Cameroon on life support!.

Yet, many argue that the hope of Cameroonians, which is stronger than fear, is nearing its end, given the several negative mutations and happenings that are characterising every aspect of national life. 

The Head of State, Biya, with a record of being a legalist, critics say, has fallen short of respecting even basic texts in force, leaving many questioning where the country is heading to.

When he took the oath of office on November 6, 2025, Biya threw a jibe at the opposition, which he mocked claims his leadership has produced nothing for Cameroon.

However, renewed criticisms have surfaced, with many asserting that the outplay of many things, especially in government, show the country is on life support, with many things surviving on theatrics.

Cameroon, it is being said, is a country now begging for renewal at almost all levels.  Such expectation, many are lamenting, has not been forthcoming for as long as the prospect has been on. 

Others have summed up the country as an entity, with several strongmen and very weak institutions, giving room for what governance experts posit is complete disarray and conduct in the discharge of public services at all levels.

From the Presidency, which is the seat of power, passing through all other strata to Chiefdoms, where the last strand of auxiliary support to public administration can be traced, Biya and his members of government, those who still believe in Cameroon’s survival say, needs to wake up from slumber. 

Suck waking, they declare, must come with principled corrective measures before things get out of hand. 

Some critics say the guarantor of State institutions, Biya, though at home, is pictured to be increasingly being absent from the day to day running of the country.

Aspects signaling collapse, life support 

In the thinking of many, if Cameroon were an individual, in its current state, such a person would be in an Intensive Care Unit, ICU, in a hospital, given the several things at stake. 

Some of these aspects include but not limited to; the widespread presence of people still occupying public offices, despite attaining retirement age, disagreements over supposed instructions from the Head of State, unfilled vacant positions, open infighting among ministers, delays or non-respect of State procedures, among others.

Country’s most profitable venture, PAD, trapped in infighting 

If Cameroonians had been expressing worry about certain happenings, the ongoing battle over the choice of company to handle merchandise at the Port Authority of Douala, PAD, has reawaken fears within some quarters that Presidential influence in the management of the State is diminishing. 

While some add to the fight the point that over 65 years since independence, Cameroon should have the capacity to scan merchandise at its ports, the current bickering splitting ministers to the glare of the globe, observers say, gives some persons the impression that no one is really in charge.

Leaving PAD to be trapped in such a battle among the President’s ‘creatures’ to last for weeks, costing the public treasury billions of FCFA, some say, only shows that the country is on life support. 

Given that the Douala seaport is considered the lungs of the country, allowing it to be the subject of a battle of egos, portray the country as a patient whose days are numbered, observers are saying.

Judiciary stagnant in violation of laws in force 

Biya, the globally-heralded legalist, has not convened the Higher Judicial Council as he statutorily ought to have done annually since August 2020! 

It has been five years and still counting since Biya last convened the vital organ, which manages the careers of magistrates. In these years, at least five batches of magistrates trained at the National School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM, are ‘wasting’ in the quarters. The young professionals have rather been scattered across the nation as interns. They can’t officially be posted unless the Higher Judicial Council meets as required by law.

For other career magistrates, many have missed out on promotion opportunities for over five years and the wait is still on.

In 2023, the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Laurent Esso, who is also Vice President of the Council, briefed the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly on the situation of magistrates. He had disclosed then, among other things, that the General Directorate of Judicial Services in the Ministry of Justice had received complaints against 897 magistrates. 

But till date, the outcome of such findings can’t be known unless the Higher Judicial Council meets. Given the impact of such a meeting on the morale of the judiciary, analysts say, it is more than a national embarrassment that such an impasse is happening to a sensitive corps like the judiciary. Others see it too as one other vital organ of the country’s entire system also on life support.

Over 71 Board Chairpersons serving illegally 

In Biya’s Cameroon on life support, as critics claim, research also show that over 71 Chairpersons of the Board of Directors of State enterprises and corporations, are illegally in office.

Such persons reached the ceiling of their mandates on July 12, 2025. This is in accordance with the July 2017 law limiting the mandate of Board Chairpersons to three years renewable once. Biya has since not replaced any of the concerned.

In a research work titled: “Exemplary Republic” released last year, varsity don, Prof Vivian Ondoa Biwole, had underscored that, out of 75 public establishments, Board Chairpersons of 50, had reached the maximum of their tenure, while out of 37 State corporations, Board Chairpersons of 21 had also clocked the limit of their mandates.

It has also been long observed that officials in some of such public institutions take files to the residences of Chairpersons due to age and fatigue. Prof Biwole had said the age bracket of Board Chairpersons raged from 55 to 86 years.

Unproductive GMs left to stay on

Another area in need of urgent Presidential action, economists especially say, is that related to unproductive General Managers, GMs, of State corporations. Pundits say some GMs have been in service for over a decade, yet, the companies under their control have never had a positive balance sheet.

According to researcher Prof Ondoa Biwole, “the longevity of managers is not always beneficial to the performance of companies".

The State has continued to bailout such corporations, leading to a vicious cycle with negative consequences on growth expectations. Biya, many are saying, must go beyond the International Monetary Fund, IMF, request for government to sign performance contracts with such institutions; to firing GMs who have remained dormant in handling them. Without such an assertive move, the country, some are saying, will remain shambolic. 

All governors, most SDOs serving on retirement 

The Biya regime is also indicted by critics for putting Cameroon on life support, especially given the widespread recycling of retirees in almost all public structures.

But one key area that has come under scanner, repeatedly, is that of civil administrators. Currently, all the country’s ten Regional Governors are serving on retirement, with at least eight having enjoyed several bonus years.

At the level of Divisions, majority of the country’s 58 Senior Divisional Officers, SDOs, have also attained retirement, but Biya, who does the appointments, continues to leave them in office. 

Pundits argue that in a sane society where everyone is given the opportunity to serve, the Head of State ought to have long replaced such persons and given new ENAM graduates idling and reading newspapers to also serve. They insist that such changes are not also coming because the country is on crutches.

Moribund gov’t, unfilled vacancies 

If others are looking at signs of exhaustion elsewhere, some say it is even more close to Biya’s nose than anyone thinks. They point to the composition, longevity, lack of coordination and vacancy in his current cabinet.

For a President noted for always talking tough and praised for oversight wisdom, analysts say given the changing times, it is difficult to understand how he last changed the government only on January 4, 2019.

Even before then, Biya, they claim, had long put the nation on a stretcher by recycling the same old names who have failed to produce anything new. 

Today, those opposing his style and time say if Cameroon weren’t on life support, it shouldn’t have been left in the hands of people who have done the same things over and over for decades with questionable results.

What is pricking the bile of many now is the many vacancies that are in the current government. The look of the current government, for many, shows it is far from Biya’s trumpeted mandate of the ‘Septenate of Great Hope’.

Among the vacant positions are those of the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Public Health in charge of Epidemics and Pandemics. The position has been vacant since its last occupant, Halim Garga Hayatou, died on April 5, 2021.

There is the vacant post of the Minister Delegate to the Minister of External Relations in charge of Relations with the Islamic World.  The person who last served in the position, Adoum Gargoum, died in March 2021.

Another vacant post in government due to death is that of the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in charge of Rural Development. It has also been vacant since 2022, when Clementine Ananga Messina bowed out of planet earth.

There is also the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development that has been without a minister since its last occupant, Gabriel Dodo Ndoke, died on January 21, 2023, under dramatic and unclear circumstances. The ministry has since then been in the hands of an Interim Minister.

The number of empty positions in the current government increased by two in 2025. This was through the resignations of the Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, and the Minister of Tourism and Leisure, Bello Bouba Maigari.

Agriculture minister, Gabrile Mbairobe, was, through a stop gap measure, handed a cumulative function at the ministry of tourism, while his counterpart of Youth and Civic Education, Mounouna Foutsou, assumed interim of the vocational training ministry.

It is now being argued in some circles that, if Cameroon were a country in fine form, a government wouldn’t be allowed to be functioning with so many vacancies for years.

Ministers in same posts for 21 years

These are the Minister of State, Minister of Higher Education, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo; Hele Pierre, Minister of Environment, Sustainable Development and Nature Protection; Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, Minister of Trade and Dr Madeiline Tchuente, Minister of Scientific Research and Innovation.  These four ministers have headed their ministries since December 8, 2004!

Biya tired of fighting corruption?

In the last three years, President Biya has in all his speeches declared intent to fight corruption and embezzlement of public funds head on. Yet, the same years have gone by with no one held accountable for misusing public funds.

 The Operation Sparrow Hawk, which made headlines in years past, has seemingly lost its claws. Observers say the relapse in facing especially corruption that is perceived to be widespread in all sectors of national life, is further emboldening the reading that the country needs resuscitation.

When “coming days” fail to come 

Biya has also been catalogued through deceptive lenses by those still struggling to get the meaning of his announcement of a new government in “the coming days”.

That promise was what kept the nation talking, following his State of the Nation address on December 31, 2025. Over one month and still counting, Biya has not yet made the sweeping changes in government as he announced.

The hope for some form of newness across the nation tied to his new mandate, analysts insist, is already fading with life returning to the old habits that have caged the nation for decades.

When waste management exposes weakness

In addition to the several oddities that give Cameroon a darkening look in the comity of nations, many are adding, is the inconsistencies in handling household waste.

What many termed a comedy first reached the public through the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji. He took up the campaign to clear heaps of household waste across the nation, insisting that the Head of State had ordered such.

Atanga Nji went ahead to share wheelbarrows and brooms to some municipal authorities in Yaounde, to go on with the exercise. 

But before Cameroonians could digest the action, his counterpart of Housing and Urban Development, Celestine Ketcha Courtes, staged a similar ceremony in Yaounde, handing over modern trucks to clear up household waste. She too claimed her moves were based on “High Instructions” from the Head of State.

Many link the conflicting engagements of ministers to the growing trend of disorder and disorientation on several issues in government. In the opinion of many, it only tells of a country on the edge of a precipice.

Ministers thrown under the bus by peers 

If the Intensive Care Unit, ICU reading of what Cameroon has become today has been visible elsewhere, the sporting community lived it towards the election of the executive of the Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFOOT, on November 29, 2025.

Then, a decision of the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Prof Narcisse Mouelle Kombe, requesting his colleague of territorial administration to cancel the gathering, was treated with reckless abandon.

FECAFOOT had its way with the entire government turning a blind eye to the request of a minister duly vested with powers to manage the sector by the Head of State. 

If Cameroon were enjoying coherence in governance, critics say, a fellow minister wouldn’t have been ridiculed by his colleague, in such manner with no one punished.

Public entities worsening electricity sector crisis 

In Biya’s Cameroon, many public establishments, which are financially autonomous, have repeatedly been indicted for not paying their electricity and water consumption bills.

Such institutions are repeatedly fingered for billions of FCFA missing in the electricity ecosystem, putting power suppliers and subcontractors on constant war path.

The situation has continued to heat up the polity, pushing many to question why the powers that be can’t get companies to service such bills. 

Vacant Economic & Social Council

The Economic and Social Council, which has had long seen most of its members journey to the world beyond, is just one of several State structures, which critics say, gets its value only on paper.

Before its long serving president, Ayang Luc, died in the last quarter of 2025, most of the institution’s members were no longer alive. Biya has still not replaced them, talk less of appointing new members, despite reorganising the institution over a year ago.

Other sociopolitical constraints 

Cameroon is also burdened on other fronts. The lingering Boko Haram terrorist group has since 2014 been a major menace in the Far North Region.

In the North West and South West Regions, an armed conflict stemming from Anglophone grievances, has been on for nine years. These challenges, in addition to political tensions such as those linked to the October 12, 2025 presidential election, analysts say, have wounded the soul of the nation, threatening even its future.

Signpost parliament cheering disorder?

With an executive steeped in deadly battles and other visible errors, the National Assembly, observers say, should naturally be the ombudsman to bail out the nation.

But the life support hysteria, for some, is even worst at the level of the National Assembly and the Senate. In deeds and actions, both houses, critics say, have become post offices, clapping through and cheering everything the executive does.

The institutions are also said to be battling to save face. Its bosses, The Rt. Hon Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, 86, Speaker of the National Assembly, and Hon Niat Njifenji Marcel, 91, President of the Senate, have been visibly showing signs of tiredness not unconnected to their ages.

Both political leaders where not present during the ceremony to present New Year wishes to the Head of State, on January 8, 2026. Niat’s posture of receiving best wishes while sitting on a chair at his private residence, analysts say, gave the exact picture of a country on life support. 

The icing on the cake in the order of what monitors of public business say is an array of absurdities came from Hon Cavaye. He organised a similar ceremony, but was rather represented by the Senior Vice President of the National Assembly, Hon Hilarion Etong. 

Both institutions, reports hold, are bedeviled by administrative inconsistencies akin to visible weaknesses in the executive. A combination of both, in an equation of what Cameroon is, some have said, sums up to a country that may soon run out of oxygen.  

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3693 of Wednesday February 04, 2026