Joe Dinga Pefok (Uncle Joe)
Many Cameroonians Clamouring For Change Seem To Be For Change of Person, And Not The System. Also, As Was Seen, In The Last Two Presidential Elections In Cameroon, Many Opposition Supporters, Ironically Appear To Prefer Biya’s Former Ministers. We Saw How OSIH, TOMAINO NDAM NJOYA, LIBII, KWEMO, Were Betrayed By These Cameroonians At The 2025 Presidential Election.
From the look of things, many Cameroonians clamouring for change seem to be more for the change of person, than in the change of the system that has ruined this country for decades. They want the 93 year old Paul Biya who has been in power for over 40 years out, but seem to prefer the option that one of his former ministers replaces him. They prefer to rally behind one of Biya’s former ministers at the presidential election, than throw their support behind a genuine opposition leader and candidate. US based Cameroonian born whistle blower, Patrice Ngnang, expressed disgust that many Cameroonians at the 2025 presidential election, opted to support somebody (Issa Tchiroma) who was not only part of the Biya regime for many years, and left just a few months to the election, but that worst still, it was somebody who acted like a Biya fanatic while in the regime.
Nganang said he would not be surprise that if the PADDEC’s leader, Barrister Jean de Dieu Momo, leaves government tomorrow, all those opposition militants that he have been attacking him, will carry him up as their new leader or hero. He opined that Cameroonians really have a problem. Some political observers thus argue that perhaps it is a good idea, that Hon Cabral Libii and the PCRN, as well as Hon Joshua Osih and the SDF, enter the government, so that at the next presidential election, many Cameroonians who prefer to support Biya’s former ministers, will support them.
2004 With Former Biya’s Defence Minister, Akame Mfoumou
When in 2004, opposition and civil society leaders, met to discuss the possibility of having a single opposition candidate for the presidential election of that year, the name that some people first floated, was Akame Mfoumou, who is President Biya’s former Minister of Defence, and who also hails from the President ‘s South Region. The then SDF leader, Ni John Fru Ndi, cried scandal. Also, in the buildup to the 2011 presidential election in Cameroon, the name of another Biya’s former minister was again floated, as the possible single opposition candidate for the election.
Many People Rally Behind Former Minister, Maurice Kamto, At 2018 Presidential Election
After the 2004 presidential election, President Biya appointed Law Professor, Maurice Kamto, into Government as Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Justice and Keeper of the Seals. This was in the Change of ‘Government’ or Cabinet which took place on December 8, 2004, when Chief Ephraim Inoni, replaced Peter Mafany Musonge ad Prime Minister. After the October 9, 2011 presidential election , Prof Maurice Kamto ‘resigned’ from Government less than a week before the cabinet reshuffle that took place on December 9, 2011, that is, exactly two months after the presidential election.
In 2017, Maurice Kamto took over the leadership of the relatively young MRC Party, from Prof Alain Fogue, and went on to become the party’s candidate for the October 7, 2018 presidential election. Thanks to the heavy Bami support and other things, Biya’s former minister, Maurice Kamto, emerged as his principal or even main challenger, in the presidential election. Kamto came second in that presidential election. So many Cameroonians decided to support a former member of government, or better still, Biya’s former minister, as an opposition candidate, than opposition leaders and candidates that have been with them for years.
Issa Tchiroma’s Case Has Been The Most Embarrassing
Issa Tchiroma Bakary first entered Biya government after the highly controversial October 10, 1992 presidential election, that SDF leader and Union for Change candidate, Ni John Fru Ndi, allegedly won, but the victory allegedly stolen. Tchiroma who was one of the senior members of Bello Bouba’s UNDP, reportedly backstabbed or betrayed Bello Bouba, by striking a deal to enter government behind his back. Tchiroma who was appointed Minister of Transport by Biya, was sacked a few years later. The reason for Tchiroma’s dismissal from government is not our focus here, but he was however rehabilitated by President Biya, when he was brought back into government in 2009, after much lobbying. That was during the change of government on June 30, 2009, when President Biya appointed Philemon Yang to replace Ephraim Inoni as Prime Minister and Head of Government. Tchiroma was appointed Minister of Communication who doubles as Government Spokesperson.
Tchiroma held that post until another change of government after the 2018 presidential election. That was precisely on January 4, 2019, when President Biya appointed Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute to replace Philemon Yang as Prime Minister and Head of Government. Issa Tchiroma Bakary was appointed Minister of Employment and Vocational Training. Tchiroma stayed on, in Government, until his official resignation on June 24, 2025. It was on this day that he submitted his resignation letter to the Prime Minister, for onward transmission to President Biya. The resignation was ahead of the presidential election, for which Tchiroma declared his candidacy.
This meant that Tchiroma resigned less than four months before the October 12, 2025 presidential election. The first major reason that Tchiroma advanced for his resignation, was frustration, as he complained that he had not had access to President Biya for a longtime. But as good orator, the former Government’s Spokesperson, Issa Tchiroma, resorted to firebrand speeches against the same regime he was part and parcel for a total of two decades, and many Cameroonians fell headlong.
Joshua Osih, Tomaino Ndam Njoya, Cabral Libii , Pierre Kwemo , Others, Were Betrayed
At the October 12, 2025 presidential election, Hon Joshua Osih and his SDF Party, Hon Cabral Libii Ngue and his PCRN, Hon Pierre Kwemo and his UMS, as well as Mayor Hermine Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya and her CDU, were again betrayed by many Cameroonians clamouring for change, who at the election massively rallied behind Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who just left Government. These Cameroonians who had been shouting about lessons from the 2024 presidential elections in Senegal, at the 2025 presidential election in Cameroon instead showed that they preferred a former member of Biya’s government, to the genuine opposition leaders that had in the last seven years, or better still, since the 2018 presidential election, been crisscrossing the country to meet them. Rather, they opted for somebody who was part of the Biya regime for 20 years, and just left the government less than four months before the elections, because he no longer had access to President Biya.
They gave their support to the Tchiroma under the pretext that the Bishop of Yagoua, Yaouda Hourgo, said Cameroonians should better go for a devil than vote incumbent Paul Biya. They referred to Tchiroma as a good devil. There is nothing like a good devil. A devil is a devil. More so, the Bishop of Yagoua did not talk of good devil. What he meant was that it in the absence of a good presidential candidate in the opposition, Cameroonians should rather vote for a bad opposition candidate, than the incumbent Paul Biya. But many Cameroonians opted to support the ‘good devil’, instead of genuine opposition leaders and candidates.
Cheap Blackmail
Worst still, these same Cameroonians tried to use cheap blackmail to mount pressure on real opposition leaders like Osih and Libiil that they betrayed, to withdraw their candidacies from the 2025 presidential election, and line up behind Tchiroma, When Osih and Libii ignored that, they went for one of those fabricated olden days blackmail, that Osih and Libii had received billions of francs from the CPDM regime that their leader just left, not to support his candidacy. This type of blackmail was common in politics way back in the 1990s, and is ‘out of fashion’ or out dated today.
Again, these people that betrayed the opposition did not just jubilate on the social media and in pro-Tchiroma traditional media organs, but they also embarked on a campaign to accuse, insult and ridicule genuine opposition leaders for their poor show at the presidential election.
Why Not Leave The Osih And The SDF, Cabral Libii And The PCRN, Alone
Well, it is the democratic right of each individual to vote for his or her choice at an election. But the question is why these Cameroonians that claim to be fighting for change, and who once more betrayed the genuine opposition at the 2025 presidential election, cannot leave Joshua Osih and the SDF, as well as Cabral Libii and the PCRN, alone. They abandoned Cabral Libii and the PCRN, Osih and the SDF, Tomaino Ndam Njoya and the CDU, and Kwemo and the UMS, and went for Issa Tchiroma and FCNC.
Less than 48 hours after the October 12, 2025 presidential election, their leader, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, declared that he had won the election. Fine! But then instead of asking their leader and his close collaborators in the election, who claimed that he had won the election, to publish Tchiroma’s return reports commonly known as PVs. This, to show the world that Tchiroma really won the election. But these same people were instead trying to mount pressure on Oshih and Libii that they abandoned, to publish their own PVs. What an irony!
