As Cameroonians await the official results of the October 12, 2025 presidential election, a familiar air of resignation hangs over the country.
The incumbent, President Paul Biya, 92, has ruled for 43 years — a lifetime for many who have known no other leader. For over four decades, the promise of democracy has existed largely in theory, while poverty, unemployment, poor infrastructure and decaying social services have remained the lived reality of millions.
Yet, despite these deep-rooted hardships, the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, continues to dominate the political landscape with near-absolute certainty. This year’s campaign season offered a telling illustration. President Biya made a personal appearance in only one town, Maroua, while delegating the rest of his campaign to senior party figures, most of whom are government ministers, high ranking public administrators and influential elites.
In almost every division and subdivision, these representatives held grand rallies, ensuring once again that the CPDM machinery reached the grassroots. They are, after all, the primary beneficiaries of the system, custodians of privilege whose influence depends on maintaining the status quo. The ruling party’s network of loyalty is, therefore, not just political; it is economic and deeply social. Government positions and benefits are deliberately spread across ethnic lines to create a semblance of inclusion, ensuring that no community feels entirely left out of “the national cake,” even if the slices are grossly unequal.
But beneath this facade lies a troubling truth: while the Head of State is often blamed for the country’s decline, the everyday agents of power – local officials, regional administrators, mayors, and MPs have equally failed their people. Roads remain impassable, schools under-equipped, hospitals ill-staffed, and electricity unreliable. Ironically, the same officials who preside over this decay return during election seasons in convoys of gleaming four-wheel drives to preach continuity to the same populations who suffer under their neglect.
The moral tragedy is that the masses, weary and impoverished, continue to welcome these figures with open arms, singing, dancing and pledging votes. Fear, dependence, and long-cultivated habits of submission have blurred the line between leadership and servitude. The people have ceased to see themselves as shareholders in the Republic, and instead act as spectators in their own national destiny.
Cameroon’s greatest challenge, therefore, may no longer be a question of who governs from Yaounde, but how citizens across the 10 Regions choose to hold their leaders, big and small accountable. True change will not come from a new face on a ballot, but from a new mindset among the governed.
It is time for Cameroonians to awaken to the power of collective accountability. Every vote must be earned through tangible service, not patronage or tribal loyalty. The luxury homes built by officials in villages where children still drink from streams should no longer be symbols of admiration but evidence of betrayal.
A country blessed with abundant natural resources; oil, timber, minerals, fertile lands and a vibrant youth population has no reason to wallow in poverty except for its mismanagement and the complacency of its citizens. The day the ordinary Cameroonian begins to reject unworthy leaders, not with violence but with civic courage, will be the day the country begins to truly rise.
Cameroon does not lack vision; it lacks accountability. And until both the rulers and the ruled understand that progress is impossible without responsibility, elections will remain rituals of continuity rather than instruments of change.
“Africa will rise the day her people realise that leadership is not a gift to receive, but a duty to demand accountability.”
By Ernest Chefon Ndukong