Playing Maradona:

Biya spoils Anglophones with Enticing Portfolios

-Observers say Anglophones have never had it this big in any cabinet reshuffle since 57 years of the reunification.

Paul Tasong is the 1st minister from Lebialem since Independence

President Paul Biya also fondly called the Maradona of Cameroonian politics has done it again. Like Winston Churchill would put it, the political character of president Paul Biya is a riddle, a mystery and an enigma all wrapped in one.

            The cabinet shake-up that had long been speculated finally came on Friday 2 March 2018. It came at a time very few expected. It came late like a thief in the night and at a time many had thought it was all over for the week.

In his decree of 2 March Paul Biya kept to his promise to Cameroonians in his state of the nation address on 31 December 2017 when he said Cameroonians deserved greater participation in the management of public affairs especially at the local level. By this the president meant the decentralization process needed to be fast-tracked.

            By splitting the former ministry of territorial administration and decentralization, MINATD to carve out the ministry of territorial administration MINAT and the Ministry of Decentralization and Local Development, the president has demonstrated his resolve to take the rather slow paced decentralization process to a more fluid level.

            Paul Biya could not have been indifferent to the growing spate of violent protests in the NW and SW regions. The appointment of 43-year-old Etoga Yves Landry Galax to replace the tired and worn out Jean Baptiste Bokam as Secretary of State for Defense, is with the view to tighten the security noose and make gendarmes safer in the exercise of their job of pacifying restive areas of the country.

            Also for a long time now, the Biya regime has been criticized for not giving Anglophones the opportunity of also heading ministries of sovereign importance in the country. The appointment therefore of the security kingpin, Paul Atanga Nji to head the very strategic Ministry of Territorial Administration MINAT, and Dr. Pauline Nalova Lyonga Egbe at the no less strategic and mammoth Ministry of Secondary Education, MINESEC, only pushes the argument by Anglophones to fall flat to the ground.

            Meanwhile, observers have been quick to note that the appointment of another Anglophone, Paul Elung Che as Assistant Secretary General of the Presidency is with the aim to get the very upright and workaholic senior treasury inspector and public policy expert to put his acclaimed managerial acumen at the service of the President’s decision-making laboratory.

            Then the entry into government of Paul Tasong as Minister Delegate at the MINEPAT is also historic; it puts an end to the long wait by the people of Lebialem Division of having their first minister since independence.