Why Cameroonians Can Admire Buhari’s Leadership

By Chuks Ekpeneru

President Muhammadu Buhari could envy his colleague to the east, President Paul Biya.

Despite having a much more precarious COVID-19 situation than Nigeria, the Cameroonian president has not faced as much shrill calls and criticism as Nigeria’s Buhari has been.

When even steadfast loyalists in the All Progressives Congress, APC dominated National Assembly called out the president to speak it commanded a sort of presidential rebuke. Cameroonians may well shout themselves to the grave, their president who has governed the country for the past 38 years has remained rather unmoved.

Compared to Nigeria’s 305 cases, (206 million)  Cameroon with a population of 26.55 million (2020) has as at Saturday, April 11, 2020 had a caseload of 820 Coronavirus infections with 12 deaths and 98 recoveries.

The country has become the second hardest hit in Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa.

However, what is making the situation in the country worrisome is that like many other African countries, Cameroon is not well-equipped to handle a major outbreak of the disease.

Even more, is the absence of President Paul Biya to speak or direct proceedings and give leadership.

The much Cameroonians have had from him was an instruction to the prime minister to put in place a 13-point response strategy. He has also through social media called on Cameroonians to respect the measures put in place.

This is even as Boko Haram Islamic terrorists hold sway in the north and an Anglophone-led insurgency in north- and southwest of the country.

The Cameroon people are not happy with the way their country is being run.

The last time Biya was seen was on March 11, when the US ambassador to Cameroon visited him at the Unity Palace in Yaoundé. That was indeed an exception as live pictures of the president are hardly shown on national television so as not to present the aged condition of the president.

Meanwhile, presently, there has been no official information on his whereabouts.

This has made the people call out on the President to make himself available to provide leadership in this very crucial time.

To fill the gap, on April 3, Cameroon’s main opposition leader, Maurice Kamto issued a notice that the people in coronavirus-affected regions stay at home, a move the runner-up of the 2018 presidential election said he took because “the Head of State has refused to assume his functions in the fight against the coronavirus.”

Biya and the Yaounde authorities were also accused by the Popular Action Party of playing “a hide-and-seek game.” The party promised to seize the country’s constitutional council to make a declaratory statement on the vacancy or not of the presidency.

Like most other countries in Africa afflicted by the malaise of long term dictatorship, silence from the authorities continues to reign while the country grapples with the spread of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Biya, 87, who in 2018 secured another mandate to extend his 36-year rule to 2025, maybe holed up as usual at the top floor suites of the five-star Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva where he has been reckoned to have spent at least 15% of his time as president of the country.

In the face of their leader’s seeming detachment from his people, Cameroonians can only admire their western neighbours given the fact that when Nigerians demanded their president responded, even if belatedly.

The people of Cameroon do not have such opportunities as they never can anytime tell when he is in the country or in the luxury suite of his Geneva hotel base.

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