By Hans Ngala
Cameroonians really need to ask hard questions about their leader who rarely interacts with them. Living a hermitic life, cut off from Cameroonians whom he is supposed to be leading.
It has been announced by government that Territorial Administration Minister, Paul Atanga Nji who after wasting state funds in the name of going to Ethiopia recently to “inspect” aircraft for Muslim pilgrims, will again be jetting off to Rome to represent Paul Biya who has made it a habit to never attend high-profile events where he ought to rightly be the one representing Cameroonians. Biya doesn’t miss these events because he is elsewhere attending other international or national events. He simply vanishes from public view, leaving Cameroonians in the dark as to his whereabouts – exactly like he did in late 2024 when he disappeared after the Africa-China Summit for more than 40 days.
With Pope Francis’ recent passing, it would have been thought that Biya – whom national broadcaster, CRTV has repeatedly sung his praises about how fit he is – one would have assumed that this rather frisky president who is “en plein forme” as his supporters would love the rest of Cameroon to believe – would be at the front representing Cameroon as he rightly should, especially at an event like the Pope’s funeral. But no! Instead, Biya simply disappears from public view in his characteristic manner. This sort of behavior from Cameroon’s number one citizen is not without precedent. Nelson Mandela visited Cameroon sometime in 1996 – a gesture of his close friendship not just with Cameroon as a country, but of his personal friendship with Paul Biya as a leader, but when Mandela died in 2013, Paul Biya did not attend Mandela’s funeral.
It was same with Cardinal Tumi’s funeral: Biya didn’t attend, designating a representative instead even though Tumi was the highest-ranking Catholic of Cameroonian origin. When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, Biya again sent a representative and didn’t attend John Paul II’s funeral.
In 2022 when Queen Elizabeth II died, Biya as president and Cameroon as a Commonwealth member would have been expected to represent Cameroon appropriately but Biya designated a representative in the person of Prime Minister Dion Ngute instead.
Even in 2016 when the tragic Eseka train accident occurred, Biya had been out of the country on one of his habitual, unaccounted absences from the country but flew back to the country at news of the tragedy and never bothered to visit the scene for himself, instead promising to set up a committee to conduct investigations into the accident.
The list of Biya’s aloof style of leadership is nearly inexhaustible but speaks of a leader who is not the “people’s choice” as his CPDM party has the habit of portraying him. Instead, judging by Biya’s style of rulership, he prefers to mingle with the high and mighty like ambassadors, for whom he throws lavish parties at the Unity Palace every year and spends hours in small talk, shaking their hands and having it broadcast on CRTV. Cameroonians cannot relate to this.
This would explain why Biya a few years ago, was in Washington DC for the US-Africa Summit and kept asking if the people in the room were “important people” worthy of his speech. He sees Cameroonians as worthy of his hollow speeches only every 11 February, 20th May and December 31st. This effectively means that out of every 12 months, Biya addresses the nearly 30 million Cameroonians he is supposed to be leading, just three times in a one-way lecture where he brags about his “achievements” and heaps more promises on top of the ones he has been making for years.
Cameroonians deserve better. Cameroonians deserve a leader who accurately represents them and is accountable to them – not one who feels entitled to be their leader and does as he likes with impunity.
Biya is a Catholic and a former Catholic seminarian for that matter. If he cannot attend the funeral of the head of the church which he (Biya) attends, Cameroonians and the more than 8 million Catholics in Cameroon should definitely be asking some tough questions.
