Just like Bobe Jacks Sani of Muteff village, 92-year-old President/candidate Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 43 years, literally runs the country like a village provision store, locking and opening it up, when and how he wants.
Colbert Gwain @The Muteff Factor (formerly The Colbert Factor)
If one thing sets Muteff village in Fundong Subdivision of the North West’s Boyo Division of Cameroon apart on the world stage, it’s the fact that events there sometimes have national, regional, and global significance. In its early stages of villagehood, Muteff boasted a generation of vibrant local elites, including my uncle’s son, Bobe Jacks Sani, who owned the village’s lone provision store. This was because other equally vibrant and capable local elites believed that to achieve the community’s stated Balanced Development Goals (BDGs), diversification was necessary rather than concentrating efforts in one direction.
Although Bobe Jacks Sani was aware that he was the sole provider of necessities in the young community, he often failed to appreciate the need for his constant availability as a public service provider. Initially, his store was a hub for the entire community, and he was hailed as a blessing for sparing villagers the burden of traveling long distances to Abuh or Fundong for basic goods. However, over time, his service became erratic. As he frequently traveled for other business ventures, he would often lock up his store, even when customers were approaching, claiming he had other pressing appointments.
Despite pleas from desperate villagers who needed essential items like salt or oil, Bobe Sani wouldn’t spare a moment to serve them. Instead, he would arrogantly ask them to return later or travel to other communities to purchase what they needed. He would sometimes close his store for weeks and months without apology, expecting villagers to understand that he had more important engagements elsewhere. When he finally returned from wherever he was and got wind of the fact that villagers had been complaining, he got irritated and expected them to apologize for challenging his prolonged and unexplained absence.
As desperation grew, other vibrant village elites were forced to open their own provision stores and accessory businesses to meet the community’s needs in real time. With increased competition in service delivery, Bobe Jacks Sani’s influence began to wane, and his business gradually declined until his family eventually closed the once-thriving shop.
Just like Bobe Jacks Sani of Muteff village, 92-year-old President/candidate Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 43 years, literally runs the country like a village provision store, locking it up for weeks and months to stay away in Europe or his native village, Mvomeka’a. On October 21, 2024, President Paul Biya returned to Cameroon, 50 days after he took off for the Africa-China summit on September 4, 2024, and which ended on September 8. Instead of apologizing to Cameroonians for his prolonged absence without justification, the regime’s supporters organized crowds to thank him for finally returning home.
Since his return home, President Paul Biya has made a few notable appearances, including addressing Cameroonians via TV on New Year’s Eve, receiving the diplomatic and national constituted corps in January, addressing youths on Youth Day, and presiding over the May 20 National Day activities. Despite these events, he has granted fewer than five audiences to foreign signatories at Unity Palace and has hardly been seen interacting with Cameroonians. Notably, his former cabinet minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who resigned last July, revealed that President Biya granted him an audience only once in 20 years.
When the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reported that in October 2016, an overloaded train derailed in the small town of Eseka, killing over 75 people, President Paul Biya was away on a “brief private visit to Europe.” He returned two days after the disaster to offer condolences briefly on the airport tarmac. A year later, when protests erupted in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, Biya was on another “private” visit, this time to Geneva, Switzerland. He didn’t return for three weeks, even as security forces violently suppressed demonstrators, sparking a simmering guerrilla war. Regime apologists dismissed these concerns, claiming that Biya continues to work effectively even from abroad.
Following a review of 4,000 front pages of the state-owned newspaper, Cameroon Tribune, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found in a 2018 report that Biya had spent at least four and a half years on his “private visits” abroad. This total excludes official trips, which add up to another full year of his time abroad. In some years, like 2006 and 2009, the report revealed, President Biya spent a third of the year out of the country. The calculations, according to the OCCRP, were conservative because some editions of Cameroon Tribune were hard to find, and archives in Cameroon, France, and the United States have gaps in their collections that span several years.
The total hotel bill for President Biya and his collaborators during one stay at the InterContinental hotel amounts to around $40,000 per day. At this rate, the cost of all the President’s private trips, totaling 1,645 days, would add up to approximately $65 million since he came to power, excluding additional expenses such as food, entertainment, and private plane rentals, according to the report.
When President Biya is in Cameroon, he is not readily available, accessible, or active. Instead, he works through proxies and issues “High Instructions” that are often shrouded in doubt. Notably, despite being in the country, his candidacy for the upcoming October 12 presidential election was announced via a tweet. Furthermore, his papers were submitted by a delegation led by the party’s Secretary General. Meanwhile, Minister of State Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, Secretary General at the Presidency, has been receiving numerous delegations on the President’s behalf, acting as a proxy for the President and candidate in the forthcoming election.
The situation in Cameroon today is aptly captured by Beko Sadey’s song “Les Refugies,” where attempts to meet the president are thwarted by the secretary, who has become the gatekeeper. The secretary dismisses everyone who wants to see the president with excuses such as “Le patron n’est pas là”, “Le patron est en mission”, or “Revenez demain ou la semaine prochaine.”
President Paul Biya resembles Arthur “Boo” Radley from Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird”. In the story, Boo Radley lives in a small Alabama town, where children grow up hearing about him without ever seeing him. The kids even dare each other to approach his house, sometimes throwing stones in hopes of getting a glimpse of him. However, instead of confronting them, Boo shows his kindness by leaving gifts, such as toys and sweets, for the children to find. This mysterious behavior only adds to the speculation about Boo’s appearance and nature.
Scout, one of the characters in the book describes Boo’s appearance, “His face was as white as his hands, but for a shadow on his jutting chin. His cheeks were thin to hollowness; his mouth was wide; there were shallow, almost delicate indentations at his temples, and his gray eyes were so colorless I thought he was blind. His hair was dead and thin, almost feathery on top of his head.”
This is the reclusive character who is said to be seeking another term in the upcoming October 12 presidential election. However, before they seem to retract from their original position, the Bishops of Cameroon had, in a strongly worded pastoral letter, effectively disqualified any candidate who is not readily available, accessible, and proactive as the next President of Cameroon. The Cameroon New Initiative (CANVI), a thought leadership initiative floated by Eric Chinje, a prominent Cameroonian international media consultant, has outlined a robust job description for the CEO of Enterprise Cameroon that would definitely disqualify characters like Boo Radley, not to mention the 92-year-old President Paul Biya, who has ruled for 43 years and counting. And, as the celebrated Beko Sadey would say, it’s case closed – case closed.
In these perilous times, a truth-seeking and informative local news organization like The Muteff Factor (formerly The Colbert Factor) is essential. But, it’s not easy, cheap or profitable. The Muteff Factor is a solution-oriented, independent non-profit content creation medium. It serves as the ‘first draft’ for newspapers, radio and TV stations, online news outlets and blogs. We don’t have ads and we are independent of corporate and government interests.
You can help us continue creating more investigative, balanced, fair, reliable, credible and educative content, by donating your widow’s mighty mite through MTN momo number: 677852476 or Orange Money at 687338370, both numbers bearing Colbert Gwain Fulai
Colbert Gwain @The Muteff Factor
