Latest news with #Douala
Al Arabiya
3 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Cameroon's election board bars main opposition candidate from presidential race
Cameroon's electoral commission on Saturday rejected the candidacy of Maurice Kamto in the upcoming presidential election, fueling fears of unrest and increasing the likelihood of another Biya victory. Kamto, a former government minister, is seen as the main challenger to long-serving President Paul Biya. The electoral commission ELECAM said it approved 13 presidential candidates, excluding Kamto. No reason was given. Biya is included. Kamto, who has two days to appeal, was considered Biya's strongest rival in past elections. He came second during the last presidential election in 2018 with 14 percent of the vote, while Biya cruised to victory with over 70 percent in an election marred by irregularities and a low turnout. Biya, 92, the world's oldest serving head of state, said last month he would seek reelection on Oct. 12 despite rumors that his health is failing. He has been in power since 1982, nearly half his lifetime. Biya's rule has left a lasting impact on Cameroon. His government has faced various challenges, including allegations of corruption and a deadly secessionist conflict in the nation's English-speaking provinces that has forced thousands out of school. Fears of protests and unrest surged around Saturday's release of the list of approved candidates. Security forces were deployed around the ELECAM headquarters and along major roads in Yaoundé, the capital, and in Douala, the economic hub. The United Nations Department of Safety and Security had warned Friday that the announcement could trigger protests in the capital.
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Cameroon's election board bars main opposition candidate from presidential race
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — Cameroon 's electoral commission on Saturday rejected the candidacy of Maurice Kamto in the upcoming presidential election, fueling fears of unrest and increasing the likelihood of another Biya victory. Kamto, a former government minister, is seen as the main challenger to long-serving President Paul Biya. The electoral commission, ELECAM, said it approved 13 presidential candidates, excluding Kamto. No reason was given. Biya is included. Kamto, who has two days to appeal, was considered Biya's strongest rival in past elections. He came second during the last presidential election in 2018 with 14% of the vote, while Biya cruised to victory with over 70% in an election marred by irregularities and a low turnout. Biya, 92, the world's oldest serving head of state, said last month he would seek reelection on Oct. 12 despite rumors that his health is failing. He has been in power since 1982, nearly half his lifetime. Biya's rule has left a lasting impact on Cameroon. His government has faced various challenges, including allegations of corruption and a deadly secessionist conflict in the nation's English-speaking provinces that has forced thousands out of school. Fears of protests and unrest surged around Saturday's release of the list of approved candidates. Security forces were deployed around the ELECAM headquarters and along major roads in Yaoundé, the capital, and in Douala, the economic hub. The United Nations Department of Safety and Security had warned Friday that the announcement could trigger protests in the capital.
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The world's oldest president is running again: can anyone stop him from winning?
Opposite Treasure Hunter, one of four casinos on the same street in Douala, Cameroon's commercial capital, money changers and motorcycle taxi drivers such as André Ouandji mill around, calling out to potential clients. Ouandji has worked in the area for three years but has not entered the casinos. He prefers to frequent the sports betting shop in his local neighbourhood of Bonabéri. Cameroon has the second-best performing economy in central Africa, but despite this a third of the population live on $2 or less daily and, according to a 2023 survey by the country's National Statistics Institute, eight in 10 of the workforce are informally employed. Against this backdrop, gambling and betting have become increasingly popular. 'We stopped relying on the government for anything years ago,' said Ouandji, who is 27. Like many young Cameroonians, he is undecided about whether to vote in October's presidential election. In a country where the median age is 18 and average life expectancy is 63, the overwhelming favourite is the 92-year-old incumbent, Paul Biya, president since 1982. He formally declared his candidacy for another seven-year term on 13 July, brushing aside calls from inside and outside the country to step aside. 'Together, there are no challenges we cannot meet,' he wrote on X. 'The best is still to come.' Biya's decades-long rule has been accompanied by a decline in voter turnout. The abstention rate in the 1992 election – widely believed to have been stolen from the late opposition leader John Fru Ndi – was 19.6%. By 2018 it had hit 46.7%. Eighteen-year-old Serge (not his real name), a first-year geography student at the University of Douala, said prioritising his economic future in a country of high unemployment and rampant nepotism was more important to him than voting. 'My dream was to be a lawyer but you need connections for jobs, your father needs to be placed somewhere, so I settled for being a teacher which is easier,' he said. Supporters of the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) point to the country's overall economic performance relative to its neighbours and say they prefer stability to the unknown. Some even believe Biya's mandate is divine. 'No authority can exist unless it comes from God,' said Antoine Nkoa, the author of the 51-page pamphlet 10 Good Reasons Why You Should Vote Paul Biya in 2025. Nkoa, who lives in the capital, Yaoundé, said he had never met the president but that he had an early morning vision of the world's oldest president winning again. Such a vision represents a nightmare scenario for Barthélemy Yaouda Hourgo, the Catholic bishop of Yagoua in the country's Far North region. 'Enough is enough,' he said in January while urging Biya, the son of a catechist, to call it quits. Christopher Nkong, the secretary general of the leading opposition party, Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), said in an interview that Biya had 'outlived his usefulness'. 'We say, 'Papa you have done your best. Can you not leave for another Cameroonian to take over?'' Biya's critics say his supporters are out of touch with reality. Endemic corruption and a cost of living crisis have been exacerbated by concurrent conflicts with armed anglophone separatists in the west sending thousands into neighbouring Nigeria, jihadists in the Far North region and criminal kidnapping gangs in the so-called triangle of death near the borders with Chad and Central African Republic. Experts say the crises could make voting in some areas harder, which would favour Biya. The election takes place a few days after separatists mark the independence of the breakaway state of Ambazonia. At least seven people including a priest were killed by security officials during the 2018 election weekend in Buea and Bamenda, the main cities in anglophone Cameroon. In a twist to proceedings, two of Biya's longtime allies – the influential ministers Bello Bouba Maigari and Issa Tchiroma – resigned from the cabinet within days of each other in June and declared their intention to run against him. 'We are in misery,' Tchiroma said from his home town of Garoua in the north, a hunting ground for the jihadists of Boko Haram. The same month, Léon Onana, a municipal councillor, filed a lawsuit to compel CPDM to organise its first national congress since 2011 on the grounds that 'we cannot remain in a party where everything revolves around a single individual'. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion MRC hopes to rally the undecided and uninterested to vote in large numbers for its candidate, the former justice minister Maurice Kamto. 'Everybody is feeling the pinch of mismanagement, embezzlement, non-development, low standards of living, and poverty brought by the regime [which] knows that it is unpopular,' said Nkong. But, he added, 'to uproot a dictator is not a day's job'. Despite efforts by civil society groups to mobilise people to register to vote, and moves by multiple opposition parties to coalesce into a coalition, some say the field has already been rigged in favour of Biya. The country's electoral commission, Elections Cameroon, for example, comprises several former ruling party members and is not seen as impartial. The commission is supervised by the all-powerful minister of territorial administration, Paul Atanga Nji, a self-described 'Biyaiste' nicknamed Moulinex National after the French kitchen blender for his threats to Biya's opponents. Among his critics, Biya is seen as a master of divide and rule. For years, CPDM has been accused of sponsoring political parties to cause confusion within opposition ranks and armed separatist factions to stir chaos. A law forbidding parties from campaigning until a month before the election often does not seem to apply to CPDM. The government was approached for comment. Shortly after Kamto held a mass rally with the diaspora in Paris at the end of May, he was put under house arrest. Some of his supporters were also locked up in police cells for two days. 'The police, gendarme and military came,' a witness who wished to remain anonymous said. Kah Walla, the leader of the left-leaning Cameroon People's party, has similar stories of harassment. 'In the last year, my office here has been surrounded by police tanks and water cannons,' she said. 'If I cannot hold a normal political meeting, then for sure I cannot be a candidate in the election … it's an aberration to even call these things elections.' Her party is boycotting the elections, as it did in 2018, demanding serious reforms instead. 'I always tell Cameroonians, if we are asked to go to a football tournament, say in Nigeria, and the referees are Nigerian, the people allowing people into the stadium are Nigerian, and the stadium is on a hill with Nigeria at the top and the other teams are at the bottom, Cameroonians will say bring the team back home.' In some circles there is hopeful talk on social media of a 'post-Biya era'. MRC has urged young people to copy its Senegalese counterparts, who stayed at polling stations during vote-tallying last year to 'protect their votes' and helped unseat the ruling party. Some experts say another post-election scenario may be a repeat of events in Gabon, where the re-election of Ali Bongo in August 2023 triggered unrest and a coup. There is the sense that many Cameroonians will be comfortable with either scenario. 'There will be no error in 2025,' Nkong said. 'CPDM's time has ended.'
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The world's oldest president is running again: can anyone stop him from winning?
Opposite Treasure Hunter, one of four casinos on the same street in Douala, Cameroon's commercial capital, money changers and motorcycle taxi drivers such as André Ouandji mill around, calling out to potential clients. Ouandji has worked in the area for three years but has not entered the casinos. He prefers to frequent the sports betting shop in his local neighbourhood of Bonabéri. Cameroon has the second-best performing economy in central Africa, but despite this a third of the population live on $2 or less daily and, according to a 2023 survey by the country's National Statistics Institute, eight in 10 of the workforce are informally employed. Against this backdrop, gambling and betting have become increasingly popular. 'We stopped relying on the government for anything years ago,' said Ouandji, who is 27. Like many young Cameroonians, he is undecided about whether to vote in October's presidential election. In a country where the median age is 18 and average life expectancy is 63, the overwhelming favourite is the 92-year-old incumbent, Paul Biya, president since 1982. He formally declared his candidacy for another seven-year term on 13 July, brushing aside calls from inside and outside the country to step aside. 'Together, there are no challenges we cannot meet,' he wrote on X. 'The best is still to come.' Biya's decades-long rule has been accompanied by a decline in voter turnout. The abstention rate in the 1992 election – widely believed to have been stolen from the late opposition leader John Fru Ndi – was 19.6%. By 2018 it had hit 46.7%. Eighteen-year-old Serge (not his real name), a first-year geography student at the University of Douala, said prioritising his economic future in a country of high unemployment and rampant nepotism was more important to him than voting. 'My dream was to be a lawyer but you need connections for jobs, your father needs to be placed somewhere, so I settled for being a teacher which is easier,' he said. Supporters of the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) point to the country's overall economic performance relative to its neighbours and say they prefer stability to the unknown. Some even believe Biya's mandate is divine. 'No authority can exist unless it comes from God,' said Antoine Nkoa, the author of the 51-page pamphlet 10 Good Reasons Why You Should Vote Paul Biya in 2025. Nkoa, who lives in the capital, Yaoundé, said he had never met the president but that he had an early morning vision of the world's oldest president winning again. Such a vision represents a nightmare scenario for Barthélemy Yaouda Hourgo, the Catholic bishop of Yagoua in the country's Far North region. 'Enough is enough,' he said in January while urging Biya, the son of a catechist, to call it quits. Christopher Nkong, the secretary general of the leading opposition party, Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), said in an interview that Biya had 'outlived his usefulness'. 'We say, 'Papa you have done your best. Can you not leave for another Cameroonian to take over?'' Biya's critics say his supporters are out of touch with reality. Endemic corruption and a cost of living crisis have been exacerbated by concurrent conflicts with armed anglophone separatists in the west sending thousands into neighbouring Nigeria, jihadists in the Far North region and criminal kidnapping gangs in the so-called triangle of death near the borders with Chad and Central African Republic. Experts say the crises could make voting in some areas harder, which would favour Biya. The election takes place a few days after separatists mark the independence of the breakaway state of Ambazonia. At least seven people including a priest were killed by security officials during the 2018 election weekend in Buea and Bamenda, the main cities in anglophone Cameroon. In a twist to proceedings, two of Biya's longtime allies – the influential ministers Bello Bouba Maigari and Issa Tchiroma – resigned from the cabinet within days of each other in June and declared their intention to run against him. 'We are in misery,' Tchiroma said from his home town of Garoua in the north, a hunting ground for the jihadists of Boko Haram. The same month, Léon Onana, a municipal councillor, filed a lawsuit to compel CPDM to organise its first national congress since 2011 on the grounds that 'we cannot remain in a party where everything revolves around a single individual'. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion MRC hopes to rally the undecided and uninterested to vote in large numbers for its candidate, the former justice minister Maurice Kamto. 'Everybody is feeling the pinch of mismanagement, embezzlement, non-development, low standards of living, and poverty brought by the regime [which] knows that it is unpopular,' said Nkong. But, he added, 'to uproot a dictator is not a day's job'. Despite efforts by civil society groups to mobilise people to register to vote, and moves by multiple opposition parties to coalesce into a coalition, some say the field has already been rigged in favour of Biya. The country's electoral commission, Elections Cameroon, for example, comprises several former ruling party members and is not seen as impartial. The commission is supervised by the all-powerful minister of territorial administration, Paul Atanga Nji, a self-described 'Biyaiste' nicknamed Moulinex National after the French kitchen blender for his threats to Biya's opponents. Among his critics, Biya is seen as a master of divide and rule. For years, CPDM has been accused of sponsoring political parties to cause confusion within opposition ranks and armed separatist factions to stir chaos. A law forbidding parties from campaigning until a month before the election often does not seem to apply to CPDM. The government was approached for comment. Shortly after Kamto held a mass rally with the diaspora in Paris at the end of May, he was put under house arrest. Some of his supporters were also locked up in police cells for two days. 'The police, gendarme and military came,' a witness who wished to remain anonymous said. Kah Walla, the leader of the left-leaning Cameroon People's party, has similar stories of harassment. 'In the last year, my office here has been surrounded by police tanks and water cannons,' she said. 'If I cannot hold a normal political meeting, then for sure I cannot be a candidate in the election … it's an aberration to even call these things elections.' Her party is boycotting the elections, as it did in 2018, demanding serious reforms instead. 'I always tell Cameroonians, if we are asked to go to a football tournament, say in Nigeria, and the referees are Nigerian, the people allowing people into the stadium are Nigerian, and the stadium is on a hill with Nigeria at the top and the other teams are at the bottom, Cameroonians will say bring the team back home.' In some circles there is hopeful talk on social media of a 'post-Biya era'. MRC has urged young people to copy its Senegalese counterparts, who stayed at polling stations during vote-tallying last year to 'protect their votes' and helped unseat the ruling party. Some experts say another post-election scenario may be a repeat of events in Gabon, where the re-election of Ali Bongo in August 2023 triggered unrest and a coup. There is the sense that many Cameroonians will be comfortable with either scenario. 'There will be no error in 2025,' Nkong said. 'CPDM's time has ended.'
BBC News
28-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
'My five-year-old daughter die after she chop biscuit from a local vendor'
Di father of one of di two girls wey die afta dem allegedly chop one popular locally made biscuit for Cameroon dey call for thorough investigation and autopsy to reveal wetin really kill im daughter. Oga Belmond wey be trader dey deeply confused as several children wey chop di same biscuit no die, but im five-year-old daughter Makeda, die afta she chop am. "I no dey dia, but pipo say she chop di biscuits. Dem no be di only ones wey chop am. So why na say only two children die? Only thorough and well-conducted autopsy go reveal wetin di children actually chop." Oga Belmond tok. On Tuesday, 24 June, two children bin die, and more dan one hundred and five odas land for hospital for Douala, di economy capital of Cameroon, afta dem allegedly chop one popular locally made biscuit. Authorities for di city say di children wey dey between di ages of one and 16, begin sick afta dem chop galette cakes wey one popular local pastry vendor sell give dem. "Di children wey chop dis galettes bin complain of serious stomach pains. We don record two deaths for di New-Bell district hospital," di govnor of Littoral Region tok. E add say dem rush more dan one hundred and five children go Laquintinie Hospital, wia dem currently dey receive care. Hospital officials say one child dey for critical condition, e dey on respiratory support, and dem dey treat about ten odas for abdominal pain. Di head of Paediatric department for Laquintinie Hospital bin reassure di public say dem take proper care of di children and medical staff full ground. She confam say dem neo report any deaths for di hospital. According to her, dem dey carry out tests to sabi di causes of di poisoning. "For Laquintinie Hospital, we receive 105 pipo. Nobody die. Everybody we treat don go house. we don conduct biological tests to know exactly wetin cause di sickness," she explain. "Di medical and paramedical teams work hard to care for di children. We also get team of psychologists to reassure both di children plus di parents," Marie Solange Ndom Ebongue, Director of Laquintinie Hospital tok. Di pastry seller don hand imself ova give di police and e currently dey under investigation. Authorities say e claim say im no know wetin cause di poisoning. Dem don seal off im shop as part of di investigation.
