The governing elite is splitting as Biya s 91st birthday approaches, while the Anglophone insurgency grinds on and elections loom, Cameroonians do not look forward to what 2024 has to offer as all the drivers of conflict, corruption, and divisiveness in government look set to intensify amid expectations of imminent change. President Paul Biya s 91st birthday falls in February and people are picking what they hope will be the winning side.
Efforts to coup-proof the regime include suppressing army officer networks and media organisations and banning references to military coups, President Paul Biya has taken further steps to save his regime from the fate that befell Gabon s President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba, ousted by a military coup on 30 August.
African and western states are putting little pressure on the junta as it announces it will be in power for at least two years, A month after General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema and his allies seized power in the wake of the disputed elections, the new regime is stepping up its diplomatic and business outreach as it launches investigations and audits of President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba s government and family.
The nonagenarian President has been shaken by the coup against his Gabonese counterpart, whose relationship to the military was similar to his own, President Paul Biya has shuffled military posts and reorganised defence ministry departments to forestall any attempt by the army to take power. Whether he has done enough to avoid the fate of his southern neighbour, President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba, remains to be seen. Whether Biya, a master-manipulator of his security forces for decades, will succeed this time is the dominant question in the country.
The president s latest army reshuffle is part of a long-term plan to safeguard his regime and his family s role in it, The army reshuffle in Rwanda, announced on 31 August, was not a panicked response to the military coup in Gabon on the previous day as some have suggested. President Paul Kagame frequently circulates his top brass to ensure no military commander builds up a faction of supporters who might challenge his hold on power. This has been a three decades-long strategy. Unlike the military reshuffle in Cameroon on 31 August, there s no sign that Kagame s moves were triggered by General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema s putsch in Libreville.