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Tag: Paul Biya

  • Cameroon opposition rejects Biya’s win amid violent protests

    Cameroon opposition rejects Biya’s win amid violent protests

    Cameroon’s opposition leaders rejected presidential election results that extended President Paul Biya’s rule for another seven years, saying the outcome did not reflect the will of the people in a country already battling a separatist conflict.

    The central African nation’s constitutional council on Monday declared Biya, 92, as the winner of the disputed vote with over 53% of the ballots, triggering violent protests in several cities in the oil- and cocoa-producing nation.

    The court’s ruling, which is final and cannot be appealed, signals a potentially prolonged post-election standoff.

    Issa Tchiroma Bakary , Biya’s main challenger, had earlier declared victory and warned he would not accept any other outcome. His supporters have angrily taken to the streets, clashing with riot police and blocking roads in the commercial capital Douala with burning tires and debris.

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    The protests killed at least four people over the weekend and two others on Monday, according to the opposition.

    There were scattered celebrations in Biya’s strongholds and government ministers held a party. The usually bustling streets of Douala remained quiet yesterday as rain and riot police kept protesters away.

    The European Union expressed “deep concern” about the recent violent repression of protests and called on authorities to tackle the excessive use of force. It also urged leaders to engage in dialogue to preserve national stability.

  • Constitutional council declares Cameroon’s Biya re-elected at 92

    Constitutional council declares Cameroon’s Biya re-elected at 92

    Protests errupt

    Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest serving ruler, secured an eighth term in office on Monday, vote results showed, as the main opposition challenger, who has also claimed victory, reported gunfire near his home.

    Sporadic protests erupted in several towns across the country after the result was announced.

    Biya, 92, won 53.66% of the vote, against 35.19% for his former ally, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the Constitutional Council said. A new seven-year term could keep the veteran leader in power until he is nearly 100.

    Opposition protesters have clashed with security forces repeatedly over the past week after partial results suggested Biya was on course to win the October 12 vote.

    There was no immediate comment on the result from the government, which has rejected opposition accusations of irregularities.

    After the results were announced, Tchiroma wrote on Facebook that two people were killed after shots were fired at civilians outside his home in the northern city of Garoua.

    He did not say who had fired the shots or comment directly on the election result. Reuters could not confirm his account independently. Last week, he said he had won the election and would not accept any other result.

    In Garoua, angry protesters guarding Tchiroma’s home said they targeted a house sheltering snipers firing at supporters, bursting a water tank.

    Streets were largely deserted in the capital Yaounde and most businesses closed, with anti-riot police deployed across the city.

    Reuters reporters witnessed clashes between opposition supporters and security forces in Douala, where police fired tear gas as protesters protected their faces with masks or clothing. Tchiroma supporters erected barricades, piled debris on the road and burned tires, darkening the sky.

    “We all know that the majority of Cameroon’s people voted for Issa Tchiroma Bakary,” said one protester in Douala. “It is inadmissible that President Paul Biya won in certain war zones.”

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    The result raised the prospect of more confrontations between opposition supporters and security forces, a day after at least four people died in clashes in Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala.

    “We expect unrest to escalate as Cameroonians widely reject the official result, and we cannot see the Biya government lasting much longer,” said Francois Conradie, lead political economist at Oxford Economics.

    “Biya now has a notably shaky mandate given many of his own citizens don’t believe he won the election,” Murithi Mutiga, Africa Programme Director at the International Crisis Group, told Reuters.

    “We call on Biya to urgently initiate a national mediation to prevent further escalation,” Mutiga added.

    Biya, 92, took office in 1982 and has held a tight grip on power ever since, doing away with the presidential term limit in 2008 and winning reelection by comfortable margins.

    “Hereby declared elected President of the Republic, having obtained the majority of the votes cast, the candidate, Biya, Paul,” Clement Atangana, president of the Constitutional Council, said.

    Tchiroma is a former government spokesperson and employment minister in his late 70s who broke ranks with Biya earlier this year.

    He mounted a campaign that drew large crowds and endorsements from a coalition of opposition parties and civic groups.

  • JUST IN: 92-year-old Paul Biya secures eighth term as Cameroon’s President

    JUST IN: 92-year-old Paul Biya secures eighth term as Cameroon’s President

    Cameroon’s Constitutional Council on Monday declared 92-year-old Paul Biya the winner of the country’s highly contested presidential election, extending his decades-long rule.

    Biya, who has been in power since 1982, secured a fresh seven-year mandate after polling 53.66 percent of the votes.

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    His closest rival, 76-year-old Issa Tchiroma, a former government spokesperson, came second with 35.19 percent.

    With this victory, Biya begins his eighth consecutive term, set to govern until 2032, by which time he will be nearly 100 years old.

    The result also cements his position as the world’s oldest serving president.

    Details shortly…

  • Biya may extend rule as Cameroon votes in election

    Biya may extend rule as Cameroon votes in election

    Cameroon voted in an election yesterday that could see Africa’s oldest leader extend his rule by another seven years.

    Analysts have predicted a victory for President Paul Biya. Now 92, he would be 99 by the time his term finishes.

    He first came to power in 1982, following the resignation of Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, and has ruled the country since then. Biya was declared the winner of seven subsequent elections. Cameroon has seen just two leaders since independence in 1960.

    His health has routinely been a topic of speculation as he spends most of his time in Europe, leaving day-to-day governing to key party officials and family members.

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    “In the face of increasingly difficult international environment, the challenges facing us are more and more pressing,” Biya said in announcing another run. “In such a situation, I cannot shirk my mission.”

    Biya faces nine opposition candidates, including some former allies and appointees. They include Bello Bouba Maigari, who was minister for tourism, and Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who until recently served as the minister of employment.

    There is a single round of voting in Cameroon and whoever gets the most votes is the winner.

    Cheukam Ginette, a 34-year-old environmentalist and first-time voter, said she won’t choose Biya.

    “Things have to change. First of all, life is expensive, getting medical care is not easy,” she said outside of a polling station in the capital of Yaounde. “There are no roads, we have potholes everywhere. Everything is ruined. That’s why I voted for the opposition. I do not have confidence in the electoral process because we know our country but I’m hopeful.”

  • Biya lands in Cameroon after health rumours

    Biya lands in Cameroon after health rumours

    Cameroonian President Paul Biya landed on Monday at the capital Yaounde’s international airport after several weeks out of the country amid rumours about his health, state broadcaster CRTV showed.

    The West African nation’s 91-year-old leader appeared on television after the presidential plane landed, shaking hands with officials next to his wife Chantal, as a jubilant crowd waited to greet him.

    Supporters wearing outfits displaying his portrait chanted to the beat of a drum and lined the roads as his motorcade swiftly left the airport for the presidential palace, according to CRTV, which dedicated a programme to his return.

    Questions about Biya’s health and whereabouts grew when he disappeared from public view after leaving Beijing at the beginning of September following a China-Africa cooperation summit.

    “Today, the president is on his way and this will put an end to all the speculation,” declared a CRTV presenter.

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    Aircraft flight tracking sites showed that a Boeing with aircraft registration CMR001, previously used to transport Biya, left late Monday morning from Geneva, where he had been residing for several weeks, according to official sources.

    Large posters also appeared in the Cameroonian capital welcoming back the head of state who has ruled the country unchallenged for more than four decades.

    “Welcome home, Mr President of the Republic,” said one billboard with a portrait of Biya on a blue background, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

    On October 8, after consistent rumours about Biya, the government released a statement saying he would be back in the country in the next few days.

    Then the government formally banned local media from discussing the state of his health.

    The Cameroonian leader also did not participate in the United Nations General Assembly in New York nor a summit for French-speaking countries in Paris.

  • As Paul Biya holds on to the reins

    SIR: In the battleground of politics, Africa has a short list of successful strong men and considering the evolving political climate in Cameroon, President Paul Biya may, against all odds, make the list.

    If successful, President Biya will join the gargoyles of Hastings Banda and Umar Bongo now of unblessed memory and José Eduardo dos Santos who recently announced his retirement. If unsuccessful, he will join Robert Mugabe, YahyahJammeh, Blaise Campaore, Abdoulaye Wade, Hosni Mubarak, etc. who are still nursing the regret of being forced out of power.

    The above names perfectly defined the ills of African states. They are African strong men and in the spirit of King Louis XVI famous dictum, l’état, c’estmoi; they became their states writ large as the line separating commonwealth and personal wealth were smudged. They understood what power denotes and connotes — hence they don’t joke with it. Robert Mugabe reportedly chastised President Gbagbo of Ivory Coast for being soft with power.

    If things go as they would likely to go, Paul Biya will rule till 2024. He will be ninety-two then and might retire or even contest for another term. Megalomania is the stock in trade of a typical African strongman— Paul Biya represents that perfectly well.

    By any standard, it begs questions as to what motivates Biya’s re-election. What will he do the next seven years he has not done in his 36 years in power?

    This is a man that has been dubbed ‘absentee president’. Unlike other African sit-tight presidents who exercise power to its fullness, President Biya entrusts the day-to-day running of the government to the Prime Minister, Philemon Yang, who holds monthly gatherings of a “cabinet council” while he holidays with his beautiful wife abroad.

    Yes, under his watch— as his spin doctors have argued, Cameroon has survived an economic crisis and moved from being a one-party state to multi-party politics. But it has also been marked by endemic corruption and reversal of democratic gains, leading to the abolition of term limits in 2008, which allowed the octogenarian to run for re-election in 2011and this year.

    Also, his government has for so long marginalized the English speaking region of the country, a factor that triggered off the chains of centrifugal forces that culminated into the declaration of the independent state of “Ambazonia.”  Since the struggle began in 2016, both the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF) and government forces have recorded considerable loss of human capital. And the toll continues.

    But President Biya, like any other dyed in the wool African strong man, doesn’t swerve. In the dictionary of African strong men, might is right. So in his in 2018 inaugural address, he sent strong message to the separatists: “These war-mongers who are jeopardizing our national unity and preaching secession should know that they will face not only the full force of the law, but also the determination of our defence and security forces. I am calling on them to lay down their arms and get back on the right track. I am appealing particularly to youths who got involved in a futile adventure.”

    Barack Obama had in his speech to the Ghanaian parliament in 2009 observed that “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”. While that message was clear, it is important to state here that Africa’s problem is not the problem of strongmen but that of unpatriotic strongmen.

    Lee kuan Yew ruled Singapore with iron hand but the transformation “From Third World to First World” is there for all to see. China is what it is today because of the way Deng Xiaoping reformed it. Both were not just harsh in administration, but they had the interest of their countries in mind.

    As President Biya continues to enjoy the patronage of his neo-colonial masters, he should remember that ChinwizuIbekwe in his controversial “The West and Rest of Us” expatiated the contributions of the black slavers and African elite in the slave trade and colonialism. This is what he is doing and history must surely judge him for that.

     

    • Asikason Jonathan, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

  • Cameroon’s President Biya to run for 7th term in office

    President Paul Biya of Cameroon will run for re-election in October, he said on Friday, aiming to extend his 36-year rule and maintain his place on a shortening roster of long-standing African leaders.

    Biya, who came to power in 1982 when his predecessor retired, is seeking a seventh term in office that could see the 85-year-old rule well into his 90s.
    It would leave him in rare company after former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh were ousted in 2017.

    Of Africa’s living rulers, only Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has ruled uninterrupted for longer.

    “I am willing to respond positively to your overwhelming calls. I will stand as Your Candidate in the upcoming presidential election,” Biya said in a tweet on Friday.

    Biya, who has ruled virtually by decree since taking office, scrapped term limits from the constitution in 2008, allowing him to run again and sparking riots in which over 40 people were killed.

    The election, scheduled on Oct. 7, comes at a turbulent time for the Central African country and for Biya.

    A separatist insurgency in the western English-speaking regions has killed 84 troops in September 2018, while a drop in the price of its key cocoa and oil exports has weighed on the economy.

  • 15 killed in Cameroon separatist clashes

    15 killed in Cameroon separatist clashes

    15 people have died in clashes between security forces and protesters in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon, Amnesty International has said.

    Violence broke out on Sunday after local groups called protests against “marginalization” by President Paul Biya’s Francophone-dominated government.

    Eyewitnesses said security forces opened fire, often at close range.

    “I now have confirmation of at least 15 killed in several towns,” Amnesty International’s Lake Chad region researcher, Ilaria Allegrozzi, told Reuters.

  • Cameroon doctors’ strike leaves patients without critical care

    Cameroon doctors’ strike leaves patients without critical care

    A doctors’ strike in Cameroon left patients without critical care in the capital Yaoude, the latest in a string of union actions that have crippled a country in the midst of political crisis.

    The doctors union,  known as SYMEC, demanded better working conditions and pay and left nurses to attend to sick

    Patients in some of Yaounde’s  major hospitals.

    The strike was not directly linked to other union action, but it adds to the turmoil in the central African

    country where protests have erupted since October in the Anglophone south, and northwest regions.

    Teachers and lawyers have been on strike for months to protest at what they say is their marginalisation by the French-speaking majority under President Paul Biya’s 35-year rule.

    In reaction, the government has shut down the internet in English-speaking areas.
    At Yaounde’s Central  Hospital, a witness said, patients angrily waited to be seen, clutching prescriptions and test results, but there were no doctors in sight.

    “My father had a motorcycle accident and must undergo surgery today.

    “`There are no surgeons, we are told that there is a strike, and the nurse told us that they only deal with the sick in-house or by appointment,” said Marianne Balla, who was waiting in the Central Hospital.

    The government said the strike was illegal as SYMEC is not a legally recognised union, a charge the union dismissed as untrue.

    It was not clear how well observed the strike was in other parts of the country.

    Some hospitals contacted by Reuters outside the capital said by telephone that they were operating normally.

    The strike comes at a critical time for Biya, who is under pressure to peacefully resolve a growing crisis.

    No fewer than six protesters have been shot dead and hundreds others arrested during the rare challenge to state authority ahead of a presidential election in 2018.

    In an apparent bid to stamp out online critics, the government has cut internet access in the two English-speaking regions for three months, hobbling business activity and prompting criticism from human rights groups and the UN.

    Still, with Biya looking to extend his long rule next year, some expect government crackdowns to continue.

    “With elections coming up in 2018, we can expect the situation to get much worse before it gets better,” said Jeffrey Smith from campaign group Vanguard Africa.

     

     

  • Buhari, Hollande, Biya listed for Abuja security summit

    Buhari, Hollande, Biya listed for Abuja security summit

    President Muhammadu will host the second Regional Security Summit slated for May 14 in Abuja.

    The summit is geared towards enhancing security of lives, properties and investments in Nigeria and neighboring countries.

    A statement issued by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Femi Adesina, said that participants in the summit will include President Francois Hollande of France who hosted the first Regional Security Summit in Paris on May 17, 2014.

    President Buhari and the French President who is scheduled to arrive Abuja on Friday on an official visit to Nigeria will be joined at the summit by the Presidents of Cameroon, Niger Republic, Chad  and Benin Republic.

    The United States, Britain, Equatorial Guinea, the European Union, ECOWAS, the Economic Community of Central African States and the Gulf of Guinea Commission will also be represented at the summit which will have the successful conclusion of ongoing military operations against Boko Haram at the top of its agenda.

    The speedy resolution of the humanitarian crises caused by activities of the terrorist group, the statement said, will also feature prominently on the summit’s agenda.

    Before proceeding to the summit, President Buhari will receive President Hollande  and the French delegation at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Saturday morning.

    “It is expected that new agreements on further defence and cultural cooperation between Nigeria and France will be concluded and signed after talks between the two leaders and their officials,” the statement added.