Nelson Mandela Day: What Lessons Can Biya Learn from Mandela?

By Hans Ngala

Cameroon is at a crossroads in its national history, and gone are the days of cowering in the dark for fear of what Paul Biya would do. Today, July 18, is being observed worldwide as International Nelson Mandela Day, and people are being asked to set aside 67 minutes (symbolic of Mandela’s 67 years of public service) to give back to their communities.
As this celebration of Mandela’s life takes place across the world, Cameroonians find themselves grappling with a myriad of issues under the lifetime President, Paul Biya. Biya and CRTV give the impression that Biya is the “natural candidate” and the best the country has to offer, but this Mandela Day, the question worth asking is, what lessons can Biya learn from Mandela’s life?
This was the very same question that former US ambassador to Cameroon, Peter Barlerin, told Biya in May 2018, to be thinking about. Barlerin said Biya should “thinking about his legacy and how he wants to be remembered” but this didn’t go down well with some of Biya’s staunchest supporters, including a Banda Kani who went on Afrique Media to challenge the diplomat that “he would go home in a coffin” if he ever dared to question Biya’s lifetime presidency. It’s been seven years since those remarks, and Biya has gotten older, he’s 92 now and has now been in power longer than any other non-royal leader in the world.
This is in sharp contrast with Nelson Mandela, a man who suffered imprisonment for nearly 30 years, something Biya has no idea about, having never been at the forefront of any cause, having never been in prison and certainly never having suffered any repercussions for any political leanings he may have, but who ironically, dishes out laws and statutes for the rest of Cameroon to abide by – as he consolidates his grip on power.
Mandela was president of South Africa from May 1994 to June 1999 – a mere 5 years, as opposed to Biya, who has vowed to cling to power for eternity. The CRTV, which now acts as his PR machine, likes to pick selective voices from Biya’s own CPDM party, who call for him to keep running, and uses these voices as a justification to say that “the people are calling” for Biya to run and that he is simply answering “the people’s call”. But how true is this? Does the CPDM now act as a representation of all Cameroonians? Does the CPDM serve as the standard by which all of Cameroon’s political and public decisions are weighed?
The recent defections by some of Biya’s allies, such as Tchiroma Bakara and Bello Bouba Maigari – all northerners- are a clear indication of the fractures within Biya’s government, even if he tries (with the support of his media partners), to downplay this.
Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC), for the first time in 30 year,s was forced to form a coalition with opposition parties in the country, precisely because after decades in power, it was clear to South Africans that the ANC was not delivering on promises. Unemployment remains high in South Africa, the land question is largely unresolved, and crime is very high. Flip the script to Cameroon, and the CPDM is very much like the ANC with a poor record of governance: high unemployment rates, collapsing or non-existent infrastructure, and two major crises facing the country, namely the Anglophone Conflict and the Boko Haram insurgency, which Biya’s regime has not successfully addressed. Yet Biya wants to seek yet another 7-year term, which, by the way, he twisted the Constitution in 2008 to increase these term limits to consolidate his grip on power.
Mandela was a good friend to Biya and visited Cameroon in July 1996 when Biya was chairman of the OAU at the time, and Mandela was on a tour of African countries to strengthen African unity and cooperation at the time. Biya ought to borrow a page from Mandela’s book and learn to step aside when the applause is still loud, instead of sinking Cameroon any further with his reckless borrowing, unexplained absences from public view, and frequent trips to Europe on Cameroonian taxpayers’ money.