2025 Presidential Election: The POLITICAL MAFIA Called, ‘UNION FOR CHANGE, That Was Created By Two ‘Lecturers’ On How To Win Elections, That Cannot Win Elections
Joe Dinga Pefok (Uncle Joe)
EKANE ANICET And MANIDEM Legalized In 1995, Have Participated In Elections Only Twice – The 2011 Presidential Election In Which EKANE Came 13th With A Score Of 0.229 % (11,081 votes), And The 2020 Municipal Elections Where He Was Crushed In Douala 1
DJEUKAM And His Party, MDI, Have Participated In Elections Only Once – 1997 Legislative Elections. DJEUKAM’S Was Candidate In Wouri West Constituency (Bonaberi – Douala), And Was Floored
A Number Of Presidential Candidates, Including ISSA TCHIROMA, Met In Yaounde And Could Not Agree On A Consensus Candidate. A Few Weeks Later, Two Individuals Declared TCHIROMA Consensus Candidate Of The Opposition, And He Accepted. TCHIROMA!!!
Most Cameroonians did not know about the existence of anything, like the controversial 2025 Union for Change that was created, to purportedly work to find a consensus candidate of the opposition, for the October 12, 2025 presidential election. People only learnt about it, when a communiqué was issued, announcing that a so called consensus candidate of the opposition for the October 12 presidential election, would be made known at a public meeting in Yaounde, on Saturday 13, 2025.
Initially there was confusion, with some people taking the unknown Union for Change as the Douala Group, that, had in the last few months also claimed to be working to seek a single or consensus candidate of the opposition, for the 2025 presidential election. The confusion was due to the fact that the two names that came public as being the leaders of Union for Change, that is, Ekane Anicet and Djeukam Tchameni, were known to be members of the Douala Group.
Sam Mbaka Clarifies The Situation
However, one of the original leaders of the Douala Group, who is the President of AFP, Cyrille Sam Mbaka, former Vice President of CDU, clarified the situation over Vision 4 Tv in Yaounde on Sunday, September 14, 2025. He disclosed that the Douala Group had nothing to do with Union for Change, and that Union for Change is the affair of two people, Ekane Ancet and Djeukam Tchameni. It should be noted that the Douala Group had along the line been reduced to three persons – Cyrille Sam Mbaka, Ekane Anicet and Djeukam Tchameni. Veteran Journalist and politician, Henriette Ekwe, and others left the group.
Then Ekane Anicet and Djeukam Tchameni while still in the Douala Group, created the so called Union For Change, apparently just to declare the FSNC leader and presidential candidate, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, as the purported consensus or consensual candidate of the opposition. This is the type of mafia that has been destroying the Cameroon opposition. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Ekane and Djeukam created their small group that they named, Union For Change, and declared or designated the FSNC leader and presidential candidate, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, as the group’s candidate for the October 12, 2025 presidential election.
The Original Union For Change Of 1992
The much talked about original Union For Change in Cameroon, was a coalition of some opposition parties and civil society organizations that was created in 1992, and had a candidate at the presidential election which held in the month of October that year. That candidate was Ni John Fru Ndi, who was the then National Chairman and presidential candidate of the SDF. Union For Change, at no moment ever declared or pretended that Fru Ndi was the consensus candidate of the opposition, for the October 1992 presidential election. There were other opposition candidates in the election like Bello Bouba Maigari of UNDP, as well as Adamou Ndam Njoya and Jean Jacques Ekindi that initially were members of Union For Change, but disagreed with the designation of Fru Ndi as the candidate of the opposition coalition, and left the coalition.
It should also be noted that there is no problem to create a collation to support a particular candidate at the presidential election in the country. In January 2024,the President of FCC, Hon Jean Michel Nintcheu, with the collaboration of the MRC leader and the party’s presidential candidate, Prof Maurice Kamto, created the Political Alliance for Change (in Cameroon) to support the candidacy of Maurice Kamto. There was no problem with such an alliance. At the 2024 presidential election in Senegal, ‘Coalition Dionne 2024’, was created to support the candidacy of Mohammed Dionne.
So the main problem with what Ekane and Djeukam did early this month, and definitely for selfish interest, is that they created what they called Union for Change, and on September 13 falsely declared that Issa Tchiroma, was the consensual candidate of the opposition.
Ekane Anicet And The 1992 Union For Change
Douala based Ekane Anicet is the ‘contested’ President of the MANIDEM Party. He was so much in the news in the month of July and August, this year, in connection to the party’s investiture letter he signed for one of the frontline opposition leaders in the country, Prof Maurice Kamto, to be the presidential candidate of the YANGO Party (MANIDEM), at the October 12 presidential election. Worthy of note that Ekane Anicet was a member of the strong opposition coalition for the October 1992 presidential election, which was known as Union for Change, and which had as presidential candidate, Ni John Fru Ndi, the emblematic Pioneer SDF leader. Ekane, who together with Madam Henriette Ekwe, were then members of the UPC Faction known as ‘UPC Fidele’, were both in Union for Change more as political activists. Ekane and Madam Ekwe, together with a number of other UPC members, later created UPC MANIDEM, which was legalized in 1995 simply as MANIDEM, following the insistence of the administration that UPC be dropped from the name.
Meanwhile, Ekane Anicet who as President of MANIDEM, has for years not been able to lead the party to establish itself as a major political party in Cameroon. Worth noting that since the legalization of MANIDEM in 1995, the party has participated in only two elections in the country, that is, the 2011 presidential election, and the 2020 municipal elections. Ekane Anicet has instead always tried to seek political fame by making reference to his membership of the 1992 Union for Change. That is, something which happened over 30 years ago. Ekane has also always dreamt that he could recreate the 1992 Union for Change, today, despite the fact that so much has changed in Cameroon politics over the years.
Djeukam Tchameni, ‘Cap Liberte’, And Operation Ghost Town In 1991
As for Douala base Djeukam Tchameni, he was a radical member of the Cameroon opposition in 1991. Djeukam Tchameni was the leader of an activist group known as ‘Cap Liberte’, which was a very active member of the powerful Coordination of Opposition Parties and Civil Society Organizations. It should be noted that it was ‘Cap Liberte’, that introduced the ‘famous’ Carton Rouge or Red Card, during the ghost town operations, that the Coordination of Opposition Parties and Civil Society Organizations launched in 1991, to try and bring the CPDM regime to its knees, or possibly forced it to leave power.
Djeukam Tchameni was not a member of the 1992 Union for Change, as he was apparently out of the country then. He later created a political party, MDI (‘Mouvement pour la Democratie et l’Interdependence’). But MDI has since its creation only participated in one election, the 1997 legislative election. In that election, Djeukam was MDI’s candidate in the Wouri West Constituency (Bonaberi – Douala), and was floored. MDI is like most political parties in Cameroon that, exist more on paper.
Djeukam Tchameni And The 2025 Presidential Election
As regard the 2025 presidential election in Cameroon, Djeukam Tchameni was in 2024 a member of the Alliance for a Peaceful Change that was initiated by Prof Olive Bile, to work on a political project of having a single or a consensus candidate of the opposition, for the 2025 presidential election. But members of the alliance had divergent views and contrasting interests, and it was not surprising that it crashed. When the Douala Group was created a couple months ago, Djeukam Tchameni joined the Group. It should be noted that Djeukam Tchameni is often criticized by other opposition leaders and members, for always thinking that he can give lectures to others on politics. This has often raised the question as to what he has succeeded to do in politics, especially with his political party.
The Douala Group
Meanwhile, Ekane Anicet whom many political observers consider to have since become a controversial politician, created the Douala Group a few months ago with other political figures like George Sam Mbaka and Henriette Ekwe, with the objective to unite the opposition for them to go in for the 2025 presidential election, with a single opposition candidate. It should be noted that the Douala Group was in fact the idea of the Coordinator of KAWTAL, Abel Elimbi Lobe, who for a number of years had been making calls for the opposition to close ranks and prepare a united front for the 2025 presidential election. It was Elimbi Lobe that following the crash of the Alliance for a Peaceful Change of Prof Olivier Bile, met Ekane Anicet with the proposal for them to create the Douala Group. But soon after the creation of the Group, Elimbi Lobe was accused of hate speech against the Bamilekes, and other members of the Douala Group, was forced to push him out.
Ekane ‘Dismissed’ Prof Aba’a Oyono For Identifying With Kamto
It should be noted that the Douala Group was comprised of just a few persons based in Douala, with the exception of the Yaounde based Prof Aba’a Oyono, a university don. On June 1, 2025, Ekane Anicet unilaterally signed a communiqué dismissing Prod Aba’a Oyono, from the platform, on the grounds that he travelled to Paris, France with the leader and presidential candidate of MRC, Prof Maurice Kamto, and attended a campaign rally that was organized for Kamto in Paris by his supporters on May 31, 2025. Ekane accused Aba’a Oyono of taking side with a candidate, or for supporting one of the presidential aspirants, whereas members of the Douala Group were not supposed to identify with a presidential aspirant, as that would compromise the mission of the group.
Douala Group Lose Credibility
But the contradiction came soon after, when it turned out that the same Ekane Anicet, who had fired Prof Aba’a Oyono from the Douala Group for identifying with Maurice Kamto, one of the presidential aspirants, signed the investiture for Maurice Kamto to a candidate for the October 12, 2025 presidential election, on the ticket of MANIDEM. This meant that while Ekane Anicet was posing as leader of the Douala Group, working to have a single or consensus candidate of the opposition, he at the same time was having secret discussions for his party to endorse the candidacy of one of the presidential aspirants.
Following what happened, the outspoken member of the Douala Group, Henriette Ekwe, veteran journalist and politican, declared that the Group had come to its end, because following what Ekane Anicet did, nobody was going to trust the Group again. She was of course right. PCRN’s leader and presidential candidate, Cabral Libii Ngue, for example, said in a Tv interview that Ekane Anicet and Sam Mbaka called him to talk about the Douala Group, and its objective of working to have a single or a consensus candidate for the presidential election, when they already had their candidate. The Douala Group had thus lost credibility.
But Cyrille Sam Mbaka and the Djeukam Tchameni still hung on with the Douala Group, even though no presidential aspirant had confidence in the Group again, following what Ekane Anicet who had imposed himself as leader of the Group, did.
Meanwhile, following the decision that was taken by the Constitutional Council on August 5, 2025 to reject the candidacy of Prof Maurice Kanto, who was MANIDEM’s candidate for the October 12 presidential election, Ekane Anicet in another controversial decision returned to the Douala Group. He joined Sam Mbaka and Djeukam Tchameni in a press conference that the Douala Group organized.
The Union For Change
But it soon turned out that Ekane Anicet and Djeukam Tchameni had gone on to create another group, Union for Change, with the purported objective still being to find a consensus candidate for the opposition at the October 12 presidential election. Their reason to use the name, Union for Change, was definitely a strategy to invoke in people’s minds the memory of the powerful 1992 Union for Change, with the false impression that they could recreate the strong opposition coalition that disappeared from the political scene in Cameroon after the October 1992 presidential election, that is, 33 years ago.
The so called Union for Change that, was created by Ekane Anicet and Djeukam Tchameni to falsely declare that the FSNC leader and presidential candidate, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, former member of government, as the purported consensus candidate of the opposition for the October 12, 2025 presidential election, was a political mafia, which of course has failed woefully. All the other 10 opposition candidates at the presidential elections, and their political parties, have all denounced the false declaration that Issa Tchiroma is the consensus candidate of the opposition for the October 12 presidential election. UNDP in its reaction, castigated the two individuals who created the so called Union For Change as door –to –doo salesmen or hawkers, meaning that what happened was a business deal between the two persons and their client (the person they falsely declared consensus candidate).
