By Hans Ngala
There’s an adage that “Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and yet expecting a different outcome”.
This saying is especially relevant in the Cameroonian context now, as an almost 100-year-old Paul Biya seeks to convince Cameroonians that, after 43 years at the helm of the nation, he has achieved so much. But what exactly has Biya achieved in his close to 50 years as the sovereign ruler of Cameroon?
While some progress has been made, it is like droplets in the ocean when compared to the vast amount of time that Biya has been the nation’s ruler. Things like schools, universities, and some roads have been built – notable among them is the Babadjou-Bamenda stretch, which until recently was in such bad shape that it would take 4 hours just to get from Babadjou in the West Region to Bamenda in the North West. Now that trip is done in roughly 45 minutes to an hour. The Kumbo-Ndu stretch has also been tarred. In the past, this stretch was also in very poor shape. However, that these things are happening 40 years after Biya promised to personally supervise their construction is quite telling of the kind of leader he is. Many people have died without seeing these promises come to life.
Also, under Biya’s watch, Cameroon has consistently scored very low points on press freedom rankings by both the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders. Cameroon has topped the lists for most corrupt country, holding the top spot as the most corrupt country in the world according to Transparency International in 1998 and 1999.
Biya was accused by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) of spending hundreds of thousands of Dollars on his countless trips to Europe, and the BBC has described him as “Cameroon’s absentee president” because of his lengthy stays out of the country. As recently as September 2024, Biya was nowhere to be found for over 40 days after he went AWOL following the Africa-China Summit. Rumours began to swirl about his health–or lack thereof, leading his Minister of Territorial Administration, Atanga Nji Paul, to label discussions around his health (or lack thereof) as an “issue of national security”.
When the Eseka train derailment happened in 2016, Biya was out of the country on one of his countless private stays in Europe, spending Cameroonian taxpayers’ money. When he flew back after the accident, he promised to set up an inquiry into the cause of the accident, but never went to the scene of the national tragedy himself.
When the Anglophone Crisis started as sectoral protests by lawyers and teachers, Biya again delegated Prime Minister Philemon Yang to go to Bamenda and speak with the Consortium of civil society actors that was formed. But he never came to Bamenda. With this aloof style of leadership, where Biya thinks of himself as too important to mingle with the ordinary masses and never bothers to share in their pain or tragedy, it makes one wonder why anyone would cast their vote for him.
It would seem that those who benefit from his aloof style of leadership are those who surround him and help him run Cameroon to the ground. Just last week, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) listed Cameroon as “the world’s most neglected crisis” for the third time after having listed Cameroon as such in 2018 and 2019.
This neglect begins from Biya’s government, where it is already in a “reconstruction” phase in the NW and SW, while political prisoners like Sisiku Ayuk Tabe remain imprisoned. This “reconstruction” is happening even as separatist fighters and government soldiers continue to exchange gunfire, which continues to leave casualties on both sides and civilians dead as well. This is the kind of leadership that Biya provides in the middle of a crisis – denying the existence of the problem and pretending that it has simply gone away.
That Yaounde is a so-called capital city where roads are in such bad shape that cars break down on them or avoid using them altogether because of puddles of water is Biya’s legacy. The state of housing infrastructure in Yaounde makes it look like a giant village of brown-roofed shacks for the most part, with residents living in dire poverty while the 1% live in lavish mansions behind barbed wire.
Cameroonian emigrants are constantly among the largest numbers of emigrants to the Americas and Europe, fleeing the despicable kind of leadership (or lack of it) under Biya that has reduced many to survival mode. Thousands of graduates complete their studies in Cameroonian universities, but only a few hundred are lucky enough to find jobs. Many are left with a feeling of complete hopelessness and dejection, forcing some to engage in sinister activities like kidnapping, theft, or scamming.
Just a week ago, jobless youths who formed themselves into a gang called “Microbes”, stormed the Mokolo and Melen markets in Yaounde – right under Biya’s nose – in broad daylight to harass people and steal. Law enforcement officials later arrested some of them. But Biya’s solution to his inability to solve the job problem has been to attempt using public hiring as a solution, announcing the hiring of a few thousand teachers, police, and public servants every now and then. This will not solve unemployment permanently. Investors are supposed to be wooed from abroad, and the economy is supposed to be diversified and not solely reliant on agriculture as it is.
There are other key sectors that, if developed with vision and intention, can significantly reduce unemployment in Cameroon – sectors that Mr. Biya has completely neglected during his 43 years in office.
- The Technology and Digital Economy Sector
Cameroon has a rapidly growing population of tech-savvy youth, largely based in Buea – Cameroon’s own Silicon Valley, yet there is no national digital innovation policy worth mentioning. The government has failed to invest in tech hubs, coding academies, or provide incentives for digital startups. Countries like Rwanda have embraced technology to create jobs in software development, e-commerce, and IT services. Biya’s regime, on the other hand, seems trapped in a pre-digital era, where even official government websites are outdated or non-functional. - Renewable Energy Sector
Despite the abundance of sunshine, Cameroon has done almost nothing to develop solar energy on a national scale. Investing in renewable energy could create thousands of jobs in installation, maintenance, engineering, and manufacturing of solar panels and other green technologies. But Biya prefers to rely on the failing, centralized electricity grid controlled by monopolies, which is plagued with blackouts and mismanagement. - Tourism and Cultural Heritage
Cameroon is often described as “Africa in miniature” because of its geographic and cultural diversity and strategic location in West and Central Africa. From the beaches of Kribi and Limbe, the former slave post at Bimbia, to the wildlife of Waza Park and the cultures of the Grassfields, the country has everything it takes to be a top tourism destination. But insecurity, poor infrastructure, and the complete lack of a tourism development strategy have left this sector dormant. Meanwhile, South Africa, Morocco, Kenya, and Cape Verde are raking in billions annually from tourism. - The Creative Arts and Entertainment Industry
Afrobeats and Nollywood are now global industries, creating thousands of jobs in Nigeria and Ghana in music, film, fashion, and media. In Cameroon, artists and creatives operate without any state support or infrastructure. No serious investments have been made in cinemas, art schools, music production studios, or intellectual property protections. The result? Talented young people either relocate abroad or fade into obscurity. The Ministry of Arts and Culture and the Ministry of Tourism could partner in supporting these creative industries by providing seed funding to promising artists. - Industrial Manufacturing and Agro-processing
Instead of exporting raw cocoa, coffee, and cotton, why not invest in value-added industries that process these products locally? Such industries create jobs in packaging, logistics, quality control, and marketing. Hundreds of Cameroonian students now study food processing, but jobs in this sector are very few and far between. Biya’s regime has failed to build a single world-class processing plant in over four decades – a sign of the regime’s obsession with control rather than innovation. - Transport and Logistics
Cameroon’s location makes it a strategic transit hub in West and Central Africa, but the transport sector is broken. Roads are death traps, and the rail system is obsolete. A government interested in job creation would be investing heavily in roads, ports, and rail infrastructure especially given that the populations of Cameroon’s major cities such as Douala, Yaounde, Bafoussam and Bamenda – already outnumber the available transport infrastructure, causing motorbike taxis to cause even more chaos on the roads especially in places like Douala and Yaounde. Signing partnerships with investors that can install a modern rail system in these cities will create jobs, boost the economy, and decongest the crowded road networks. - Health and Social Services
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how weak Cameroon’s health infrastructure is. Massive job opportunities exist in training nurses (and equipping medical institutions with laboratories, etc), social workers, hospital technicians, and building community health networks. Instead, billions go into military spending or disappear in corruption scandals, as with the COVID funds that still remain unaccounted for since 2020. - Education and Vocational Training
A modern economy needs a skilled workforce. But Cameroon continues to produce degrees without direction. A true job creation plan would involve revamping the educational system to emphasize vocational and technical skills in areas like carpentry, plumbing, coding, renewable energy, and healthcare. While there are now hundreds of so-called “vocational schools”, they still focus on theoretical things like management, banking, and finance, and have failed to truly meet the needs of a 21st-century economy.
Cameroon has everything it needs to succeed – natural resources, a vibrant youth population, and strategic geography. What it lacks is leadership. What it lacks is vision. What it lacks is a government that sees beyond decrees and understands the 21st century. After 43 years, Biya has clearly shown he has none of the above.
After 40-plus years in power, it seems the one thing Biya has learned to do best, more than any other African leader, is to become an expert at signing presidential decrees. Biya signs decrees, reforming the form of the state as he did, changing from provinces to regions (which doesn’t add any value to the ordinary Cameroonians’ lives). Biya signs decrees strengthening his grip on power as he did in 2023 following the coups in Niger, Mali and Gabon. The fact that at 92, he still clings so tightly to power and has little to offer in terms of fresh ideas to steer Cameroon towards prosperity, should be of great concern to the youthful Cameroonian population. It is safe to say that Biya has nothing more in terms of perspective to offer Cameroonians, and anyone calling for him to be voted in for the dozenth time is neither patriotic nor God-fearing. It would be foolish to call for him to run again and solve the very problems that he has been unable to solve during his lifetime presidency. Doing so would be to do the same thing over and over, while expecting a different outcome.
