Biya’s early return from US signals imminent cabinet reshuffle

By Kristian Ngah Christian, Mbom Sixtus &Amindeh Blaise Atabong in Yaounde
 

Biya: Political Maradona

Dependable Unity Palace sources have hinted The Guardian Post that President Paul Biya’s early return to the country after the US-Africa summit, last Saturday, was carefully planned to permit him to put in place the highly-awaited new government.

Even though details about how soon the new government would see the light of day were still sketchy, The Guardian Post gathered from other sources that what might have forced President Biya to cut short his stay abroad could only have been connected to the imminent cabinet shake-up. 

News of President Biya’s early return to the country, The Guardian Post has gathered, is already giving members of government a running stomach. “It is very unusual to see the head of state return from a trip abroad this soon…something serious should be up his sleeves”, a political analyst who told The Guardian Post he seriously suspects the imminent putting in place of a new government said.

The Guardian Post meanwhile has it on good authority that what might eventually force the head of state to name a new government are the activities of the dreaded Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram in the Far North region of the country, the poor performance of the Indomitable Lions at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the problems being faced by artists in Cameroon, the Bapes Bapes court case and the intestinal conflict between the minister of the supreme state audit and the chairman of the National Anti-corruption Commission, CONAC.

President Biya, sources say, is being pressured to bring back the vice prime minister in-charge of relations with the assemblies, Amadou Ali, to the post of minister of defence. Being a former secretary general at the presidency, ex-secretary of state in charge of the gendarmerie and one time minister of justice, Amadou Ali, Biya is reportedly being made to understand, is better placed to combat the Boko Haram sect whose members are even still holding his wife in captive. Analysts say coming from the Far North region where the Boko Haram attacks have been recurrent, Amadou Ali as defence minister would easily check the activities of the Nigerian Islamic sect.

Yet, because the war against Boko Haram requires the combined efforts of the police, gendarme and the defence ministers, Biya, sources say, may not only end at appointing Amadou Ali but also bring fresh blood at the helm of the country’s police force and the gendarmerie. If things were to come to pass as it is being widely speculated, both Martin Mbarga Nguelle and Jean Baptiste Bokam respectively of the police and the gendarmerie corps would not feature in the expected government. 

As for the minister of sports and physical education, Adoum Garoua, political analysts are sustaining that he might only survive any eventual cabinet shake-up if God is his neighbour. Among many of his ‘crimes’ is not only the failure of Cameroon to take part in the last two African Cup of Nations’ tournaments but the recent shameful outing of the Lions to the FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

With the qualifiers for the 2015 African Cup of Nations just around the corner, President Biya may not want to take any more chances. The Guardian Post has however been hinted that former sports minister, Philippe Mbarga Mboa, is the man who sports analysts are advising the president  to appoint as the new sports and physical education minister.

Another minister who is predicted to already be on her way out of the expected government is Ama Tutu Muna who observers say has demonstrated gross incompetence in solving the problems being faced by artists in the country. The minster’s blunders have not only been further compounded by the decision of the supreme court to give victory to the CMC which she dissolved but has also been worsened because even her own creation, SOCAM, is no longer functional.

As if to add pepper to an already deepening wound, Ama Muna is now in the bad books of the fons of the North West for transporting the region’s rich historic artefacts over night to Yaounde. North West fons, The Guardian Post has been hinted, have already made it known to Biya that Ama Muna is not representing the region’s interest in government. CPDM political bureau member, Regina Mundi, who hails from Tubah sub division in Mezam, we have been told, is likely the woman to replace Ama Muna in government.

As for the minister delegate at the presidency in charge of the supreme state audit office, Henri Eyebi Ayissi, sources have it that he would likely be fired for engaging the respected national corruption chairman in a war that has seriously damaged the image of Cameroon in front of the international community.        

 

Enter the Bapes Bapes melodrama

Sources have hinted that President Biya may take the opportunity of putting in place a new government to begin a crackdown on those who in one way or the other contributed to the premature arrest of secondary education minister, Louis Bapes Bapes. The melodrama, The Guardian Post has learnt, not only soiled the president’s image but greatly exposed the inefficiency of the regime. The same sources say it will be difficult for the president to let go who ever had a hand in the scandal; which smacks of undermining his authority.

“Only the president can authorise the arrest and detention of such a high profile personality. Do not forget that Bapes Bapes was arrested as a sitting minister of secondary education.  Putting him in jail meant sacking him as minister and only the president of the republic alone has the competence to appoint and sack ministers. What they did meant they sacked Bapes Bapes from government without the president’s knowledge. Who knows, if nothing is done to sanction the perpetrators, the next time, they may even go ahead to reshuffle the cabinet without the president’s knowledge,” a source argued. 

Biya, sources say, had plans to wreck a hard blow on a series of corrupt senior government officials; probably not only ministers but also general managers of public corporations whose names, our sources said, are already on the president’s table.

President Biya, The Guardian Post gathered, was still crafting the method and the ideal time to set the Sparrow Hawk machine in motion when his overzealous collaborators fired the first premature salvo. “There is nothing as bad as trying to usurp the exclusive functions of one’s boss. One should understand his limits and try to operate within such limits. No master will condone any collaborator who tries to undermine his role as boss, talk-less of jailing an employee appointed by him,” a source stated.

Those who identify with the above arguments say Bapes Bapes, judging from alleged corrupt files against him may have actually stolen and that the president may have had him on the list of subsequent arrests but that the arrest came at the wrong moment. “How could someone have ordered the arrest of a sitting minister at the time the president was heading to Europe to meet his peers? The president was certainly planning to let hailstones rain at the moment best ideal to him. President Biya is a strategist and if you take a look behind, you realise that most of the high profile arrests have always been conducted only when there is a burning political, social or economic issue that distastes the public…’’

‘’…Take the case of Titus Edzoa or those of Marafa and Inoni. The latter were arrested just a day after Biya forced through parliament, the single electoral code. He did the same thing in 2008 with the arrests of Abah Abah and Urbain Olanguena after the revision of the constitution delimiting presidential terms,” a civil society leader sustained.

Bapes Bapes, it is widely-suspected, may be sacked to face the strong arm of the law for his alleged involvement in corrupt practices. An Anglophone from the South West region of origin, The Guardian Post learnt, is already being groomed to take over from Bapes Bapes as secondary education minister. If that were to happen, Minister Philipe Ngole Ngwesse of the ministry of forestry and wildlife who also hails from the South West region would be sent packing.