THE APC, THE PEOPLE OF CHANGE AND THE PEOPLE OF CAMEROON WILL STAND AGAINST THE MILITARY COUP OF THE CPDM AND ITS ALLIES By Hon. J.M. Nintcheu

Since 2023, all observers of the Cameroonian political scene have been struck by repeated and unapologetic public calls for a military coup in Cameroon.

On 3rd September 2023, this barely believable scene took place during a debate on a local television channel. To the presenter's question about the probability that at the end of a presidential election, for example in 2025 or even in 2032, the Cameroonian army decides to take power, the official representative of the CPDM, the ruling party, responds: “But of course this can happen. And that could happen in the event that the CRM wins the elections. Indeed, in this case, I very clearly see the army taking power to prevent (a panelist: what if it is the UPC?) Allow me, I spoke of CRM and not of the UPC. So if it happened, although impossible, that the CRM won the elections, I expect the army to strongly stand against it. (...) But who imagines Cameroonian soldiers ridiculed, including by the CRM President, accepting to have this gentleman as commander-in-chief. At the CRM, they insult the Cameroonian army every day, we treat it with every word. But I don’t see under what conditions there could be collaboration between a political party which has chosen to have an anti-Republican speech against the army and that army which is Republican.”

And to the CPDM member to continue: “I say and I repeat that I do not see under what conditions there can be cohabitation between individuals who treat the army as a militia and this army. Unless we are going to move from one militia to another! So what's going to happen? Are we going to dismiss all the Bulu and Beti from the army to put in people hailing from the tribe of the new future President? ".
The day after this astonishing media statement, i.e. 4 September 2023, another member of official communication team of the CPDM confirmed this public call for a coup d'état. He then wrote: "In the event that by a miracle the CRM were to win a presidential election in this country, there would inevitably be a coup, the army will never accept having as commander-in-chief a leader of a party that has been calling it by all sorts of names for several years. (...) In truth, the only condition for a coup in Cameroon is that the CRM wins a presidential election!!! The army will never agree to submit to a party which has regularly called it a “bulu militia”, “tyrant’s militia”, “rabble of soldiers of Biya””

On 5th September, this same official communicator of the CPDM published the following message on his Facebook page: “the UPC, the PCRN, the AFP and others have never insulted the army of this country!!! If one of these parties wins the presidential election one day the army will be at the service of its leader!!! On the other hand, if it is the CRM or a party having invested the CRM President who wins, there will automatically be a coup. ".

In the wake of the launch of the POLITICAL ALLIANCE FOR CHANGE (APC) which supports the candidacy of Professor Maurice KAMTO, the CRM candidate for the presidential election scheduled for 2025, the regime's supporters, panicked, have created yet another political avatar of the CPDM, the ALLIANCE FOR POLITICAL TRANSITION (ATP). Through the ATP, whose members implore Paul BIYA to associate them with a Government of national unity, in a political transition, the power in place is clumsily trying to avoid the political duel which will be inevitable during the upcoming presidential election. This duel will pit Maurice KAMTO, candidate of the CRM and the APC against that of the CPDM and its official and unofficial allies.
To tell the truth, the triangular situation that the government is clumsily and desperately trying to create in the upcoming presidential election is improbable.

The ATP, which is therefore an emanation of the regime's supporters, has made their own calls for a military coup following the CPDM from which it is not so far removed. Thus, Honourable Cabral LIBII NGE NGUE, national president of the PCRN, an opposition party but whose elected officials voted for the CPDM during the election of regional councillors on 6 December 2020 in the Centre Region, wrote on the 20 February 2024 on his Facebook page: “In all objectivity, the Political Transition has become essential and inevitable in Cameroon. The question now is the nature of it. Military or civilian? (...)”. Only in Cameroon can an entire MP of the nation call for a military transition, that is to say a coup, without being worried.

It should be noted that, so far, the CPDM hierarchy has not distanced itself from the curious outings of its communicators inviting the army to overthrow Maurice KAMTO if he was elected in the 2025 presidential election. Likewise the magistrates of the military tribunal, generally so quick to arbitrarily open political proceedings against the adversaries of the power, but also to condemn them illegally and heavily, do not find these repeated calls for a coup quite anti-Republican. To them, it seems that there would be nothing in these calls that violates the laws of the Republic.

In view of all this, it is legitimate to question the real reasons for this tolerance, even this “amber light”, when the military came to power. Does the BIYA -CPDM regime, aware of the disastrous results of 42 years of kleptocratic and irresponsible ruling, want to anticipate its coming defeat in 2025 by organizing a military coup? Indeed, everything makes us fear this scenario. The extremists of the regime, the supporters of the scorched earth policy, the same ones who have engaged in an unnecessary internal war in the Anglophone regions of the North West and South West, since the end of 2017, seem determined to organise a putsch to avoid losing power.

Faced with this situation which is now emerging publicly, the APC calls on Cameroonians, the people of Change, to remain vigilant. The APC is opposed to any political transition, much less military. Even if the institutions of our country operate at the pulse of a single individual, the President of the Republic, and only do his will, the fact remains that there is no institutional rupture in Cameroon. Therefore, the country must go to elections and everything must be done, now, to ensure that these elections are free, transparent and fair.

The APC calls the attention of the UN, the African Union, and peoples, friends of the Cameroonian people, to the serious risk posed by these public calls for coups on the security of Cameroon. It is no secret that francophone Africa is plunged into a political whirlwind. The status of the last security stronghold recognized to Cameroon, within the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) is beyond doubt. If this stronghold fails, it is possible, even very likely, that the sub-region will hardly survive the flood of instability that will result. Therefore, it is imperative for all Cameroon's partners keen to preserve peace to take, from now on, all the necessary measures to prevent political adventurers, wishing to ward off the certain defeat of the CPDM in the next elections, are manipulating the army for a coup. Clearly, the international community must stand alongside pro-democracy forces and the Cameroonian people.
For its part, the APC and the People of Change will face the putschists of the CPDM and allies with unsuspected determination. Moreover, the Cameroonian people in all their components are determined to confront these putschists of the CPDM and allies.

Done in Yaoundé on 11 March 2024

Honourable Jean Michel NINTCHEU, National President of the Front for Change in Cameroon (FCC), Acting National Coordinator of the POLITICAL ALLIANCE FOR CHANGE (APC).