President Paul Biya and his French counterpart François Hollande  have met several times, but not on Cameroonian soil. And that makes a difference…

For a very long time, State House events have hardly ever been so many, squeezed into a there-hour period as was the case yesterday. But State protocol officials worked with near perfection, organizing all the principal events in harmonious sequence which saw each event dovetail rather well into each other with a hitch. It all began shortly before 6.30 pm when Presidents Biya and Hollande arrived at State House grounds where they headed straight for President Biya’s third-floor office for an hour-long discussion behind closed doors. Emerging from the talks, they watched the signing of four  financial agreements by which France is undertaking to finance some development projects including the provision of extra funding for the second Wouri bridge project in Douala as well as further financing for the C2D urban development being extended to some regional capitals; then the two men headed for the second floor Ambassadors’ Hall where they read two prepared statements before taking questions from some 200 journalists from the Cameroonian and foreign media present. Taking the floor first, President Biya said he was happy to receive the French leader for this visit which he placed under the banner of close friendship. He said the friendship was made manifest as per the cordial atmosphere in which they held their talks and the convergence of views on many of the issues brought to the table for discussion. He said he had extended the thanks of the Cameroonian people to France for its many acts of friendship notably its support for combined efforts in seeing to it that the Boko Haram insurgency was defeated. The President said he had availed himself of the opportunity to tell his French colleague of measures to improve the democratization process and efforts to instill good governance by putting up a stiff fight against graft and other corrupt practices. He said he had also informed his guest of efforts carried out to ensure freedom of the press although he regretted that many journalists were undermining the gains by indulging in acts that can compromise press freedom. President Biya said he and President Hollande also acknowledged that immigration, especially by the many African trying to cross over to Europe, was a complex problem with solutions which are not easy to come by except through a deeper examination of these complexities.

Replying to his host, the French President said he had made it a duty to come even if after some 15 years when the last French President visited. He said he was doing so to acknowledge the historical links between France and Cameroon, describing some parts of that history as painful but said the most important thing was to think about the future. He pledged further support in the fight against Boko Haram and was rather full of praises for the Cameroonian armed forces which he described as courageous. President Hollande pledged to seek increased assistance from the international community in the wake of the huge burden represented by the massive presence of refugees from CAR and Nigeria and even internally-displaced people in Cameroon due to situations of insurgency in Cameroon’s immediate neighbours.

Q and A

The brief question-and-answer session that followed the presentations centred essentially on the predominance of French companies over Cameroonian ones in the awarding of contracts for French-sponsored projects, the declassification of files on Cameroon in the French archives, President Biya’s purported long stay at the helm of Cameroon and the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the judgments of lower courts in the Barrister Lydienne Eyoum case. While President Hollande said French companies winning contracts were doing so on account of competence and could therefore not be sacrificed on the altar of extending favours to Cameroonian companies, he found no objection of making it possible for files about the French colonial period in Cameroon being held in French institutions being released. President Biya, in responding to a French journalist on his purported “overdue” stay at the Presidency simply said “it doesn’t take mere wish to stay in power, but he who can”. He also reminded the journalist that he had not been imposed on the Cameroonian people, but was duly elected after beating several other candidates in the race.

To another French journalist who suggested in a question that Barrister Lydienne Eyoum, recently sentenced to a 25-year prison term for embezzlement, could be in prison for political reasons, President Biya recalled the reasons for her sentence, emphasizing that the country is involved in a wide-scale fight against corruption and graft. He argued that the lady has never been involved in politics and so the sentence could not have been politically-motivated and talked of many avowed political opponents of his who go about their business unperturbed.