October Presidential:

Biya Cancels Planned Visit to Buea   

President Paul Biya, the CPDM candidate for the 7 October presidential election, has cancelled a planned campaign trip to Buea in the SW region, leaving his followers in the region confused and downcast.

            The Etoudi Palace tenant was expected in Buea Wednesday, but he changed his mind and stayed back in Yaounde, even as all had been put in place to give him a befitting welcome.

            It is not immediately known why the president decided to cancel the trip. But it is understood that there were not enough security guarantees as to permit the 85-year old to take the risk.

            Apart from security concerns, there were no indications the local populations were upbeat to give the president the expected popular and enthusiastic welcome that he normally deserves.

President Biya has always enjoyed a popular reception in the SW Capital since taking over power in November 1982. But, there were no assurances he would have a similar welcome this time. The socio-political crisis that has been rocking the SW and NW regions for the past two years and which has caused the bulk of the population to flee to the bushes or to safer areas in French Cameroon or neighboring Nigeria could not be undermined. And the separatists had warned that the President will undertake the trip at his own peril.

            But commentators are of the opinion that the president should have made the trip, no matter what.

“I am disappointed to learn that that president has cancelled his visit. I was waiting to hear what he would say concerning the crisis that has put the two Anglophone regions in a real mess. I was so sure he would come with a message that could sooth the minds of the embittered populations of the NW and SW,” said Ndele Simon, a resident of Buea, who opined that by cancelling the trip to Buea, President Biya has missed a golden opportunity to commune with the Anglophone public and wipe their tears in the face of mass killings that came with the escalation of the Anglophone crisis.

            Another commentator, Ngong Chrysantus, wondered why Biya should travel to the Far North where the Boko Haram insurgency is still raging on, only to deny coming to Buea because of separatist fighters.

            “I don’t think President Biya really care about the feelings of Anglophones,” concluded Chrysantus.

            It should be recalled that, despite the Boko Haram phenomenon in the Far North, Biya travelled to Maroua last Saturday and held a mega rally with militants and supporters of the CPDM there.

            But it is a matter of conjecture whether the president would have had the kind of warm welcome he had in Maroua, if he had come to Buea.

            Today, the fighting, killings, kidnappings etc in the SW and NW, have transformed Buea, just like other towns of the NW and SW, into ghost towns and battle grounds. Most of the populations have fled to the bushes and/or to safer regions and to neighbouring Nigeria.