Wikileaks rates Ahidjo higher, rubbishes Biya

By Tamfu Harrison Bawe in Yaounde

The rating of Cameroon’s former and present regimes by the whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks, is once more under focus. Based on reports transmitted to the US state department in 2006 by Niels Marquardt, the US ambassador in Yaounde at the time, Wikileaks made it clear that former president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, had a better economic record than his successor. However, the website showed the US diplomat as having had a somewhat blurred vision when he foresaw President Paul Biya leaving power in 2011.

According to Wikileaks, Cameroon’s economy under President Ahidjo was flourishing and the country presented the highest social and economic indicators on the continent at the time. But the economic balance sheet of President Biya has been marked by heavy debts, corruption, years of disaster and a speedy fall of social indicators.

Quoting Niels Marquardt, the no-nonsense America-based news cable says the major difference between the sitting head of state and his predecessor is that during President Biya’s reign, “the military took a real tribal dimension. Whereas ethnic balance is maintained in the entire armed forces in general, the entire presidential guard and most of the generals are Betis, members of Biya;s ethnic group.”

Talking about economic heritage, Wikileaks, further relaying Marquardt’s report, says even though President Biya engaged his government in a serious economic and restructuring approach which led to the attainment of the completion point of the heavily-indebted poor countries initiative (HIPC), it was not clear if these reforms would be lasting enough to produce important economic advancements. The statement, according to observers is a way of saying that economically speaking, the present-day Cameroon is not the country that President Biya inherited in 1982.

Nevertheless, Niels Marquardt and Americans in general are reported not to have seen President Biya as being totally negative. The former ambassador is quoted as saying that the Cameroonian head of state was doing all in his power to attain his objectives. Said Marquardt of Biya before the 2011 presidential election:

“…We think that no prediction would show Biya as seeking to have an additional mandate. With his young wife and family, his retirement house being constructed not far away from the embassy, and his eagerness to implement reforms, he appears in our opinion to be a person who has decided to spend his last days out of the public service. His inheritance aspirations aside, his age and health are important parameters which can oblige him to shorten his current constitutional mandate.”      

Little did the US diplomat know that the Etoudi landlord would willingly go in for another seven-year mandate. And who says if he still feels strong in 2018, he won’t go in for a third? Political pundits say Marquardt wrongly judged the very unpredictable Lion Man by thinking he would quit power in 2011.