Calls for anticipated election:

When Laurent Esso enters the dance
Laurent Esso is not the kind of minister who would jump on the bandwagon just because others have done so. That he went out this time around to rally the people of his Littoral region of origin to urge President Biya to run for another presidential election is therefore something to write home about. He and his mentor must have examined and dissected the issue of the latter’s participation in the coming presidential election, and arrived at a significant conclusion.
By Essan Ekoninyam in Yaounde

Laurent Esso

The other day in the pages of this authoritative newspaper, we were asking to know if the call for President Paul Biya to stand for the upcoming presidential election and to even organize it earlier than the scheduled date of 2018, made by Paul Atanga Nji and a handful of supposed North West CPDM elite, was a reflection of President Paul Biya’s feelings. We concluded that somehow it did, given that the minister, who doubles as the permanent secretary of the National Council of Security, happens to be one of the few Anglophones in whom the President is well pleased.
    Today, we are saying that there is more evidence of this reflection as seen in the fact that Laurent Esso, the minister of Justice, has joined the dance as well. On 13 February 2016, he and other regime barons of the Littoral region were able to pull a mammoth 10 000-man crowd who gathered at the Bonanjo CPDM party house to call on President Biya to present his candidature in the said election.
    Keen watchers of Cameroon’s political scene would avouch that Laurent Esso, described by a popular musical artiste as “the heart of the nation” (“le coeur du pays”), is not any kind of person in the Biya regime. Not only is he the current longest-serving member of government, he is now at the helm of a very strategic ministry – that which oversees the files of state criminals who are languishing in prison. As well as those who will join the latter sooner or later. For the President to assign such a ministry to you, you must occupy a special place in his heart.
    Secondly, Laurent Esso is not the kind of minister who would jump on the bandwagon just because others have done so. That is why you would hardly see or hear him chanting “Dimabola”-like songs in CPDM rallies and other such occasions or granting interviews just for the sake of it. That is equally why he would never run wild in celebration whenever he is maintained as minister or have his government portfolio changed. He speaks and acts only when it is absolutely imperative for him to.

    That Laurent Esso went out this time around to rally the people of his Littoral region of origin to urge President Biya to run for another presidential election is therefore something to write home about. Somehow, it can be equated to a frog jumping in broad daylight.
    Being a man who surely, very surely discusses intimately with the President, there is little wonder that the two have examined and dissected the issue of the latter’s participation in the coming presidential election. Their supposed detailed analysis of the issue must have led to the agreement that the minister should go ahead and make his call.
    Thus, all those whose minds were clouded with doubts that President Biya would ignore the people’s call and step down at the end of his current mandate may be grossly mistaken. The Lion Man is still very much around and his jolly stay in the cosy Etoudi palace is far from being over.