He has sent policemen and soldiers to shoot at protesters in the Southwest and Northwest and ordered the arrest of a Supreme Court judge in Yaounde on Saturday night without any warrant of arrest. He has banned protests and curtailed the freedom of association and of speech. He is known for spending months abroad relaxing in luxury hotels while his countrymen struggle at home. He is accountable to no one but himself.Cameroonian dictator, Paul Biya, who hasbeen in power for 35 years since 1982, has turned his terribly underdeveloped country into another banana republic in Africa.He has sent policemen and soldiers to shoot at protesters in the Southwest and Northwest and ordered the arrest of a Supreme Court judge in Yaounde on Saturday night without any warrant of arrest. He has banned protests and curtailed the freedom of association and of speech. He is known for spending months abroad relaxing in luxury hotels while his countrymen struggle at home with empty stomachs. He is accountable to no one but himself, and maybe Paris.At almost 83 years old, Mr. Biya and his cabal have grown increasingly uncomfortable, especially, with developments in Ghana and Gambia, where sitting Presidents were defeated inthe last presidential elections and had to go.In the Northwest and Southwest, where residents are mainly English speakers, protests went on for months by lawyers and lecturers demanding justice and equality in a country where President Biya has spoken French for more than three decades and Anglophones feel left behind in many economic and political areas in Cameroon.Mr. Biya reacted by sending trucks of policemen and soldiers to shoot at and suppress the protesters. Many were arrested, including students who were bundled into dirty trucks and sent to various tribunals for phony judgments.If Angophones feel marginalised by the Biya government, the situation is not any better in any part of Cameroon. In the far north where Boko Haram has been bombing, shooting and killing for years, Mr. Biya has not visited to comfort the citizens or encourage soldiers fighting and dying in ambushes. And when the corpses of 38 killed soldiers were brought to Yaounde for burial, Mr. Biya did not even attend the event.The level of poverty in the north is so appalling that most people are now used to living in squalor and hunger and do notknow any other way. It is the same situation in the eastern part of the country where basic infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and electricity are rare to find.Even in the capital, Yaounde, the underdevelopment and unemployment are palpable everywhere. Dusty roads and scattered houses in an unplanned city can be seen here and there.The entire country is in a state of chaos where basic laws are not respected and protests are met with excessive force.The international community should call the despotic leader to order and not allowhim go down with the entire country in flames.
