“Cameroon’s 43-Year Puzzle: When Loyalty
Becomes the People’s Undoing”
As Cameroonians await the official results of
the October 12, 2025 presidential election, a familiar air of resignation hangs
over the country. The incumbent, President Paul Biya, 92, has ruled for 43
years, a lifetime for many who have known no other leader. For over four
decades, the promise of democracy has existed largely in theory, while poverty,
unemployment, poor infrastructure, and decaying social services have remained
the lived reality of millions.
Yet, despite these deep-rooted hardships, the
ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) continues to dominate the
political landscape with near-absolute certainty. This year’s campaign season
offered a telling illustration. President Biya made a personal appearance in
only one town, Maroua, while delegating the rest of the campaign to senior
party figures, most of whom are government ministers, high ranking public
administrators and influential elites.
In almost every division and subdivision, these
representatives held grand rallies, ensuring once again that the CPDM machinery
reached the grassroots. They are, after all, the primary beneficiaries of the
system, custodians of privilege whose influence depends on maintaining the
status quo. The ruling party’s network of loyalty is therefore not just
political; it is economic and deeply social. Government positions and benefits
are deliberately spread across ethnic lines to create a semblance of inclusion,
ensuring that no community feels entirely left out of “the national cake,” even
if the slices are grossly unequal.
But beneath this facade lies a troubling truth:
while the Head of State is often blamed for the country’s decline, the everyday
agents of power - local officials, regional administrators, mayors, and MPs
have equally failed their people. Roads remain impassable, schools
under-equipped, hospitals ill-staffed, and electricity unreliable. Ironically,
the same officials who preside over this decay return during election seasons
in convoys of gleaming four-wheel drives to preach continuity to the same
populations who suffer under their neglect.
The moral tragedy is that the masses, weary and
impoverished, continue to welcome these figures with open arms, singing,
dancing, and pledging votes. Fear, dependence, and long-cultivated habits of
submission have blurred the line between leadership and servitude. The people
have ceased to see themselves as shareholders in the Republic, and instead act
as spectators in their own national destiny.
Cameroon’s greatest challenge, therefore, may
no longer be a question of who governs from Yaoundé, but how citizens across
the ten regions choose to hold their leaders, big and small accountable. True
change will not come from a new face on a ballot, but from a new mindset among
the governed.
It is time for Cameroonians to awaken to the
power of collective accountability. Every vote must be earned through tangible
service, not patronage or tribal loyalty. The luxury homes built by officials
in villages where children still drink from streams should no longer be symbols
of admiration but evidence of betrayal.
A country blessed with abundant natural
resources, oil, timber, minerals, fertile lands, and a vibrant youth population
has no reason to wallow in poverty except for its mismanagement and the
complacency of its citizens. The day the ordinary Cameroonian begins to reject
unworthy leaders, not with violence but with civic courage, will be the day the
country begins to truly rise.
Cameroon does not lack vision; it lacks
accountability. And until both the rulers and the ruled understand that
progress is impossible without responsibility, elections will remain rituals of
continuity rather than instruments of change.
“Africa will
rise the day her people realize that leadership is not a gift to receive, but a
duty to demand accountability.”
