2025 Presidential Election: Things Fall Apart In Douala Group, Recently Created To Work On A Political Project For A Single Opposition Candidate

Anicet Ekane in two separate communiqués, announced the dismissal of Prof Aba’a Oyono  and Cyrille Sam Mbaka from Douala Group, and the indefinite suspension of the Group’s activities

 The crisis in the Douala Group was sparked by Aba’a Oyono’s controversial decision to travel to France with Maurice Kamto, to support his candidacy at the MRC rally in Paris

The Mentor News has repeatedly said that from all indications, there will be no unique candidate of the opposition at the 2025 presidential election. Rather, there will be a number of coalitions.

MRC officials are happily projecting Aba’a Oyono’s support for Maurice Kamto, to counter the CPDM claim that MRC militants or Kamto’s supporters are all Bamilekes.

Things have fallen apart in the ‘Groupe de Douala’, or Douala Group, that launched its activities barely a month ago, to work on a political project to designate a single candidate to represent the opposition at the 2025 presidential election. Though the identities of all the members were not clear, the Group was said to be comprised of some opposition party leaders and members of the civil society.

The idea to create the Douala Group was reportedly that of the President of the civil society organization known as KAWTAL, Abel Elimbi Lobe (former member of the SDF). Elimbi Lobe, who is known to have in the last few years being a strong advocate for a single opposition candidate at the 2025 presidential election, took the proposal to create a group to work on the project, to the President of MANIDEM Party, Anicet Ekane. It was apparently Ekane that contacted the other members to form the Group, and then declared himself the spokesperson of the Douala Group. Another frontline member of the Douala Group was the National President of AFP, Cyrille Same Mbaka, who is former Vice President of CDU.  A university don, Prof Jean Calvin Aba’s Oyono, of the civil society, was also a frontline member of the Douala Group.

 Elimbi Lobe Forced To Quit

Meanwhile, no sooner did the Douala Group take off, than Abel Elimbi Lobe was forced to quit when other members condemned a declaration he made as hate speech. On Sunday, May 25, 2025, Elimbe Lobe who was one of the panelists in a weekly debate programme over Info Tv in Yaounde, known as ‘Libre Expression’, seized the opportunity to blast Cyrille Sam Mbaka and Anicet Ekane of the Douala Group as failed politicians. Elimbi Lobe questioned how Cyrille Sam Mbaka and Anicet Ekane that have never won any elections in their lives, think that they have the capacity to be able to select the best presidential candidate in the opposition, or to teach political leaders like Hon Joshua Osih of SDF and Hon Cabral Libii of PCRN, that have won elections, how to win elections.

It would be recalled that the programme of the Douala Group indicated that the single opposition candidate for the 2025 presidential election, would be designated by members of the Group based on consensus. But from the onset, there were doubts as to whether the Douala Group could succeed to come up with a name that the other presidential aspirants of the opposition, would accept to support. However Anicet Ekane and Cyrille Sam Mbaka that projected themselves as the key members of the Group, argued that they had the competence to do that, following their long experience in politics.

Ekane Anicet Unilaterally Dismissed Prof Aba’a Oyono

Meanwhile on Saturday, May 31, 2025, members of the Douala Group were taken aback when they realized that Prof Jean Calvin Aba’a Oyono, a member of the Douala Group, was in the entourage of the National President of MRC, Prof Maurice Kamto, who travelled to Paris, France for a mega political rally that held on that day. Worst still was the fact that Prof Aba’a Oyono actually took to the podium at the MRC rally in Paris, to campaign for Kamto, or better still to support Kamto’s candidacy for the 2025 presidential election.

But without consulting the other members of the Douala Group, Anicet Ekane, the self –proclaimed spokesperson of the Group, unilaterally took a decision contained in a communiqué he issued  on Sunday, June 1, 2025, to dismiss Aba’a Oyono from the Group. He explained that the Douala Group was still in the process of a large consultation of presidential aspirants of the opposition; a process that would culminate in the selection of a consensus candidate of the opposition for the 2025 presidential election. Ekane asserted that the Douala Group had thus not yet settled any candidate, and so disassociated itself from the position that was taken by Prof Aba’a Oyono, in favour of the candidacy of Prof Maurice Kamto, at the MRC rally that held in Paris on May 31, 2025. He declared that by that act, Aba’a Oyono had self –excluded himself from the Douala Group.

Cyrille Sam Mbaka Disassociate Himself From Anicet Ekane’s   Decision  

However the very next day, Monday, June 2, 2025, the other frontline member of the Douala Group, Cyrille Sam Mbaka, came out with his own communiqué, disassociating himself from the communiqué that was unilaterally issued by Ekane Anicet, which fired Aba’a Oyono from the Douala Group. This exposed the division in the ranks of the frontline members of the Douala Group. Observers agreed that the act that a member of the Douala Group, Aba’a Oyono, committed on May 31 in Paris by campaigning for a presidential aspirant was not good for the image or credibility of the Douala Group. In fact it was a betrayal of the Douala Group.   But for Anicet Ekane, to have reacted by unilaterally taking a decision to dismiss Aba’a Oyono from the Group, was also considered wrong.

Anicet Ekane Also Sacks Cyrille Sam Mbaka From Douala Group

Meanwhile in another communiqué issued on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, Anicet Ekane also dismissed Cyrille Sam Mbaka from the Douala Group. He said in disassociating himself from the communiqué of June 1, 2025 that he signed in the name of the Group, Cyrille Sam Mbaka had taken side with Aba’a Oyono, and thus showed that he supported what Oyono did. He said what Aba’a Oyono did, and which Sam Mbaka ‘supported”, was a gross violation of the position of the Douala Group, which at that stage was that of neutrality. Ekane said by disassociating himself with the reaction of the Douala Group to what Aba’a Oyono did in Paris on May 31, Cyrille Sam Mbaka had like Aba’a Oyono thus also self –excluded himself from the Group, and  thus from henceforth will no longer be considered as a member or as a representative of the Douala Group.

Indefinite Suspension Of Activities Of Douala Group

Still in the June 4, 2025 release that was issued by Anicet Ekane, he announced the “temporal withdrawal” of the Douala Group, from the political scene. He said the temporal withdrawal will permit the ‘profound reconstruction’ of the Douala Group, with the view of bringing together members or comrades who are serious and patriotic, and who are fully engaged to work for general interest, and not motivated by pecuniary considerations. He said the Douala Group would communiqué at the opportune moment its political engagement.

However some people are suggesting that this might as well be the premature end of the Douala Group, considering the time constraint. The President of the Republic, Paul Biya, is expected to convene Cameroonians of voting age to the polls for the October presidential election, within June 17– July 17, 2025. This means that it can happen in the next few weeks.  Once the President will come out and convened Cameroonians to the polls, or better still announce the date of a 2025 presidential election, all presidential aspirants will engage in the compilation of their documents and the payment of the 30 million francs CFA caution fee. They will then be focus on struggling to beat the deadline for them to submit the files of their candidacies to the election organizing body, Elections Cameroon, ELECAM.

Once ELECAM has validated a candidacy, it becomes almost impossible in the Cameroonian context, to convince the person to withdraw his candidacy and support another candidate. Yet Anicet Ekane is talking as if the Douala Group has all the time in the world, to restructure and do what it wants to do.  Anyway, this might have just have been a tactical way by him to announce the premature end of the Douala Group.   The Mentor News has repeatedly said that from all indications, there will not be a single candidate of the opposition at the 2025 presidential election, just as happened in past presidential elections. Rather, there will be two or three coalitions of opposition parties.

 Importance Of Aba’a Oyono’s Support For Maurice Kamto

Meanwhile it is not surprising that while Anicet Ekane and some other people are criticizing Prof Aba’a Oyono who was a member of the Douala Group, to have travelled to Paris, France with Prof Maurice Kamto for the MRC rally, MRC communication officials and other militants that have been storming the social media, have been celebrating him as a great man, for his action.  They now call him, “Grand Prof”, and his pictures at the MRC rally in Paris are being widely circulated.

For one thing too, the presence of Prof Aba’a Oyono at the rally in Paris, France, besides the MRC leader, Prof Maurice Kamto, means much to the party. The CPDM has for long been presenting MRC militants or Maurice Kamto’s supporters as being all of the Bamileke tribe. Prof Jean Calvin Aba’a Oyono who is a lecturer at the University of Yaounde II (Soa), hails from President Biya’s South Region.  So MRC is using Prof Aba’a Oyono to counter the CPDM claim, and show that even some elite of President’s Biya South Region,  support Maurice Kamto’s  candidacy for the 2025 presidential election.