President Paul Biya is expected to make some very useful contributions to the Elysée Summit given his track record in the search for solutions to the continents multifarious security challenges. President Paul Biya arrived in Paris, France early yesterday evening to join some other 40-odd African peers for the Elysée summit beginning tomorrow and summoned by the French President François Hollande to discuss Africa’s degenerating security situation.

The aircraft carrying President Paul Biya and First Lady Chantal touched down at the Orly airport in the southern outskirts of Paris at about 8PM local time (same time in Yaounde). On hand to welcome the President and the official delegation accompanying him was a senior official of the French Foreign Ministry as well as Cameroon’s Ambassador to France Lejeune Mbella Mbella.  French Foreign Ministry sources have indicated that a formal welcome ceremony worth the salt is being reserved for the Elysée Palace tomorrow when French President will personally usher his guests into the palace after a formal military ceremony. 

The very business-like nature of the President’s visit here notwithstanding, many Cameroonians resident in Paris defied the bad evening weather characteristic of this early winter season to turn up rather massively to warmly welcome the President and the First Lady to Paris. Among the huge crowd were several members of his ruling CPDM, many of whom stated that it was the first time they were meeting with their national president after the recent elections at which the party did rather well by maintaining its huge majority in the Senate, National Assembly and the local councils. After receiving separate bouquets of flowers from a young boy and a young girl, the presidential couple was led to a waiting line of senior staff of the Cameroon Embassy in Paris whom the couple greeted warmly before taking the long ride from the airport to the Meurice hotel  at the Rue de Rivoli in Paris’ premier arrondissement where  the couple will stay throughout their Parisian sojourn. Even there, many Cameroonians had taken up vantage positions at the hotel entrance to obtain a presidential handshake as the President and his spouse alighted from their limousine. They were not disappointed at all because the couple acknowledged their presence with handshakes and friendly waves as they walked in.

Useful contribution

The summit opening tomorrow will examine three important questions: “peace and security”; “economic partnership and development”; and “climate change”. All these areas are of particular concern to President Paul Biya as seen in his engagement of the international community to take decisive measures to correct all the wrongs and incomprehension, especially with regard to the functioning of the world economy where injustices continue to prevail. The President has been a major player in several attempts to properly address security concerns in the continent preferring action to words. And the President has never acted in solitude or in a “solo” manner. The best manifestation of the President’s desire to work in concert with other African nation’s is best manifested by the organisation of the Yaoundé “Africa 21” international conference on the future of Africa in May 2011 to which the best of Africa’s policy-makers and brains were invited to Yaounde to brainstorm on possible ways out of Africa’s developmental predicament. He has recently shown the same concern, this time with security issues by organizing the Yaounde Summit last June 24, 2013 on maritime safety and security in the Gulf of Guinea. The Summit was a landmark event, bringing together some 12 Heads of State. The President’s presence at the Elysée Summit of tomorrow is therefore very much a logical continuation of his desire to see Africa address the security issue with one voice. Already at the Yaounde Summit, he made his position quite clear when he declared inter-alia that “We (Heads of State) have to take our responsibilities for Africa, in general, and the Gulf of Guinea in particular cease from being endangered by the criminal acts of pirates”. Tomorrow’s summit is one good opportunity to make good that determination.