President Biya, in energy since 1982, is on his seventh time period as Cameroon’s chief. Many say it's time for a change.
Edith Kah Walla was on the entrance of a crowd of scholars that welcomed Cameroon’s new President Paul Biya on a tour of the USA in 1984, filled with hope that the younger chief would carry stability and democracy, and finish corruption.
4 many years on, Biya, now the world’s oldest chief, turns 90 on Monday. When he cuts a big cake, as he often does on his birthday, Kah Walla, who was considered one of Biya’s challengers within the 2011 presidential election, is not going to be celebrating.
Her help for Biya evaporated through the years as financial progress stalled, dissenting voices had been silenced, and the oil-producing nation of 27 million individuals grew to become cut up by a separatist rebellion that has killed hundreds, amid rising Boko Haram assaults within the north.
At 90, Biya ought to spend his days taking part in together with his grandchildren, she stated.
“We dwell in a violent, brutal dictatorship. Over the previous 40 years it has gotten an increasing number of violent and brutal,” stated Kah Walla, now a civil society activist. “These 40 years are an enormous setback for Cameroon.”
A authorities spokesperson didn't reply to calls requesting remark.
4 many years of Biya
Biya has repeatedly defended his document up to now and says the federal government has made strides to return peace to the minority English-speaking areas the place separatists are attempting to type their very own state.
He touts his Imaginative and prescient 2035 plan as a blueprint to spice up improvement over the following 12 years.
Biya was born in Mvomeka’a, a village within the southern equatorial forest, in 1933, the yr Adolf Hitler grew to become chancellor in Germany.
After finding out in Paris, he returned to Cameroon in 1962 as a high civil servant and shortly rose to change into the prime minister in 1975. He was hand-picked as successor after the nation’s first post-independence President Ahmadou Ahidjdo determined to resign immediately in November 1982.
In Africa, solely President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea has dominated longer.
Tens of millions nonetheless help Biya, though worldwide observers have raised doubts concerning the equity of elections that he routinely wins with ease. He spends lengthy stretches in snug European accommodations together with his spouse Chantal, irritating many at dwelling who consider the nation’s crises require nearer consideration.
In 2020, he was not seen in public for weeks, prompting hypothesis that he had died of COVID-19.
Biya has dominated with openness and tolerance, stated former minister Elvis Ngolle Ngolle. Previous age, he stated, has its benefits.
“The extra you add up the age, the wiser you change into – the extra skilled, tolerant, logical you change into,” Ngolle stated.
‘I can’t rejoice’
Standard journalist and whistleblower Paul Chouta disagrees. Chouta, an outspoken critic of Biya, has been repeatedly crushed and tortured in recent times. He lives in concern: simply the sound of his floorboards creaking sends him right into a panic.
On March 9 final yr, unknown assailants bundled him into the again of a automobile and drove him to an remoted spot close to Yaounde airport. They beat him with stones and batons and left him for lifeless, he stated.
Chouta is considered one of a number of reporters who've been crushed or killed. Two journalists had been killed within the final month, prompting condemnation from the United Nations.
“If he [Biya] loves Cameroonians, let him make things better and go. The woes are deep,” Chouta instructed Reuters information company.
It's not solely well-known reporters who're cautious.
Kouam Yves, a bike taxi driver, final week stood at a newspaper stand discussing the information headlines with colleagues. He struggles to make a dwelling and is vital of Biya and what he describes as rampant corruption. However he paused as he spoke, nervous about who could be listening.
“I can’t rejoice the top of state’s birthday. For greater than 20 years, I've not seen something which now we have executed on this nation that went effectively like in different nations,” he stated.
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