Paul M. Biya: Cameroon’s 'lion man'
In Africa's only country where those who
campaigned, fought and died for the country's
reunification and independence from colonial rule under the banner of a
civic-nationalist party called the Union of the Populations of the Cameroons
(UPC), have never made it to power; in the country called Cameroon where the
system established by France in 1958 that excluded more than 80% of the
intellectuals, ignored the voice of the
population and has expanded over the years into a racket of French-imposed and
supported marionettes that are completely detached from the interest of the
country, Paul Biya is the face of the
six-decade Franco-Cameroonian political mafia that in its broader implication
is called "FrancAfrique".
Paul Biya was handed the
position of President of Cameroon in 1982 from his predecessor Ahmadou Ahidjo
who was imposed on the Cameroonian people by France before the new French
Gaullist government allowed French Cameroun to become a member of the United Nations
Organization. Since then, the second Cameroonian head of state has successfully
maintained himself in power despite the opposition of the vast majority of
Cameroonians by tapping on the tacit and open backing of foreign powers and
corporations. As Randy Joe Sa'ah wrote in 2012 on the BBC in a profile of Paul
Biya "He may have adopted his nickname late in his political career—after
the country's football team, the Indomitable Lions, reached the quarter-final
of the 1990 World Cup—but the 79-year-old has employed the tactics of a lion
from the start."...
In fact, Paul Biya devours those
Cameroonians who oppose him or appear threatening to his stay in power. In this profile page culled from the BBC, we
find out how and why the land that was the founding base of the Free French
Forces that went on to liberate Paris from Nazi rule in 1944, the land that the
former German colonial masters called "The African Pearl", the land
that is variously described as "The Microcosm of Africa", the land
that some call the most enlightened in Africa, is trapped in a dictatorship
that has driven its best brains and hands out of the country; we are given an
insight into the nature of a country that boasts the biggest US investment in
Africa, but that cannot shake off an anachronistic French-imposed system that
foreign powers find conducive to maintain for the sake of business, a system
whose maintenance is Paul Biya's only guarantee of his continuous stay in
power.
Janvier Tchouteu, author of “FALLEN HEROES: African Leaders Whose Assassinations Disarrayed the Continent and Benefitted Foreign Interests”
https://amazon.com/dp/1980996695/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_JX6Q26H573RSKG7HT9V6
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