Again, Cameroonians recently took to the streets of the major cities demanding the immediate resignation of President Paul Biya.
It would be recalled that there have been various protests calling on the long time serving President to chicken out of office.
In images posted on social media, protesters were seen singing en masse in front of police officers who responded with tear gas and water cannons.
Prior to the protest, the opposition leader, Maurice Kamto had in a statement, wrote “the marches calling for Paul Biya’s resignation are not acts of insurrection, rebellion or hostility against the country, but the peaceful expression of people’s exasperation with a regime that doesn’t hear the cries of its population”.
Okala Bode, an official at the main opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) party which organized the protest, had on that day, confirmed to newsmen that “People are currently demonstrating on the streets of Ndokoti and Deido in Douala, Bafang in the West and in several other towns. They sing the hymn of Cameroon”
“Although it is a peaceful demonstration where the populations march with the flag of the country and tree branches, a symbol of peace, the army sprayed tear gas to disperse them,’’ Bode added.
Meanwhile, in a statement made available to newsmen, government spokesman Rene Emmanuel Sadi said the protest is “just another attempt to distrust the public authorities and breach of public order”.
Paul Biya, born on 13 February 1933 assumed the President’s throne since 6 November 1982. A native of Cameroon’s south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, serving as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as Prime Minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982.
He succeeded Ahidjo as president upon the latter’s surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power in a 1983–1984 staged attempted coupin which he eliminated all his rivals.
According to Wikipedia, Biya’s regime is supported by France, which supplies it with weapons and trains its forces. France is the leading foreign investor, ahead of the United States. One hundred and five French subsidiaries are located in all key sectors (oil, timber, construction, mobile telephony, transport, banking, insurance, etc.).
Wikipedia have it that Biya introduced political reforms within the context of a one-party system in the 1980s. Under serious pressure, he accepted the introduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s. He won the contentious 1992 presidential election with 40% of the plural, single-ballot vote and was re-elected by large margins in 1997, 2004, 2011 and 2018. Opposition politicians and Western governments have alleged voting irregularities and fraud on each of these occasions. Many independent sources have provided evidence that he did not win the elections in 1992, and that subsequent elections were rampant with fraud.
Biya is the second-longest-ruling president in Africa (after Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea), the longest-ruling non-royal leader in the world, and the oldest head-of-state in Africa, at 87 years of age.
