AHIDJO’S CENTENARY: Ahidjo Got His Karma-Who Will Be Next?
By Hans Ngala
This week marks what would have been the 101st birthday of Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo. Having died in 1989, Ahidjo’s corpse remain buried at a site in Senegal – far away from the country of his birth where he was once the most powerful man. Some political commentators have argued that Ahidjo’s rather inglorious end is just karma – a taste of his own medicine.
According to Tayung et al (2025), the law of karma from the Indian religions of Hinduism and Buddism, states that “whatever a person does in his life whether it is good or bad has a consequence” and as such “Good action leads to good consequences and bad action leads to bad consequences”. With this definition in mind, it might be useful to make a nuanced assessment of Ahidjo’s rule over Cameroon.
Ahidjo to some, was a results-oriented leader whose high-handedness ensured that public funds were not stolen. He oversaw the country, investing in infrastructure and in Cameroon’s future. But to Anglophone Cameroonians, Ahidjo is a bitter memory. A painful reminder of what once was – and of what could have been. While his successor Paul Biya often takes the fall, what is today termed “The Anglophone Problem” or “The Anglophone Crisis”, actually began under Ahidjo’s reign. When he tempered with the sacred document that was the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon – West Cameroonians (as Anglophone regions were then called collectively at the time) – cried foul. But Ahidjo didn’t pay attention to their disgruntlement. He went ahead to dismantle the sacrosanct constitution – conducting a hastily held referendum to change the form of the state from its founding nature as a two-state federation with two stars on the green stripe of the flag – to a unitary state. This was on May 20, 1972 – after 11 full years of the federal republic.
Scholars have argued that he did this because of the oil that was discovered in West Cameroon and wanting to enjoy it, he decided to desecrate the constitution he had sworn to protect. A few years later, Ahidjo would resign his position as president of the country, hand over power to Paul Biya who had become president of the United Republic of Cameroon – hoping that he (Ahidjo) would continue to pull the strings from the sidelines. But Biya quickly consolidated his power by removing Ahidjo-loyalists from key positions. A rift developed between both men and in April 1984 – a mere two years after handing over power to Biya, a coup (likely sponsored by Ahidjo) was attempted unsuccessfully to topple Biya. Ahidjo would flee to Senegal where he would later die and be buried – to this very day, almost 40 years later.
Ahidjo was known to rule with an iron fist and never tolerated dissidents – imprisoning all those who dared to criticize him. Cameroonians lived in fear of the man and the one-party system which he instituted, meant that there was little room for opposition in any form – including even the media where private newspapers were banned and radio broadcasting was exclusively for the state. This tight control of the media later worked to Ahidjo’s own disadvantage as the coup of April 6, 1984 was foiled thanks to the radio signals from the station in Yaounde, only going around the city of Yaounde. Without any cellphones at the time, no internet and no TV signals, news of the coup only reached the rest of the country days and weeks later when the coup plotters had all been arrested and faced the maximum penalty.
It became clear that Ahidjo’s tight control of the state and the media, had all worked against. This is the first clear case of karma which had come back to bite Ahidjo. The second case was that Ahidjo caused many of his opponents to flee Cameroon. Many only returned later after Biya’s rise to power.
Biya’s own rise to power while initially embraced with warmth and enthusiasm, has since been replaced by fatigue and discomfort. Many Cameroonians initially welcomed the more charismatic Biya with his vision of “rigour and moralization”, his earlier democratic gains such as multipartyism (which can also be credited to John Fru Ndi), Biya’s launch of Cameroon’s first TV network, his liberalization of the media space which saw the proliferation of various newspapers, TV stations and radio stations and more recently the internet. However, Biya’s age and his inability (or unwillingness) to solve one of the most crucial issues of his presidency – the Anglophone Crisis – has seen his admiration plummet, especially among Anglophone Cameroonians. Cameroon’s economy has gone through various lows and highs under his presidency but currently, unemployment rates stand at 3.5 percent according to some sources.
Like Ahmadou Ahidjo before him, Paul Biya may not escape the dictates of karma. History has shown that leaders who begin with promises of reform but end with repression, silence, and detachment often face inglorious departures. Robert Mugabe is a striking example. Once celebrated as a liberator of Zimbabwe, he ended up reviled by many of his own people, forced from power at age 93, and remembered more for his excesses and mismanagement than his earlier heroism. His fall from grace illustrates a recurring pattern in African leadership: the longer rulers cling to power, the more they risk being judged harshly both by their contemporaries and by posterity.
For Biya, the indicators are increasingly evident. While he has been credited with opening the political space in the early 1990s and liberalizing the media, those gains have since been overshadowed by his unwillingness to embrace meaningful reforms. Like Ahidjo, Biya centralized power, silenced critics, and relied heavily on loyalty networks within the ruling party and military to maintain control. The Anglophone Crisis—today the most pressing issue threatening Cameroon’s stability—has become a mirror of Ahidjo’s missteps in 1972. By ignoring Anglophone grievances, dismantling earlier constitutional guarantees, and treating the matter as a security challenge rather than a political one, Biya risks being remembered as the president who deepened a national fracture rather than healing it.
Another indicator of looming karma is Biya’s prolonged absence from his people. At 92, he is rarely seen in public and spends long periods abroad, leaving a perception of detachment from the daily struggles of Cameroonians. This aloofness is reminiscent of Mugabe in his later years and contrasts sharply with the vibrancy that defined Biya’s early rule. Furthermore, the tightening economic situation, youth unemployment, and growing resentment across regions point to the erosion of legitimacy. While his control over state institutions remains firm, the discontent simmering underneath may only grow more explosive.
African history is replete with leaders who started well, but ended badly – fleeing into exile. From Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah to Uganda’s Idi Amin and more recently Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and even in next-door Gabon where Ali Bongo was toppled by those who had been subservient to him.
Ahidjo’s karma was that he ended his life in exile, buried in a foreign land. Mugabe’s was that he lived long enough to watch the people who once adored him cheer his downfall. For Biya, the outcome is still unwritten, but the signs are unmistakable. A leader who once promised “rigour and moralization” risks being remembered not for building, but for presiding over the decline of a nation. In that sense, Biya may meet a similar fate as Ahidjo and Mugabe: a long reign ending in bitterness, isolation, and an unflattering verdict from history.
