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.
The funeral of opposition leader John Fru Ndi in July symbolised the end of constitutionalist Anglophone ambitions for justice, Political opposition to the presidency of Paul Biya has been marginalised not only by armed action by separatists, but by the regime s increasing intolerance and emasculation of constitutional oppositionists. This leaves no outlet for increasingly frustrated English-speakers, as well as Francophones fed up with an autocratic president.
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 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.