; there won’t be a meeting at the MRC headquarters today. He'll meet you where he's staying. You are asked to leave”.

The crowd sang, and kudos to the security operatives they remained calm.

Later at 4p.m., Kamto posted a short video on his social media, in which he announced that he was "captured", as he put it, at his residence.

He called for demobilisation and invited his supporters to return home. 

"I would have liked to meet you at the headquarters of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement in Deido, but as I speak, I am still captured, and it is 4p.m. I would not want such a meeting, if it were still possible, to take place at night. There is no iota of surprise for the forces of law and order in Douala. We have been transparent and wanted this to be Republican with their support,” Kamto declared.

He said authorities cannot be claiming there is a threat to public peace and order when in 13 years since the MRC was created, there has never been any rowdiness anywhere.

Kamto said in all his political meetings and visits across the country, people flood to meet him but no incident has ever been recorded. He ended by inviting his supporters to return home.

It was the end of an unprecedented day of panic, fear, resilience and mobilisation in the streets of Douala, a city suddenly under high tension. Kamto said those creating tension should take responsibility for whatever happened.

What happened is that the image of Cameroon on the eve of a presidential election has been smeared by the overzealousness of bureaucrats. 

International media radar zoomed on Cameroon, describing Yaounde as authoritarian, undemocratic and stifling freedoms, which are the core of democracy.

Why do those who use protection of "public peace and order" proscribe militants from receiving their party officials?

Is it what they do when the national president of the ruling party arrives at the airport and is often received by dance groups?

Is there any law that prevents political parties or social society organisations from holding meetings in their offices? Should a politician be blocked in his residence for committing no offence?

The officials in their overzealousness are instead doing more harm to the personality of President Biya, an apostle of liberties and making Kamto, his rival at the October elections a hero, who when he sneezes, they catch a cold.

With the presidential election at the corner, there surely will be many political assemblies and rallies. The overzealous officials hankering for promotions by their action should know, as Rosa Luxembong, a German political theorist, writes: "Without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly; without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of itself".   

President Biya is opposed to that scenario in Douala, which should not be replicated elsewhere as he wants an "enriched political terrain", which is a guarantor of justice and peace.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3469 of Tuesday June 10, 2025