Biya’s prolonged stay abroad: SDF says country on autopilot.

Osih was blunt that Cameroonians deserve the right to know what is keeping him abroad. 

The lawmaker representing Wouri Centre at the National Assembly, regretted that Cameroon is living through a latent political crisis.

Osih cited an absent and silent Head of State, a government that does not deliberate, a vacant Vice Presidency, a majority that buries bills, an economy administered by inertia, and a succession prepared in corridors instead of before the people, to buttress his claim. 

“Although no Constitutional provision sanctions the duration of a stay abroad by the President of the Republic, the SDF finds it indecent and contemptuous that no official communication has informed the people of the reasons for the extension of the President's short private stay abroad,” Osih stated. 

He said the SDF is drawing the attention of the President of the Republic to the fact that, in the political and republican sense “it can be affirmed that he is in the service of the State and of the Cameroonian people, and that he cannot exempt himself from the rules applicable to all citizens”. 

Osih noted that his return to the “country would, moreover, be most welcome - for example, by the populations of the North West and South West Regions, who have been waiting for him for 10 years, as Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, to calm, as a good father of the family, the conflict that has gone on far too long”.

He continued that: “We reassure him that if it is for health reasons that he is stranded abroad, then he can return to the ‘continent’, because the Minister of Public Health had assured us, broadcast worldwide, that Cameroon possesses medical facilities that envy nothing of Western countries”.

Osih was categorical that Cameroonians have the right to information about the person to whom they have entrusted a mandate, “and this is a demand of transparency that the SDF carries. If no government communication is issued to reassure the people on the continuity of the State, then the SDF will act accordingly”. 

End war in NW, SW

Speaking further during last Thursday’s presser, Osih Joshua regretted that this year marks ten years since the beginning of the crisis in the North-West and South-West regions. He said the toll of the war is a national shame.

Osih disclosed that more than 6,000 Cameroonians have been killed; around 648,000 internally displaced, with cumulative displacement approaching 900,000; some 80,000 refugees in Nigeria; more than 600,000 children deprived of school; about 2,000 people imprisoned in connection with the crisis and nearly two million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

He said due to the crisis, the CDC - once the nation's second employer is on its knees with tens of billions in losses; the South-West stripped of its cocoa and industrial leadership; and the whole economy amputated – exports down, investment down, growth lost year after year.

“I call this war useless because after ten years, no one has won, no one can win, and everyone has lost. The greatest scandal of this tenth year is not only the suffering – it is the habituation to the crisis. The SDF refuses that habituation,” Osih stated. 

He continued that: “And we refuse it with a plan: the same plan we presented to Cameroonians at the 2025 presidential election: 100 days to end the violence in the North-West and South-West. Its architecture is public and its logic is simple”.

As part of its plan on ending the crisis, he said the SDF is proposing the release of all crisis-related detainees not convicted of blood crimes, and a review of the detention conditions of the secessionist leaders in order to create an environment of confidence for dialogue.

The SDF is also pushing for an inclusive National Peace and Reconciliation Conference made-up of traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society, youth, political parties and separatist representatives with federalism, bilingual governance and power-sharing squarely on the table.

Other proposals include an Emergency Economic Recovery Fund for the businesses, farmers and traders of the two regions; the reconstruction of destroyed schools, hospitals, roads and markets, executed by local contractors and local workers; disarmament, vocational training and reintegration for ex-combatants and Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“This is not a wish list; it is a sequenced and published plan - and it remains on the table. But plans do not vote themselves into existence. If Cameroonians want the party that carries this solution to have the strength to impose it, that strength is measured in one place only: the ballot box — the Remontada. Give the SDF a resounding majority, and give the North-West and South-West regions their peace,” Osih said at the presser.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3860 of Monday July 27, 2026