By Hans Ngala
All the rumors about whether former government minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary had broken ties with Biya – have finally been put to rest. Tchiroma in a 24-page document explained that it was time to “put an end to the old system”.
He added that it was also time “to close the chapter on a stagnant system” – an apparent reference to the Biya regime he had been a part of, for more than 30 years.
The sudden move by 75-year-old Bakari has met with indifference, especially among the Anglophone community mainly because in 2017, at the dawn of the crisis – Tchiroma was a fierce defender of the government. Serving as communications minister at the time, he vehemently denied the existence of an Anglophone problem – something he now seems to be changing his tune on after his divorce from the Biya regime.
“ To our Anglophone compatriots in the North-West and South-West, I want to speak frankly. The crisis affecting you is not only a security crisis. It is also political, historical, and identity-based” Tchiroma said in his resignation speech – a 360 turnaround from his staunch denial during a live broadcast on Al Jazeera’s ‘The Stream’ where he denied the existence of any Anglophone problem, trying at the time, to draw a faulty equivalence between his children who speak English and equating that to them being “Anglophones”. During that 2017 broadcast on Al Jazeera, commentator, Eugene Nforngwa who was also a guest on the show, challenged Tchiroma and said that being Anglophone in the Cameroonian context was not about one’s ability to speak English but that it was about geographic location, ancestry and history – and that Tchiroma’s children could speak all the English on earth, but that if they failed to meet all these criteria, they could not be considered Anglophones. Tchiroma now seems to agree with Nforngwa, now that he is eyeing the presidency. He even told Anglophones that “the Republic is also your home, that your voice counts, that your history is acknowledged”.
Why should anyone trust Tchiroma now?
Tchiroma’s remarks to the Anglophone community have been met with jest and indifference in some quarters with many questioning how valid his resignation is, anyway. What if this is just a ploy to distract the public from truly focusing on how to vote Biya out?
After all, Tchiroma’s party, the Front for the National Salvation of Cameroon, better known by its French-language abbreviation (FSNC), has been in coalition with Biya’s CPDM for many years – to the point where younger Cameroonians even assumed that he was of the CPDM himself.
What if Tchiroma just wants to distract the Cameroonian public and further divide the opposition, then at the end, he turns around and splits his votes with Biya?
Given how much Tchiroma has flip-flopped within the past few years, leading up to this moment, it is a bit difficult to trust him on these matters. What is sure is that Anglophone Cameroonians will likely not trust a word Tchiroma says now, given how he discredited their legitimate demands in the early years of the Anglophone Struggle.
On the other hand, his words may come from a place of genuine discontentment with the sit-tight Biya regime which has lorded it over Cameroon since 1982. Tchiroma joined the government 10 years later in 1992 as transport minister at the time, serving until 1996 and then as communications minister from 2009 to 2019 and then as vocational training minister from then, until his surprise decision to sever ties with the regime.
Tchiroma has enough inside details to ruin the regime if he chooses to. Very similar to Prof. Maurince Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), both men were previously cronies of Biya’s but as they now desire the same office their former master currently holds, they have decided to spill the beans. However, with Biya’s firm grip on power, it is unclear if anyone can unseat the 92-year-old who crushes dissent ruthlessly. It may take those who have dirt on him (assuming he has lots of it) – to bring him down through the ballot.
What this moment tells us about Biya’s Cameroon and the road ahead
Cameroonians would be wise not to dismiss Issa Tchiroma Bakary’s resignation outright, nor to embrace it blindly. What his sudden break from the Biya regime ultimately reveals is not necessarily the rebirth of a new political conscience, but rather a reflection of a system so deeply entrenched in manipulation, survivalism, and opportunism that even its staunchest defenders can no longer keep lying to themselves – or the Cameroonian people.
Tchiroma’s departure underscores one major truth: the Biya regime is crumbling under the weight of its own stagnation. For decades, the government has relied on fear, division, co-optation, and patronage to stay afloat. Borrowing aimlessly from the IMF and World Bank while drowning the country in debt, living in opulence among government ministers and producing very minimal results. Biya’s rule has never truly evolved into a participatory democracy. Instead, it has functioned like a monarchy draped in republican language. That a longtime insider like Tchiroma would now begin to echo the concerns of ordinary Cameroonians, including those of Anglophones whom just eight years ago, he was dismissive of — signals that even loyalists are beginning to sense that Biya’s grip on power may no longer be tenable in the long term.
But this does not mean that Cameroonians should suddenly throw their weight behind every dissident who leaves the regime, whether Tchiroma or Kamto. If anything, this moment calls for deep political discernment. The electorate must scrutinize motives, judge legacies, and above all, demand concrete policy proposals and not just contrarian speeches or emotional appeals.
This episode also reveals the weakness of Cameroon’s opposition. That Tchiroma—a man many see as a political chameleon—can instantly become a major talking point reveals just how fractured and directionless opposition parties remain. Perhaps Edith Kah Walla was right that other parties should join her CPP in boycotting this farce of an election because we all know who will be the “winner”. Walla demanded key reforms and was right in stating that until opposition parties present a united front with a shared vision for Cameroon’s future, they will not take Cameroon anywhere and opportunists like Tchiroma, will continue to fill the vacuum with recycled rhetoric and ambiguous promises.
What Cameroonians must do now is to seize this moment, to think critically about leadership, not just personality. Whether or not Tchiroma is genuine matters less than whether the people are ready to demand accountability and break free from the illusion that power can only be transferred within elite circles. The future of Cameroon will not be determined by defectors or strongmen, but by new, uncontaminated youth with fresh and relevant ideas. Any defectors from the regime have nothing new to offer to Cameroonians and the fact that some are even excited by the likes of Kamto or Tchiroma who were previously part of the very government they now castigate, speaks about how desperately they want change and they no longer care from where or whom the change comes. They just want change and they want it at all costs!
