By Andrew Nsoseka
A congratulatory Facebook post by Cameroonian opposition leader, Cabral Libii, inspired by Senegal’s dramatic triumph at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), is stirring political debate at home, with many observers asking whether it was a thinly veiled jab at former Biya ally turned opposition figure, Issa Tchiroma Bakary.
In a post published shortly after Senegal clinched the AFCON title following a dramatic walkout-and-return episode in the final against Morocco, Libii praised the “Lions of Teranga” for refusing to give up, while launching a broader philosophical attack on boycotts.
“SENEGAL! One single word: BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!! You should never boycott. It’s foolish,” Libii wrote.
“You must go to the frontline and fight like lions. Riding on naïve emotions to dodge a match whose rules—and their flaws and shortcomings—you have long supported is nothing but weakness and inconsistency.”
Though Libii did not mention any Cameroonian politician by name, the timing and wording of the post have fuelled speculation that the message was directed at Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who recently announced that he and his party, the National Salvation Front of Cameroon (FSNC), would boycott upcoming legislative and municipal elections.
A Football Metaphor with Political Overtones
Senegal’s AFCON victory offered a powerful metaphor. In the final, Senegalese players briefly walked off the pitch in protest over controversial refereeing decisions, only to return, regroup and ultimately win the match in extra time. For many analysts, Libii’s reference to “never boycotting” and “fighting like lions” echoes that episode almost too neatly to be accidental.
Tchiroma, once a staunch ally of President Paul Biya and a long-serving government Minister, has since repositioned himself as a leading opposition voice. Following the disputed October 12, 2025, presidential election, he declared himself the “Legitimate President,” claiming victory at the polls.
In January 2026, he announced that the FSNC would stay out of all future electoral processes unless his claimed victory is formally recognized.
“Any political party that participates [in the elections] endorses the wrongdoing and becomes complicit in it,” Tchiroma’s camp said in a statement, framing the boycott as a moral refusal to legitimise what they describe as an illegal regime.
Libii’s post, however, appears to challenge precisely that logic, suggesting that withdrawing from a contest whose rules one has long accepted is not an act of courage, but of weakness.
If Libii’s comments were indeed aimed at Tchiroma, they would place him firmly on one side of a long-running debate within Cameroon’s opposition: whether boycotts weaken an unjust system or merely hand unchecked power to the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM).
History offers sobering lessons. The late Ni John Fru Ndi’s Social Democratic Front (SDF) lost much of its national influence after boycotting parliamentary elections in the 1990s. Maurice Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) followed a similar path after the contested 2018 presidential election, boycotting the 2020 municipal and legislative polls, a decision that later prevented Kamto from running in the 2025 presidential election due to lack of elected representation.
Critics of Tchiroma argue that his boycott risks repeating the same mistakes: surrendering parliament and local councils to the CPDM, and undermining his own long-term political relevance.
Mockery or Principle?
Whether Libii intended to mock Tchiroma or simply restate his long-held opposition to election boycotts remains open to interpretation. Yet the parallels are striking: Senegal walked out, returned, fought within a flawed system of officiating, and won. Tchiroma, by contrast, has chosen to walk away entirely from an electoral system he once defended as a key pillar of Cameroon’s political order.
By invoking Senegal’s resilience, Libii may have been sending a pointed message to fellow opposition figures: that progress, however imperfect, is achieved not by abandoning the field, but by staying in the fight.
As Cameroon edges closer to another round of elections, the debate over participation versus boycott is once again at the centre of opposition politics, and Cabral Libii’s football-inspired post has ensured that Issa Tchiroma’s strategy will not escape scrutiny.