October 12 Presidential Election: France Based Historian, ACHILLE MBEMBE, Says KAMTO’S Candidacy Was Rejected Because He Is Bamileke

Prof MAURICE KAMTO And MRC Have So Far Not Reacted To MBEMBE’S Declaration, While Public Opinion Is Divided On The Issue

 DIEUDONNE ESSOMBA, Strongly Disagrees With ACHILLE MBEMBE, And Rather Opines That “KAMTO Is A Bad Politician, Who Has Poorly Managed His Political Career”

France based Achille Mbembe, a  Cameroonian born historian, who is also known to have close relationship with the French authorizes, has sparked a controversy back in Cameroon with a declaration he made in an interview granted Radio France Internationale, FRI, in Paris on Wednesday, August 27, 2025. He said the candidacy of one of the frontline opposition leaders in Cameroon, Prof Maurice Kamto, for the October 12, 2025 presidential election, was rejected because of his tribe. That is, because Kamto is Bamileke.

Talking about the rejection of Kamto’s candidacy for the October 12, 2025 presidential election, Achille Mbembe, told RFI: “Let’s Face The Problem Of Tribalism, And In Particular The Fear Of The Bamilekes. Let’s Say Things As They Are. I Think That The Orchestrated Anti –Bamileke Obsession, Fixation, Has Become A Technology Of Power. I think this better explains the eviction of Profession Kamto (from the presidential election)”, our approximate translation of the declaration from French into English.  Mbembe expressed the conviction that the official reason that was given by both Elections Cameroon(ELECAM) and the Constitutional Council, for the rejection of Kamto’s candidacy for the October 12 presidential election, was just a pretext.

The Official Reason That Was Given By ELECAM And Constitutional Council

It would be recalled that the Electoral Board of ELECAM, in late July rejected the candidacy of Maurice Kamto, who had negotiated to run in the October 12, 2025 presidential election on the ticket of the MANIDEM Party (Yango Party). The reason advanced by ELECAM, was that Kamto’s candidacy was rejected because of the multiplicity of investiture from MANIDEM. Prof Kamto and his lawyers, as well as MANIDEM led by Ekane Anicet, contested the decision, and filed a petition at the Constitutional Council. But the Constitutional Council in a much awaited decision on August 5, 2025, validated the decision that was taken by ELECAM, and thus also rejected the candidacy of Maurice Kamto for the October 12 presidential election.

It should as well be recalled that the National President of one of the frontline opposition parties in Cameroon, MRC, Prof Maurice Kamto, was forced to temporally leave his party to seek investiture from MANIDEM, because MRC boycotted the last legislative and municipal elections in the country that held on February 9, 2020, and thus is currently neither represented in parliament, nor in a municipal council. According to the Electoral Code as modified in 2013, MRC was thus not qualified to give investiture to a candidate to run for the 2025 presidential election. The Cameroonian authorities, especially the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, have repeatedly said that Maurice Kamto has himself to blame for  the problem he faced over the issue of investiture, for the decision he took for his party, MRC, to boycott the 2020 legislative and municipal elections.

Kamto, MRC And MANIDEM, All Reject The Official Reason

But Maurice Kamto and the MRC, have never accepted or admitted that the boycott of the 2020 legislative and municipal elections, was at the root cause of the rejection of his candidacy, neither was the immediate cause the multiplicity of investiture from MANIDEM, as ELECAM and the Constitutional Council claimed. In a video message that he addressed to the Cameroonian people a few days after the rejection of his candidacy by the Constitutional Council, Prof Kamto minced no words that the rejection of his candidacy by both ELECAM and the Constitutional Council, in reality had nothing to do either with MRC’s boycott of the 2020 legislative and municipal council, or with the claim of multiple investiture from MANIDEM. Kamto said  it was clear that the regime was bent on blocking his participation in the 2025 presidential election at all cost, though he did not say why.

The President of MANIDEM, Ekane Anicet, also dismissed the official reason that was given by ELECAM and the Constitutional Council for rejecting the candidacy of Kamto. He insisted that the real reason was that the regime did not want Kamto, and so had to fabricate another President and candidate of MANIDEM, to find an a pretext of multiplicity of investiture from MANIDEM, to reject Kamto;s candidacy.

The historian, Achille Mbembe, in his declaration over RFI, thinks the same. While Mbembe does not support the decision that MRC took, to boycott the 2020 legislative and municipal elections, he however raised the question as to whether Kamto could have avoided the situation he found himself with the rejection of his candidacy, if his party had not boycotted the elections. Responding to the question himself, Achille Mbembe said: “They would certainly have found other motives to eliminate him”. So to Mbembe, even if MRC had participated in the 2020 legislative and municipal elections, and have some MPS and councils, and would have thus given investiture to Maurice Kamto to be a candidate at the October 12, 2025 presidential election, other motives would have been fabricated by the authorities to reject his candidacy.

The Issue Of Tribe – Bamileke

It should be noted that the issue of Maurice Kamto’s tribe is not new in Cameroon politics. It took a new dimension after the 2018 presidential election.  Maurice Kamto, that claimed he won the election, filed a petition to the Constitutional Council. He thus appeared in front of the members of the Constitutional Council on the matter, and said that he was Bamileke and had no apology for that. He questioned whether there was a ‘concour’, that is, a competitive examination that people write to become Bulus, that is, the people of President Paul Biya’s tribe. He said if there was a ‘Bulu Concour’ he should be told, so that he too could register and write.  Kamto was tacitly claiming that he was being victimized, or being barred the way from becoming President of Cameroon, because he is Bamileke, while the Bulus are people of the ruling tribe, or that Bulu was being considered as the tribe that was created to rule other Cameroonians.

Many members of the regime, especially those from the South and Centre Regions, were really angry with Prof Kamto on the issue of “Concour Bulu”, and have never forgiven him for that. Several ordinary militants and sympathizers of the ruling CPDM have since 2018 been using the issue of ‘Concour Bulu’ to accuse as well as attack on the social media Maurice Kamto, whom they call the architect of ‘Concour Bulu’,  for allegedly using tribalism in politics. In fact quite a number of Cameroonians have complained that since MRC, whose members are predominantly of the Bamileke tribe, entered the political scene in Cameroon. This, especially as from 2018 when Maurice Kamto was presidential candidate, tribalism has unfortunately taken a different dimension in Cameroon politics.

Kamto And MRC Have Not Reacted

Meanwhile the declaration by Achille Mbembe has sparked controversy back in Cameroon. Public opinion is divided over Mbembe’s opinion.  Some people, especially MRC militants or Kamto’s supporters, definitely agree with what Mbembe said as regard the real reason for the rejection of Kamto’s candidacy for the October 12, 2025 presidential election. But others have strongly rejected Mbembe’s claim, arguing among other things that before Kamto, other opposition candidates of Bamileke extraction, including Kamto’s current special adviser, Albert Dzongang, ran in the presidential elections without problems. They add that that Kamto himself had no problem with his candidacy at the 2018 presidential election, as his party then was represented in parliament.

Reaction Of Dieudonne Essomba

One of the well-known names, that have reacted to Achille Mbembe’s claim concerning the rejection of Maurice Kamto’s candidacy, for the October 12, 2025 presidential election, is the economist, Dr Dieudonne Essomba, who is well – known face on the Tv landscape in Cameroon, as a consultant at Vision 4 Tv Yaounde. He is also very much present on the social media.

In a social media post, Dieudonne Essomba in an analysis argued that Achille Mbembe’s claim that there is a ‘Bamiphobia’ in Cameroon does not hold. He opined that Kamto is a bad politician, who has poorly managed his political career. Essomba says Kamto took off in politics on a false base, by initiating a misleading reading of power in Cameroon, as being based on a rotatory logic that after Ahidjo, a Fulbe, and Biya, a Bulu or Ekang, the next President of the Republic, would be no other person than Kamto, the Bamileke.

Dieudonne Essomba said Bamilekes constitute 15 % of the population of Cameroon, but that they benefit more than 15 % in several domains, like in the number of workers in the public service, benefit over 15 %  of road infrastructures, appointments into Government, and so on. He pointed out for example that the West Region is the only region in Cameroon, where all Divisional Headquarters are linked by tarred roads.  “You can’t accuse the system of discrimination, without presenting at least an indicator of this nature. The Bamilekes are far from being victims of whatever type of discrimination in Cameroon”, Dieudonne Essomba, insisted.

Talking about appointments into Government, it should be recalled that Prof Maurice Kamto was a member of the Biya Government as Minister Delegate in the Ministry of Justice for seven years (2004 -2011), and during that period he saw things differently.