Belo Bouba To quit or not to quit?.

With Tchiroma having ended the pact of his Cameroon National Salvation Front, FSNC, party with President Paul Biya, the political sails up North are said to hold something more serious with respect to the October presidentials.

For one thing, Tchiroma, in an open letter to Cameroonians, insinuated strongly that this could just be the year since independence, that an incumbent Head of State will not be a candidate in a presidential race!

While there is still room for time to prove him right or wrong, there are projections that Biya’s trusted allies of the Grand North are reading and seeing things differently now.

Aware of their role in keeping Biya as Head of State, in successive polls, the ambiance within most of such political parties, months to this year’s presidential election, which Biya for now is expected to take part in, many say, is unusual.

One of such political outfits, the National Union for Democracy and Progress, NUDP, of Bello Bouba Maigari, is also pictured to be in such mood.

The party, some of its local elected leaders have insinuated, needs to take a break from its support for Biya and chart a new course.

While such echoes have been mostly from the base, the man who incarnates the party, Bello Bouba Maigari, analysts say, is the one shouldering the responsibility of what to do next.

Bello Bouba, Biya’s first Prime Minister when he became Head of State, and longtime senior member of government, has, for days, been pictured and factored into going the Tchiroma way!

But till day, all of such analyses bear nothing concrete, except for Tchiroma, who has boldly withdrawn FSNC’s support for Biya. Bello Bouba has been Minister of State, Minister of Tourism and Leisure, since 2011.

Crucial NUDP Central C’ttee meeting tomorrow

Aside the fresh opposition wild wind Tchiroma has sparked with goal to achieve a regime change in the October election, the position of Bello Bouba Maigari and his UNDP is expected to be known tomorrow.

The party will hold a crucial Central Committee meeting at the Yaounde Conference Centre. In a release issued June 6, Bello Bouba had indicated that the agenda of the crucial meeting will only be disclosed once invitees are in session.

What has left many expecting the unusual to happen at the end of the meeting is that Bello Bouba had indicated in the note that tomorrow’s meeting “will be exceptionally open to members of the National Council and members of the Permanent Secretariats of the Steering Committees of Ancillary organs”.

Speculations around the meeting’s explosive nature, it is being said, is measured with the political signs across the North, Far North and Adamawa Regions, where the UNDP has its base. Political analysts say the message from the grassroots supports an end to the party’s alliance with Biya.

Recently, a senior official of the party in Benoue Division, North Region, Ahadji Yaouba Souley, hinted that the UNDP will invest its candidate for the October poll.

Before his outing, it was the mayor of the UNDP-run Touboro Council in Mayo-Rey Division of the North Region, Celestin Yandal, who reportedly threatened grassroots disavowal of Bello Bouba, if he continues to support Biya.

Yandal, who is said to have been part of the group fronting for change, is quoted as having said: "If Bello Bouba remains an ally of Paul Biya this year, we are no longer going to support him”.

However, what is left to be seen is if Bello Bouba would subscribe to such calls, which others assert, have been loud in recent times. 

With the posture of Tchiroma now, it is projected around certain quarters that Bello Bouba could be in for his last days in government.

Many have since the start of this week projected that he could resign from government and also announce that the NUDP is looking to a new alliance that would challenge the status quo in October. 

Within such frames, many are concurring that irrespective of the opinion of those invited to tomorrow’s meeting, it is Bello Bouba alone as party’s leader who has a date with history.

As a key political figure and patriarch from the Northern Regions, the stakes of tomorrow’s meeting, pundits say, point to something unusual in the offing. 

The question on the lips of many is whether he will reassure President Biya of his party’s support or follow Issa Tchiroma of the FSNC, to resign and crusade regime change?

There have been media reports, among them some, emphatic that latest June 30, Bello Bouba, will officially notify the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute, of his resignation from government and quit Yaounde like Tchiroma.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3486 of Friday June 27, 2025