History will not remember Paul Biya merely because he occupied the presidency for 44 years. It will examine what those years achieved, what opportunities were lost, which institutions endured and what human suffering might have been prevented.
By Timothy Enongene
Editor-in-Chief, The Independentist News
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YAOUNDÉ – November 6, 2026 – Some political promises fail. Others are quietly forgotten. But there is a third category: promises repeated for so long that they cease to inspire hope and become monuments to political disappointment. Paul Biya’s celebrated New Deal has entered that third category.
Today, November 6, 2026, marks exactly 44 years since Paul Biya assumed the presidency of La République du Cameroun (LRC). Forty-four years of speeches, political slogans, cabinet reshuffles, development plans, electoral campaigns and repeated assurances of a better tomorrow.
Yet, as The Post newspaper asks in its November 6, 2026, front-page headline: “44 Years of Biya: What Became of the New Deal?” The question is timely, but perhaps insufficient. A more troubling question deserves an answer: Did the New Deal ever become a genuine programme of national transformation, or did it gradually become a political advertisement for a future that never arrived?
THE 1982 PROMISE
When Paul Biya succeeded Ahmadou Ahidjo on November 6, 1982, he presented himself as the representative of a new political era. His New Deal promised rigour, moralisation, democratic renewal, greater accountability and improved governance. It raised expectations that Cameroon might move beyond the authoritarian practices of the past towards institutions capable of serving citizens rather than political personalities.
For many, the promise was appealing. A new president, a new political vocabulary and the prospect of a different national future appeared to signal a historic turning point. But 44 years later, the central question remains unanswered: What measurable transformation has justified nearly half a century of political continuity?
A New Deal that cannot consistently deliver new opportunities is hardly new. A political renewal that depends indefinitely on the same individual eventually contradicts its own founding promise. Cameroonians were offered a new beginning. Instead, they have witnessed the extraordinary prolongation of one presidency.
ONE PRESIDENT, AN ENTIRE GENERATION
Consider the human dimension. A child born on November 6, 1982, turns 44 today. That child could have completed primary and secondary education, graduated from university, established a career, raised a family and watched another generation enter adulthood. Throughout that entire lifetime, the presidency has remained in the hands of one man.
One president. Forty-four years. Generations shaped by promises of renewal. Political longevity is not necessarily proof of failure. But neither is it evidence of success. Supporters of Biya point to political stability, infrastructure investments, the restoration of multiparty politics and periods of economic progress. Such claims deserve examination. Yet they cannot exempt a government from scrutiny over corruption, public-service deficiencies, limited economic opportunities, institutional weaknesses and unresolved political grievances.
The test of leadership is not how effectively power is retained. It is how profoundly public institutions and ordinary lives improve. In a functioning democracy, leadership is a temporary public trust, not an indefinite personal entitlement. Institutions must become stronger than their occupants, and political succession must remain a credible possibility.
When the survival of a political system appears inseparable from the continued presence of one individual, the promise of institutional renewal has lost much of its meaning.
A COUNTRY CANNOT DEVELOP ON SLOGANS
Perhaps the greatest contradiction of the New Deal is the widening distance between official declarations and the daily experiences of many citizens. Government rhetoric celebrates emergence, modernisation, investment and transformation. Yet many communities continue to struggle with inadequate healthcare, unreliable electricity, limited access to clean water, unemployment and deteriorating public infrastructure.
These difficulties do not mean that nothing has changed in 44 years. They mean that progress must be judged against the resources available, the opportunities presented and the enormous length of time entrusted to one administration. A country cannot develop through press releases.
Roads are not constructed by presidential declarations. Hospitals do not function because ministers announce reform programmes. Young graduates cannot build careers on economic forecasts alone. And hungry families cannot eat development projections. A New Deal must produce new realities, not merely new slogans.
The question is not whether Cameroon has experienced development under Biya. Every society changes over four decades. The question is whether the government has delivered the scale, quality and fairness of development that its promises and longevity demand. Forty-four years are sufficient to distinguish between temporary difficulties and structural failures.
THE UNFINISHED QUESTION OF AMBAZONIA
For the people of Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia), Biya’s 44 years carry an additional historical and political burden. The conflict between La République du Cameroun and the Southern Cameroons has exposed a profound failure to resolve longstanding grievances concerning political identity, constitutional arrangements, governance and self-determination.
The humanitarian consequences have been severe. Communities have suffered displacement, insecurity, disrupted education, loss of livelihoods and grave violations of human rights. Civilians have endured abuses associated with both state security operations and non-state armed groups. No responsible political assessment can treat these consequences as incidental.
For Ambazonians, the New Deal cannot be evaluated solely through economic programmes, road construction or government expenditure. It must also be examined through the unresolved political relationship between Southern Cameroons and the government in Yaoundé.
Can a political philosophy claiming national renewal be considered successful while a fundamental constitutional and national question remains unresolved and continues to generate profound human suffering? Can military responses substitute indefinitely for credible political engagement? And can a government celebrate continuity when so many families continue to experience uncertainty, displacement and loss?
These are not peripheral questions. They go directly to the legitimacy, credibility and historical legacy of the New Deal. Political authority cannot rely forever on force or ceremonial declarations. Lasting peace requires an honest confrontation with the causes of conflict, the protection of civilians and a credible political process that addresses the rights and aspirations of the affected population.
THE VERDICT OF FORTY-FOUR YEARS
In October 2025, Paul Biya was officially declared the winner of another presidential election, extending a presidency that had already outlasted generations. The results were challenged by opposition figures, reinforcing longstanding concerns about electoral confidence and democratic accountability.
That election brought the country back to an uncomfortable question: What does political continuity accomplish when citizens remain uncertain about the possibility of meaningful change? After 44 years, the New Deal should no longer be evaluated as an aspiration. It must be judged as a record.
Its promises of rigour must be measured against public accountability. Its commitment to moralisation must be examined against corruption and abuse of office. Its language of democratisation must be tested against the strength of institutions, civil liberties and credible political competition. Its assurances of national progress must be assessed against the actual living conditions of ordinary people. And its vision of national unity must be confronted with the unresolved Southern Cameroons question.
No administration should be permitted to convert the longevity of its rule into a substitute for the success of its policies. Forty-four years should have been enough to establish institutions capable of functioning beyond one individual. Enough to create credible traditions of democratic succession. Enough to demonstrate that development is more than a recurring political promise. Instead, the New Deal has become an increasingly uncomfortable historical reference point: a slogan whose age now invites more questions than confidence.
THE PROMISE HAS EXPIRED
Perhaps it is time to retire the New Deal. Not because the people no longer deserve renewal, but because they deserve something more substantial than an ageing political slogan. They deserve accountable government, credible institutions, economic opportunity, human dignity and a future that does not depend on the indefinite continuation of one presidency.
The people of Southern Cameroons deserve an equally serious reckoning with the unresolved political question that has shaped their relationship with La République du Cameroun.
THE NEW DEAL HAS GROWN OLD. THE PROMISE HAS EXPIRED. THE PEOPLE ARE STILL WAITING.
After 44 years, the question is no longer simply what became of the New Deal. It is how much longer citizens must wait for the future they were promised more than four decades ago.
History will not remember Paul Biya merely because he occupied the presidency for 44 years. It will examine what those years achieved, what opportunities were lost, which institutions endured and what human suffering might have been prevented.
A presidency may endure for decades. But endurance is not achievement, continuity is not transformation, and the passage of time is not a substitute for progress. Forty-four years later, the New Deal must finally answer to the people—not the other way around.
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Timothy Enongene
Editor-in-Chief, The Independentist News
