The suggestion that someone of Dr. Vera Songwe’s stature could become Prime Minister illustrates this familiar strategy. No serious observer doubts her credentials. Her career, including leadership at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa under Secretary-General António Guterres, demonstrates technical excellence in macroeconomic policy, development finance, and institutional reform.
By Kemi Ashu for The Independentististnews
The latest attempt to present elite technocratic appointments as evidence of reform in Yaoundé is neither new nor convincing. For decades, President Paul Biya has mastered the politics of optics: appointing individuals with impressive international résumés while leaving untouched the political structures responsible for the country’s deep crises — especially the unresolved conflict with Ambazonia.
The tactic is simple: showcase academic brilliance and international credibility to project modernization, while the underlying governance system remains unchanged. It is governance by public relations, not by reform.The suggestion that someone of Dr. Vera Songwe’s stature could become Prime Minister illustrates this familiar strategy. No serious observer doubts her credentials. Her career, including leadership at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa under Secretary-General António Guterres, demonstrates technical excellence in macroeconomic policy, development finance, and institutional reform.
But the problem confronting Cameroon today is not a shortage of qualified technocrats. It is a shortage of political legitimacy and institutional trust.The Core Problem Is Political, Not Technical Cameroon’s crisis — particularly the conflict in the Anglophone regions — is not the result of poor economic modeling or weak fiscal advice. It is the result of decades of political marginalization, centralized power, and governance systems that refuse meaningful structural reform.
Appointing a brilliant economist to head government without changing the political system is akin to hiring a world-class engineer to pilot a sinking ship without fixing the hole in the hull.The crisis is constitutional and political, not managerial.Academic Excellence Cannot Substitute for Political Credibility. The regime’s recurring strategy is to wrap continuity in the language of competence.
Appointments of internationally respected figures serve to reassure foreign partners, investors, and multilateral institutions that reform is underway.But inside the country, citizens recognize the pattern: new faces, same system.Technocrats placed within rigid political structures often become symbolic shields rather than agents of transformation. Their credibility becomes political capital for the regime, while their ability to enact genuine change remains constrained.
Ambazonia Cannot Be Pacified Through Appointments of Ambazonians, the conflict is not about personalities in Yaoundé. It concerns self-determination, governance arrangements, and political rights. No appointment — however impressive the résumé — addresses the fundamental demands emerging from the conflict. Substituting political dialogue and structural solutions with elite appointments is not reconciliation; it is delay.
People measure change not by titles in the Star Building, but by security, justice, and political recognition.The Limits of Cosmetic Reform History shows that regimes facing legitimacy crises often attempt controlled renewal through selective modernization — appointing credible professionals while preserving centralized power. Such moves may buy time internationally, but domestically they deepen cynicism. Citizens increasingly view these appointments not as reform but as carefully staged political theater.
Respect for Credentials, Clarity About Reality
Acknowledging Dr. Songwe’s competence does not require ignoring political realities. She represents a generation of African technocrats who have earned global respect. But placing capable individuals into dysfunctional systems without granting them real reform power risks damaging their credibility while preserving the status quo.The issue is not whether qualified Cameroonians exist to govern. The issue is whether the governing system itself is willing to change.
Conclusion
Cameroon’s crisis cannot be solved by substituting faces while keeping structures intact. Political legitimacy cannot be imported through technocratic appointments. Until the underlying political questions — governance, decentralization, representation, and conflict resolution — are addressed honestly, such appointments will be viewed as tactical maneuvers rather than genuine reform.And for Ambazonians, cosmetic change will never substitute for political jutice.
Kemi Ashu
