Entrenched: The president of Cameroon, Paul Biya. (Lintao Zhang/Reuters)
Amid issues about his age and psychological well being, President Joe Biden, 81, pulled out of this 12 months’s election in the US.
Comparable issues swirl round President Paul Biya in Cameroon.
At 91, he’s the oldest president on the planet. However he has given no indication that he’ll step apart any time quickly.
Maybe due to the president’s perceived frailties, the criticism is louder than ever earlier than. It comes from disaffected youth, in addition to established opposition and civil society teams.
There are additionally rumbles of discontent from inside the ruling elite — all jostling for place in an more and more bitter succession battle.
They know Biya’s maintain on energy can survive something besides his personal demise — and that may’t be too distant.
Biya’s administration is responding with a well-recognized tactic: brutally cracking down on dissenting voices.
The very best-profile current instance is that of 23-year-old Junior Ngombe. He’s a barber by day and a digital activist by night time, campaigning for democratic change and urging his 35 000 followers on TikTok to register to vote.
Ngombe was outraged final month when one other outspoken activist, Steve Akam — generally known as Ramon Cotta on TikTok — was arrested in neighbouring Gabon.
Akam had been in exile in Gabon for a decade, however he was abruptly picked up by native authorities, who delivered him to their Cameroonian counterparts on the border.
This was a transparent violation of extradition procedures, say human rights teams.
Akam promptly disappeared, and has not been seen since.
Ngombe took to social media to denounce Akam’s arrest.
“To hunt those that denounce or criticise your system of governance, and those that have opposing views, you place all of your ingenuity at work to put palms on them. Why not use this power positively?” Ngombe requested in a TikTok video.
Shortly afterwards, Ngombe was detained by three plain-clothes intelligence officers.
He was transferred to the capital Yaoundé in a navy car, and held within the infamous Secrétariat d’Etat à la Défense — a facility beforehand famous by Human Rights Look ahead to the “widespread use of torture”.
Per week later, he was granted bail by a navy tribunal, and should still have to look earlier than a court docket regardless that he has not been formally charged with something.
“His arrest was not in conformity with the regulation,” stated Ngombe’s lawyer, Akere Muna.
Dozens of opposition leaders, journalists, political activists, human rights defenders and different authorities critics have been jailed or compelled into exile in current months, based on Ngo Mbe Maximilienne, the chief director of the Central Africa Human Rights Defenders Community.
“The political and human rights state of affairs could be very preoccupying,” Maximilienne stated.
Human Rights Watch provided an analogous evaluation.
“The Cameroonian authorities has for years cracked down on opposition and free speech, jailing political activists, journalists, and dissidents.
“Forward of elections in 2025, it has more and more restricted freedoms of expression and affiliation,” it stated in a press release final week.
The Cameroonian authorities has itself warned that criticism of Biya and establishments of state won’t be tolerated.
“It’s unacceptable for compatriots, be they political occasion leaders or opinion leaders, to make use of irreverent, insulting and even offensive language almost about the one who is legitimately and fortunately presiding over the future of Cameroon,” authorities spokesperson René Emmanuel Sadi stated final month.
To this finish, the regional administration that governs Yaoundé decreed that entry to the capital can be denied to these deemed more likely to offend the top of state, organise uprisings or trigger critical disturbance to public order.
“It’s superb to stop dysfunction than to revive regulation and order,” stated Emmanuel Mariel Djikdent, the senior divisional officer for Mfoundi and a Biya appointee.
This text first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail & Guardian. It’s designed to be learn and shared on WhatsApp. Obtain your free copy right here