Erosion of national security!Cameroon’s safety is now under attack by its own security chiefs facilitated by Paul Biya’s inaction and absence

The frequency and daringness of national security incidents in Cameroon in recent times must force Paul Biya out of his lethargy to address the issue with muscle. The kidnapping of an Equatorial Guinea army colonel from Yaounde has all the ingredients of real danger for the safety of Cameroon. It is moreover a major humiliating diplomatic defeat of Biya by Obiang Nguema Mbasago. Should Biya in spite of this still continue in his outmoded style events will surely overtake him.

The frequency with which incidents that test the security of Cameroon are taking place nowadays cannot leave any observer indifferent. What is surprising is Paul Biya’s inability to act in the face of the alarming multiplication of the happenings which many believe occur in the first place because of the president’s laxity and absence.

For a country that was once reputed to have one of the most dependable national security networks in Africa, what is happening now only demonstrates how penetrable and weak that network has become and how equally vulnerable Cameroon is today.
Consider the number of incidents in the last eleven months alone viz: the three successive Bakassi incidents involving the ambushing and humiliation of Cameroon’s armed forces by Nigerian rebels, leaving in their trails so much military blood in peacetime.

In the last one month alone security incidents have assumed a phenomenal increase and a daringness that make Biya’s continuous lukewarmness all but criminal. The Limbe terror bank robbery; the simultaneous fire-gutting of four army generals’ offices in Yaounde and the kipnapping of a defected Equatorial Guinea army colonel on asylum in Cameroon, all taking place in quick succession definitely deserved some muscular and vigorous response by the authorities.
What is worrisome about these incidents is that though separate and unrelated, they are widely believed to be the handiwork of senior security officials. Taking advantage of their positions and authority they act out of selfish motives, encouraged by the total absence of checks on them.
Even when reports get to Paul Biya he often appears unconcerned. And, if he will act it takes so long, sometimes years to do so. In the meantime the same culprits aggravate the damage they do to the public good.

Limbe robbery

Some of the actions now taking place are feeble and afterthoughts. It was in the third week of the Limbe robbery that the authorities undertook a search of Dock-yard to look for clues! Nothing so far has been done to the defence minister who told the public that he had been aware of threats to attack a coastal locality.

Why isn’t there a public judicial inquiry into the incident so that Remy Ze Meka could make a full statement and answer questions from the public? And why does it take so much time for the public to know what government is doing to prevent similar attacks in the future and also to arrest the culprits?
It is in the recent kidnapping of Cyprian Nguema Mba, the defected Equatorial Guinea army colonel, on political asylum in Yaounde in the last four years that the collusion of senior Cameroonian security officials has been exposed.

This newspaper has learnt reliably that contrary to a statement by MINREX attributing the act to two junior policemen, the abduction was a well-coordinated activity involving both Malabo authorities who dispatched two cover agents to Yaounde to work with some top brass of the judicial police and the Yaounde central police station.

In many ways the abduction was a blow to Paul Biya and his 26-year regime. At diplomatic level Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the EG president scored a major victory over Biya who had repeatedly refused the former’s request to repatriate the defecting colonel.
Biya’s safe-keeping of Nguema Mba in Yaounde was not only provocative to Malabo; Nguema Mba along with other defectors constituted a security threat to Malabo. A little unreported incident of last April’s CEMAC summit in Yaounde illustrates this point.
The EG president had ferried along in his sparkling new presidential jet an armoured and bullet proof car that he had intended to use while in Yaounde to protect himself from his enemies lurking in Cameroon. Paul Biya who was at the airport receiving his guests as they arrived, had to categorically refuse the unloading of the car, giving copious assurances of Obiang Nguema’s safety.

The kidnapping also proved how penetrable Yaounde’s security arrangements were. The ease with which the two EG undercover agents travelled to Yaounde, the ease with which the men at the top could yield to lavish petrodollars which EG is now awash with and the ease with which Nguema Mba was driven through to Bata, crossing the closed border at Kye Osi must tell anyone how very successful the operation was.

Betrayal and disloyalty

Another factor that Paul Biya must worry about is the disloyalty of his security men who took a strategic opportunity to betray him. He probably will send them to the military tribunal and punish them with long jail sentences, but the damage would have been done.
The fact of betrayal at that level, seen from another perspective, is not just for the money, temptingly good as it might have been. Mustn’t that warn Biya that somewhere along the line even the most trustworthy of his men are also getting tired of him?

Still for the kidnapping to have started at all the top security men who facilitated it took advantage of the paralysis of power in Yaounde; the long, too long absence of Paul Biya abroad. That, of course, creates a sense of vacuum at the top. That vacuum opens gaps for many things to slip through; and for some risks to appear safe where they would otherwise not be. And then come the petrodollars which Yaounde bureaucrats cannot resist!
In the end Cameroon’s increasing national security problems can be said to be both the consequence and the cause of the dysfunction of the Biya regime.

For instance, it is widely held, with evidence to convince, that the Bakassi incidents were not unconnected with the activity of arms trafficking by some military chiefs. Why did Biya let it continue year after year?
The same greed motive is to be seen in the Limbe robbery. The extent to which the big and powerful are willing to go to make money is troubling. The opportunity is provided by the Biya regime. The same well-known absence of control and culture of impunity open the way for corruption and criminal abuse of office.

Paul Biya’s unduly long absences from home may for now be evidence of how well he has his hands on the reins of power. But the rate and daringness with which the nation’s security is being endangered for selfish motives by the very ones who should guarantee it hardly augur well for the future continuation of that style. Mightn’t he realise his error too late?

Culled from The Herald