PRESIDENT OBAMA URGES CAMEROON'S PAUL BIYA TO STEP DOWN AFTER 29 YEARS IN POWER

Monday, 11 July 2011 19:53

By Larry Eyong in Washington D.C,

Lambert Mbom in Virginia

A Washington source, whose affiliation with the Obama administration could not immediately be confirmed, has revealed that President Obama has called  on  President Paul Biya  of Cameroon to step down, and enjoy the honors of an elderly statesman, urging him not to participate in the forthcoming October 2011 presidential elections.

The source who sought anonymity, because the message was contained in a diplomatic pouch destined for the Cameroonian president said Washington was increasingly becoming apprehensive that the situation in Cameroon could morph into a replay of the 2010 Ivorian election crisis.

President Obama’s message comes even as President Biya's Defense Minister Mebe Ngo'o recently completed the third lap in Washington on an ammunition purchasing spree that previously took him to China and France.

This comes on the heels of U.S. assistant secretary of state, Ambassador Jonnie Carson’s June 27 meeting in Cameroon with President Paul Biya and Prime Minister Philemon Yang among others during which they discussed the forthcoming elections.

In 2008, Paul Biya who has been in power since 1982 initiated and obtained a controversial revision of Cameroon’s constitution which eliminated presidential term limits that been changed from five years to seven years renewable once.

A prominent parliamentarian from his CPDM party Hon. Paul Ayah Abine, alleged that parliamentarians were pressured and bribed to support the impermissible constitutional change but he rebuffed the kick-backs and has since decided to challenge Paul Biya in the forthcoming election.

Opposition groups in the Diaspora continue to ratchet up momentum against Paul Biya's participation in the October 2011 even as Cameroon’s parliamentarians in an extra ordinary session are considering allowing Cameroonians in the Diaspora to be able to vote.

Meanwhile, in Cameroon with the fifth publication of motions of support declaring 78 years’ old Paul Biya "the natural candidate" and preparations underway to give a veneer of legitimacy to an election whose outcome is a foregone conclusion makes it quite disturbing.

Biya's electoral commission, ELECAM which observers say is an extension of the president's CPDM party, has been co-opting some apparently neutral personalities in a futile attempt at convincing the public of its independence.

Outspoken Cameroonian prelate, Cardinal Tumi has dismissed ELECAM as a charade and proposed the creation of a genuinely independent electoral commission with complete jurisdiction over the election, from the composition of registers to the declaration of results. This is anathema to Biya who has rigged every election since he was handpicked by former President Ahidjo in 1982.

Long term observers of Cameroon at the Elysee in Paris have cast doubts on the authenticity of Obama's alleged call to Biya to step down. They argue that although US investments in Cameroon now surpass those of France, with ExxonMobil's financing of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, it would be unusual for President Obama to make such a call without consulting with the President Sarkozy because Cameroon is under France's sphere of influence.