Crux | YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A Catholic bishop in Cameroon is being condemned by the speaker of the National Assembly for saying the Devil would be a better candidate for president than the incumbent, 91-year-old Paul Biya.
In his homily January 1, Barthélemy Yaouda Hourgo of Yagoua in Cameroon’s Far North region, lashed out at the inertia and incompetence of Biya’s government, and insisted that it would be foolhardy for the president to seek an 8th term in office.
Biya, who turns 92 in a few weeks, has been in power for 42 years.
“Enough is enough! Why do we always expect the head of state to be a candidate?” Hourgo said during his New Year’s Day homily.
“We’re not going to suffer any more than this. We’ve already suffered enough. The worst is not going to come. Even the Devil should first take power in Cameroon and then we’ll see,” he added.
The use of the devil was interpreted as a metaphor to indicate how bad things have become in the Central African country, but the speaker of Cameroon’s National Assembly seemed to have taken the bishop’s words quite literally.
Speaker Cavaye Yeguie Djibril has called on the Vatican to summon the bishop
“The boss [Pope] of the Catholic Church should invite the bishop to Rome to show him the devil. Otherwise all the Catholics are saying the same thing,” he said in a video.
The 85-year-old Lawmaker was speaking January 19 during an event in which he urged Biya to run for an eighth term of office.
Hourgo has doubled down on his belief Biya shouldn’t seek re-election when Cameroonians go to the polls in October this year, not only because of his advanced age, but more because his 42 years in power have left the country in ruins.
“People may say whatever they want to say about me, but my people are suffering,” the bishop told Crux.
“Parents have to wait for millet to be harvested and then they use the stems to construct classrooms. It’s very, very complicated. Millet is harvested in the Far North in the months of October and November, but schools start in September and therefore, as long as millet stems aren’t available, there will be no classrooms. That is school for you in Cameroon’s Far North region. How can our kids study under such conditions? It’s a shame. The government creates schools under trees, schools without benches! What kind of schools are those?” Hourgo said.
He complained about the lack of access to water and electricity, as well as the failure to respond to the vagaries of the weather in a region where floods and heat have claimed several lives. In 2024 for instance, reports indicate that as many as 60 people were dying every day from excess heat in the Far North region.
Hourgo is not the only bishop to have spoken out against the incompetence of the Biya government, and against his candidacy for the next Presidential election.
Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala has said it is “unrealistic” for the president to seek another term. Bishop Abraham Kome of Bafoussam has voiced the same opinion.
In their collective statement that sanctioned their Annual Seminar that took place in Buea from January 4-11, the National Episcopal Conference in Cameroon painted a dark picture of the country’s social and economic situation.
“In recent times, the anxieties of the vast majority of Cameroonians have been transformed into cries of despair at the misery as they are living through and the degradation of our beautiful country, Cameroon,” the bishops complained.
“We must not ignore this hour of crisis, misery, hunger, destitution, unemployment, and in some rural areas, real despair, weighing heavily on the destiny, not only of the people in general, but especially of the poorest, the weakest, the most destitute. We cannot fail to listen to the distraught people, the weight of so many unanswered questions create discontent among the people. Hatred finds a fertile breeding ground. Tensions provoked and fueled by unscrupulous and often hidden and interest-stricken disability of public institutions, social cohesion, and family peace,” the bishops said, citing a pastoral letter they issued way back in 1990.
The bishops also condemned the government’s failure to rebuild crumbling infrastructure. They said they could not understand why just 124 miles of road had been asphalted in the whole of 2024.
“How can we explain the fact that 65 years after independence, our development cannot guarantee basic human rights, such as the right to food, the right to education, the right to quality health care, the right to justice, in short, the right to life?” they asked.
“Cameroonians feel a real despondency because of the lack that is on the rise in our country. Many of our fellow citizens are living in dramatically precarious conditions and in deplorable, undignified conditions. Unemployment among young people seems to have no end in sight, even among graduates. Hence, the mass exodus from the country in search of greener pastures,” the bishops said.
That dark picture seems to suggest that the bishops collectively want Biya to step aside, but the president’s supporters are urging him to seek an 8th term.
If Biya wins re-election in October, he would be almost 100 years old by the time the 8th term of office runs to end by 2032.