Papal visit: Season of healing for NW, SW.

He is programmed to be in Yaounde, in the Centre Region, Bamenda in the North West Region and Douala in the Littoral Region.

While Douala holds its significance as the economic power house of the nation, Yaounde features in the Pope’s itinerary as the seat of power. 

Bamenda features prominently, not just for its symbolic representation of the North West Region, but as the seat of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province, that covers the entire North West and South West Regions. 

Thus, the Pope’s presence in Bamenda in particular and his other engagements with stakeholders to also include authorities, especially the Head of State, Paul Biya, is being weighed in the crisis-hit North West and South West Regions, in different prisms.

For those who witnessed the election on May 8, 2025, of Pope Leo XIV, except that what will be happening in Cameroon this week is a Deific orchestration, no one saw it coming. 

As the 267th successor of Saint Peter, according to Catholic doctrine, Pope Leo XIV is coming after the order of Saint Peter as recorded in the Bible in Mathew 16.

Specifically, Jesus replying to Peter, who had a sane revelation about whom He was, had said: “And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and  on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.

Peter saw beyond the humanity of Jesus, and elevated him as an Apostle of peace, who He is to the world. Thus, standing on such unshaken foundation, the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ’ coming to Cameroon this season, is pictured as a fresh celestial addendum to government’s efforts that have been afoot since 2017, to ensure peace returns to the North West and South West Regions.

His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV, will be walking the soils of Cameroon and talking with stakeholders, backed with the Divine commission that the gates of hell shall not prevail wherever he goes to. 

Thus, the bloodletting in the North West and South West Regions that has subsided in recent times, is being projected to completely give way to a new season of healing.

It will thus be not just a time for the Pope to listen to those who have disagreed with government over how the crisis has been handled, but a time to build on the strides, which the Head of State, Paul Biya, has made in the last eight years to push for peace.

While Biya, alongside his government, has been acting on the position of what he says is “a beggar of peace”, for many, there is about to be a new addition, given that the Pope is beyond begging for peace. This is because he is a personification of peace and an Apostle of peace.

Time to elevate peace, dismantle hurdles 

If other ordinary men have had their say on the armed conflict in the former West Cameroon, making strides in the process, Pope Leo XIV’s visit is expected to build on such foundations. 

Within the makeup of such a template is what the Head of State has done across the years to ensure complete peace returns the two Regions.

Thus, with his undoubted credibility and honesty, the Holy Father is projected to, from his much esteemed high moral and spiritual ground, appeal to the consciences of all shades of the Cameroonian mosaic.

Pope Leo’s message is expected to melt away any doubts and realign everyone to see the dividends of peace, national reconciliation and building a better future for the country. 

Assuredly in Mathew 16:19, wherein Saint Peter, whose successor, Pope Leo XIV is, Jesus assured that whatever he hinds on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever he loses on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.

So, the piercing and peaceful message of the Pope is expected to touch even the most hardened of hearts. 

Given that he will be certainly sending such a message on the backdrop of the Head of State’s persistent calls for peace, national unity and disarmament, among those who took up arms against the State and community dialogue, observers say it will be a season of intersection between what government has done in the past.

The Pope, for many, is the most highly placed authority worldwide who carries the grace to appeal to wounded hearts, broken families, communities battling to rebuild and a country steadily seeking to right its wrongs. 

Biya planted, time for Pope to water

Pope Leo XIV will be touching down the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda, after years of government’s efforts to ensure peace reigns, under the leadership of the Head of State, Paul Biya. 

Through President Biya’s directives, the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute; the State has built from the holding of the Major National Dialogue in 2019, to effecting changes aimed at calming the storm.

Biya, many are saying, may not have reached the finishing line of peace, but already, had watered the ground enough and planted seeds of peace. 

In this package, some are citing the granting of a Special Status to the two English-speaking Regions of the country, the institution of the Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the North West and South West Regions, PPRD-NW/SW, setting up of the National School of Local Administration, NASLA, and setting up of the North West and South West Regional Assemblies with the peculiarities of the House of Chiefs.

The Head of State’s watering efforts to reinvent the wheel in attaining peace, State officials have been further recounting, also includes the creation of the National Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Committee, NDDRC, as a sure window for separatist fighters to return to normal life, adjustment of the cabinet to increase Anglophone representation, creation of the Common Law Division at the National School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM, among others.

With the burdensome cry for local autonomy, the Head of State tabled a bill in Parliament that was adopted and later enacted into law in December 2019, that has since sharpened the country’s decentralisation drive.

Cameroon’s bilingualism experience, since the crisis has also improved, with the creation of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, NCPBM, and the setting up of Technical Teachers’ Training Colleges, to train tutors for technical colleges in Anglophone Regions, among others.

It is on the strength of the list of what government continues to hold as frantic efforts to ensure the return of peace that the Holy Father is being viewed within the posture of his assignment as a global peace ambassador of celestial backing that, a new breeze is expected to blow across the conflict-hit communities in the North West and South West Regions.

Either through his sermons, audiences and prayers as he will be journeying across Cameroon for three days, the celestial forces are expected to back up the Pope in reinforcing President Paul Biya’s close to a decade battle for complete peace to return to the North West and South West Regions.

Why expectations high

The expectations for a turnaround across the restive Regions are not high out of delusion but based on what history holds of other Papal visits. The first time a Pope visited Cameroon was in 1985. 

Then, it was the late Pope John Paul II, who came visiting from August 10 to 14, touring Garoua, Douala, Bamenda and Yaounde. It came a few months after the failed coup attempt against the Head of State, Paul Biya.

He came visiting again from September 14 to 16, 1995, when Cameroon was reeling from the return of multiparty politics and other economic downturns. 

Then came March 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI, also visited the country. The context was months after the hunger strikes of 2008, and the amendment of the Constitution, to remove Presidential term limits.

Thus, this April, Pope Leo XIV is coming with the lingering Anglophone problem, post-presidential election tensions of 2025 and the amendment of the Constitution to reintroduce the post of Vice President. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3760 of Tuesday April 14, 2026