Biya regime & embarrassing governance cacophony.

Most of such incidents have come to be ascertained as not only tarnishing the image of the country but setting a wrong example of what servanthood should be in public service.

The Biya regime these days is set to be operating in camps, with most people pictured to be working in the interest of certain camps, resulting in general cacophony.

The irony, many pundits are saying, is that the same persons washing government’s dirty linen in public are noted for often urging citizens to respect the institutions of the Republic and the laws of the land.

Cameroonians have been served scenes of ministers coming short of exchanging punches; audios of bitter phone exchanges and letters and counter letters with below the belt punches, scripted under the guise of recourse to what the law says.

In the thinking of many, the increasing clashes expose the dead of what is supposed to be solidarity among State institutions and authorities. 

The Biya regime for some, is increasingly having people at the helm of institutions who have shelved aside the interest of country and its people, for either clan fights or clash of egos. 

Many in the corridors of power are now being described as rather functioning like opposition parties, seeking to pull down the other and putting themselves in the good light.

When it is happening elsewhere, citizens are almost always certain that in no distant time, another tension will erupt soonest just within government structures. For some, Cameroon is fast becoming a Republic of “comedians,” shouldering public service responsibility.

MINCOM, NCC clash reawakens cacophony

On Tuesday September 29, 2026, the National Communication Council, NCC, at the end of its 48th Extraordinary Session, slammed a one-month suspension on Yaounde-headquartered private television station, Vision 4.

The NCC had faulted Vision 4 for ignoring its earlier sanctions, before reviewing a June 2, 2026, report, aired on the station as having been “liable to undermine the dignity of Barrister Felicite Esther Zeifman”.  The Council had judged the broadcast injurious and imposed a one-month ban on Vision 4, for repeated contempt of the decisions of the media watchdog body.

Days after the sanction went into effect, the polity became heated and authorities outside the NCC entered joined the fray. The Minister of Communication was later seen granting an audience to a team from Vision 4 television. The audience took place while the channel had suspended broadcasting in line with the NCC decisions.

On October 2, 2026, the Minister of Communication, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, wrote to the French image distribution network, CANAL+, to reinstate Vision 4 on its bundles “with immediate effect”. The letter leaked to the public space on Monday October 5.

Sadi, in the letter, stressed government’s commitment to promoting press freedom and preserving media balance in the country. 

He warned CANAL+ that failure to respect his reinstatement directive, “exposes you to the applicable administrative and legal sanctions in accordance with the regulations in force”. By October 5, Vision 4 signals were back on air! 

In a sharp reaction to the Communication minister’s move, the President of the NCC, Joseph Chebonkeng Kalabubsu, fired back on Tuesday October 6. He wrote to the Director of Public Affairs at CANAL+ International for French-speaking Africa, ordering him to remove Vision 4 from its broadcast list.

The NCC boss indicated that the institution, like ARCOM in France, is independent and not placed under the authority of the Ministry of Communication, whose letter, he said he supposed, caused CANAL+ to reactivate Vision 4 images.

Like Sadi who had threaten action in case of defiance, Chebongkeng, in the October 6 letter, insisted that: “I ask you once again, without further delay, to remove the signal of Vision 4 from your programme package, failing which the Council will be forced to take note of your defiance while reserving the right to initiate regulatory measures within its competence”.

Before Cameroonians could digest the ping pong between the NCC and the Ministry of Communication, another letter emerged at nigh fall of Tuesday October 6, signed by Chebongkeng. 

Unlike the tough tone in his letter of the early hours of the same day, Chebongkeng asked all image distribution networks to reinstate the signals of Vision 4.

The clash with Sadi, for days, left the polity questioning how two institutions that should collaborate to improve the communications sector are disagreeing publicly. 

Today, the sanctioned Vision 4 Television is back on air while the regulatory institution, NCC, it is being said, has been exposed to ridicule. The disharmony only sent citizens to recall that such had become recurrent in recent times.

Douala port merchandise scanning scandal

The NCC-Vision 4 saga for some, is smaller, compared to other bigger fights, involving regime barons and State institutions. From December 2025 to February 2026, a battle between two firms; Société Générale de Surveillance Scanning Cameroon S. A, SGS and TransAtlanticD, also showed what many said is the sad deep-seated division among those in the corridors of power.

It was a period of letters, with instructions attributed to the Head of State, Paul Biya, and counter letters heating up the polity. While the fight involving the General Secretariat of the Presidency and the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Finance and the Douala Port Authority, PAD, was going on, businesses were losing billions every day.

Different groupings of business persons wrote repeatedly, appealing to authorities on the damage the fight was causing on the country’s economy but none of the camps cared to listen.

 At one time, installations of SGS and TransAtlanticD were seen side by side at the container terminal of PAD, but nothing was happening. It was at the insistence of the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute, for the respect of the State’s agreement with SGS, that lasts until 2032, to be respected, that the dispute died down. 

PAD had engaged TransAtlanticD without consulting its titular Ministry of Transport but the letters attributed to the General Secretariat of the Presidency were seen on social media backing the deal.

Yaounde City Council, urban dev’t ministry road war

When preparations heightened for the Apostolic Visit of the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, to Cameroon, in April this year, an open war over road works, erupted between the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Celestine Ketcha Courtes and the Yaounde City Mayor, Luc Messi Atangana.

The two officials battled over the pace of works on the Feux Madagascar-Cite Verte stretch in Yaounde II Subdivision. On March 20, 2026, a free-for-all fight erupted between municipal police, police officers and workers of another company, which the minister had chosen to hasten up works without agreeing with the City Mayor.

In the process, workers of the company, with backing of the minister, were arrested and taken to the City Council. Minister Ketcha Courtes did not waste time to storm the Yaounde City Council.

She was later pictured shattering doors at the Council and ordering those held against their wish to walk out. The Minister had likened the incident to witchcraft, screaming: “You talk to a Member of Government like that”? Has the State changed? Who is lying to you people…you want to spoil the country of President Paul Biya?...you want to humiliate a minister? All these small shrimps?”.

Reacting to the incident during the programme, Club d’ Elite, on Vision 4 TV, on Sunday, March 22, 2026, the Head of Communications and Public Relations at the Yaounde City Council, Dominique Mbassi, qualified the development as “a storm in a tea cup”. 

To observers, it was yet another out-play of government incoherence that blighted the nation.

Customs, ART at daggers-drawn over phone tax

The Ministry of Finance and the Directorate General of Customs, introduced a 33% tax on mobile devices in April this year. The decision put them on a collision course with the Telecommunication Regulatory Board, ART.

ART first froze the said tax on the deregistering of undeclared mobile phones, citing technical concerns from mobile telephone operators. The Customs Department had targeted blocking at least 700,000 phones but the resistance saw the enforcement rescheduled several months later.  ART had also faulted the Customs Department for not consulting it on the issue.

FECAFOOT, sports ministry in cat & dog relationship!

One of the most bitter and prolonged outplay of disagreements is within the football circle. The battles between the Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFOOT, under the leadership of Samuel Eto’o Fils and the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education, with Minister Prof Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, have produced unending fireworks.

From the choice of coaches of the national team to the technical bench, hotel reservations and ticketing of players, both institutions have shown extreme disagreements.

It has been a cat and mouse battle between FECAFOOT and the Ministry of Sports, especially with the coming of Eto’o Fils in December 2021. Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight.

MINAT backs Eto’o Fils against Sports Minister 

Prof Mouelle Kombi was perhaps thrown under the bus during the November 2025 elections at FECAFOOT. He had written to the Minister of Territorial Administration, MINAT, Paul Atanga Nji, days to the election, objecting the exercise. He wrote, seeking the MINAT boss’ intervention to ban the elective assembly. 

Yet, unlike in other cases where administrators are often ordered to ban such meetings immediately, no one responded to the Minister. Eto’o Fils had his way and the Sports Minister became a laughingstock.

FECAVOLLEY: One federation, two Presidents, two teams

The Cameroon Volleyball Federation, FECAVOLLEY, is another glaring depiction of government cacophony. It currently has two presidents, with each having a set of players they always summon for international competitions. 

There is the legitimate camp led by Serge Abouem, who, unfortunately, is not recognised by the Minister of Sports. But he continues to function unperturbed. 

The camp the minister says he duly recognises, is headed by Bello Boudanne. He continues to operate under difficult conditions with Abuouem still calling the shots. Government has allowed the cacophony to continue.

Biya’s deafening silence 

In his known silence across decades, on other issues, the Head of State, Paul Biya, has never, at least, publicly called his collaborators to order over such clashes that are increasingly bringing disrepute to government. Political analysts are unanimous that more of such clashes will continue to play out if there is no overhaul and sanctions where necessary.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3947 of Thursday October 22, 2026