OPINION: No one knows when and how Biya’s unhinged grip on power is going to end in Cameroon, but the simmering tension there could soon boil over. Why then is ECOWAS silent?

By Ike Mgbatogu
Staff Writer

Onumba.com,USA ———- While the rest of Africa watches passively, cowardly too, as Cameroon drifts closer and closer to a tinderbox, ECOWAS is responding with the same appalling, paralyzing inaction.

From every corner of Africa, similar cries echo: why not intervene before it is too late? Cameroon is a country already mired in a bruising conflict and bedeviled by a deepening catacomb of social, economic and political conundrum?

Why then stand by while this baby storm brews into a category 5?

Why wait for this looming damoclean situation to blow up?

Does anyone actually believe Biya is just going to play nice and hand over the baton with a hearty guffaw and an enthusiastic handshake? If anyone out there expects a cheerful transfer of power, I truly admire your delusion.

Be real. This is a train wreck waiting to happen. A sword of polonium is dangling over Cameroon with broader regional consequences to follow.

And when that happens, when shit hits the fan, when all hell breaks loose, when the looting and burning are in full and vociferous display, when the scraggly-torn thread holding this dangling nation no longer cooperates, that would be when ECOWAS would be at its best. Time to move in. The cabal of feckless dunderheads who run the organization would spring into action ferrying into the city of Yaoundé and other places an armada of troops to restore peace and order.

Guess who comes out on top when peace and order are restored? Yup, the corrupt leaders themselves. It shelters them. It keeps the angry throng of ululants at bay. It buys them more time. And eventually, it allows for a return of things back to their usual unproductive rhythm.

ECOWAS cricket —— the cowardly ‘wait-and-see’ posture precisely underpins the widespread perception of the body as fundamentally worthless.

But there could still be a dovish angle out of this festering quagmire.  Is it somehow conceivable that President Biya is privately angling for an exit ramp ——– a negotiated, viable, honorable departure from power?

A few hints have been dropped here and there recently signaling a possible endgame for Biya. In April, Cameroon’s legislature approved the reintroduction of the office of Vice President. For the life of me, it wasn’t there before.  There’s also speculations of a possible Dynastic succession focused on Biya’s son taking the baton from his father. These hopeful possibilities are great fits for how ECOWAS could step in and explore a diplomatic and managed transition to ward off what clearly could degenerate into an open, brutal brawl for power.

But there’s no time to wait. Biya must hand over power to a successor ——– now.  Dude is just too old. The gathering storm is as plain as the nose on your face. What is currently playing out in Cameroon is a prime example of the atrocious, reckless reality of leadership in Africa. Why is a 93-year old comatose leader clinging on to power as though his life depends on it, and as if the country is his own private enterprise.

What kind of crap is this?

After what his close acolytes described as “a brief private stay in Europe,” Biya recently returned to Cameroon. That “brief private stay” summed up to a whopping 10 weeks spent in Switzerland. He left no one in charge in his absence, perhaps fearing a repeat of the circumstances that punted him to power.

Biya became president in 1982 after President Amadou Ahidjo abruptly resigned, citing health reasons.  It was not a coup.  Ironically, Ahidjo appointed Biya as Prime Minister, making him his constitutionally backed successor before embarking on a trip outside the country.  But though no longer president, Ahidjo retained the powerful position as leader of the ruling party Cameroon National Union (CNU) ——– leaving him in a position to influence Biya.  But the new president was having none of it, moving quickly to purge all those with ties to Ahidjo, replacing them with his own acolytes.  Feeling bummed and shafted, Ahidjo’s feeble threat of resistance quickly succumbed to Biya’s swift consolidation of power.

Biya has ruled Cameroon for the past 44 years, around the time Governor Usman Ododo of Nigeria’s Kogi State was born. He has become an embodiment of the apoplectic mood of the Cameroonian plebs who believe he is too old to govern. Yet for the life of me, this moribund old man is bumbling his way into opprobrious infamy.

Biya is being sheltered by a cavalcade of minions and cronies with deep ethnic ties to his massive power and economic empire. These corrupt oligarchs and fat cats have turned the country into a cash cow and erected a fortified rampart sheltering a man who is clearly out of it. But the fun would end sooner than later, and the fire they lit could consume all involved in this decades old racket.

Watching this horror situation unfold, one can’t help but wonder why African leaders indulge in this kind of unhinged behavior while ECOWAS does nothing?

True, some would argue that Cameroon is a sovereign state capable of managing its own affairs. In other words, ECOWAS should stay out of it.

Fair enough.

But why then does the same ECOWAS often butt in when the masses rise in recalcitrance against corrupt and oppressive regimes?

Taken together, ECOWAS seems to only focus on deploying military force to restore peace and order. And it is good at that.  But what that does is only protect corrupt leaders, ironically, disregarding the question of sovereignty ——— the same cowardly rationale for why it doesn’t meddle in internal affairs of member states when rogue leaders such as Biya oppresses his own people.