Opposition politician Jean Michel Nintcheu says President Paul Biya should follow Ahmadou Ahidjo’s example and make way for a new generation of leadership.
By Boris Esono Nwenfor
BUEA, PAV – The president of the Front for Change in Cameroon (FCC), Jean Michel Nintcheu, has called on President Paul Biya to resign. He argues that the country should not remain under the rule of one man for more than half a century.
Nintcheu, who is a Member of Parliament for Wouri, made the call in a Facebook post, according to multiple reports, in which he directly challenged President Paul Biya to leave office and facilitate a peaceful transfer of power.
The opposition leader invoked the example of Cameroon’s first president, the late Ahmadou Ahidjo, who resigned in 1982 after more than two decades in power and handed the presidency to his prime minister, Biya. Ahidjo had led Cameroon since independence in 1960. His resignation paved the way for Biya, who has remained president for nearly 44 years.
Biya, 93, secured an eighth presidential term in Cameroon’s 2025 presidential election. If he completes the mandate, he would remain in office until 2032, meaning he would have governed Cameroon for about five decades.
Nintcheu argues that the length of Biya’s rule makes the question of succession increasingly urgent. His latest intervention follows an earlier call for parliament to refer an alleged vacancy in the presidency to the Constitutional Council.
The opposition politician had also raised concerns over Biya’s 73-day absence from Cameroon and what he considers a lack of transparent public communication about the president’s condition and official activities during that period.
For Nintcheu, the debate extends beyond the president’s periods of absence. He has framed it as a broader question about political succession, constitutional accountability and the concentration of power in Cameroon.
His appeal to Biya to emulate Ahidjo also invokes a significant moment in Cameroon’s political history: the transfer of power in 1982 from the country’s first president to the man who has governed it ever since.
The demand places the issue of presidential succession back at the heart of Cameroon’s political debate, with the opposition questioning whether a country can continue under the leadership of the same president for almost half a century.
Biya’s supporters have continued to defend his record in office, while opposition figures such as Nintcheu have increasingly focused on succession, institutional accountability and the need for political change.
