For firing discordant note:

Biya summons Sultan Njoya in Geneva for explanations

Biya and MbomboNjoya

President Paul Biya left the country on Tuesday 23 February 2016 for a short private stay in Europe. He was accompanied by his wife Chantal Biya and some of his very close aides notably his director of cabinet Martin BelingaEboutou.

                But the Sultan of the Bamum, Ibrahim MbomboNjoya also travelled out of the country at about the same time like the president. It was not however immediately known what was taking the charismatic and very revered monarch out of the country at that time.

                Was it a coincidence that the two personalities were travelling to Europe at about the same time or was it a planned trip?

                What is however, true, is that Sultan MbomboNjoya has been making headlines in the local press and his remarks in Bafoussam have also continued to animate debates on radio and TV and even in bars especially in the capital city Yaounde.

The Sultan’s remarks during the grand rally in Bafoussam organized to call on President Biya to anticipate Presidential election and to be candidate were seen to be both controversial and news-making.

                For the CPDM leader of the West region that he is, Sultan MbomboNjoya, rather than urge the president to be candidate for the election, instead urged him to convene an extra-ordinary session of the CPDM a priori, to look into other pressing issues that are affecting the life of the nation – notably Boko Haram and the drastic fall in oil prices on the world market. He reminded the president that the future of Cameroon rests squarely in his hands and he should not minimize what the opposition can do.

MbomboNjoya exhorted Biya to think of the CPDM party and especially the Cameroon he wants to bequeath to Cameroonians before responding to “The People’s Call”.

                MbomboNjoya’s remarks have been intepreted by both the press and some political watchers as a grim warning to Biya. It is also seen as a call to order for all those who have been calling on Biya to anticipate presidential election and be candidate. Grim as the message was, it reminded the president that even though he might be pre-occupied with his life presidency agenda, there are pressing issues that must be looked into first.

                Besides the Sultan also made bold to the Etoudi Palace tenant that if ever he intends to anticipate elections and be candidate, he must first of all convene the congress of his party the CPDM and be solemnly plebiscited by the party’s supporters.

                In fact, MbomboNjoya simply and boldly told President Biya that the various calls that are coming from here and there are meaningless and irrelevant especially if they do not culminate in the convening of a convention of the party.

                It is believed by political speculators that the discordant note fired by Sultan Njoya to Biya is what has prompted the president to summon him in Geneva, Switzerland for a tete-a-tete.

                It is also expected that the two men would use the opportunity to strategize on how the anticipated election agenda would be pursued and how the opposition would be handled to avert any breach of the peace and security.

                But whatever comes out of Biya’s meeting with the Bamum Monarch, one point is clear to us at The Median namely that the two men are simply acting a drama which they both conceived and wrote; they are only using Cameroon as the stage, and Cameroonians as spectators.