No, a president cannot die and it only feeds rumours for so long, about two weeks. Not in this age of social media when leaks have beaten all levels of restriction. This can no longer happen even in Soviet Moscow where the death of one czarist leader was only made public after the Soviet ruling council had chosen a new leader.
Besides social media leaks, foreign intelligence services, especially those of hegemonic powers, are so alert and have so penetrated local systems that they would know if an African head of state had died but was “hiding his death” (how does that sound?)
No, there are few convincing hints that the President has died. I have heard even kids say it. On social media, it already became fact and commentators have moved on to discussing his successor, top on the list, his son. Even clinically dead is not, though as it is appointed on men once to die and an old man past 80 may well die. He will not live forever.
I wish I knew with any certainty, but I guess this speculation is fuelled by the president’s prolonged absence and silence at a time the nation is at war – the coronavirus world war – and in other countries great and small, their commanders-in-chief are coordinating the war effort. In about every country east and west of the globe, north and south, it is the President or executive Prime Minister who personally addressed the nation to declare war on coronavirus – even the ailing Ali Bongo did – the same way President Biya did against Ambazonia forces. He himself!
So the nation is wondering; if indeed the President were hale and hearty, how come “his” declaration of war against coronavirus was done by proxy, by Prime Minister? That is where most of them have missed the point. Sick nobi die. And anyone can be sick. But I may understand the anxiety of those propagating the death theory, even if they only meant he is seriously ill. They mean to establish the incapacitation clause by which, if the President is too sick to attend to his duties, that could trigger the necessity for a transition during which the Speaker of the Senate would be Interim President and organise presidential elections within 60 to 120 days.
Seeing that the Senate Speaker, about as old as the President, has been ailing, the rest the fear across the political class and the public that the country may be plunged into a constitutional crisis should that eventuality befall the country. Many believe that is why the President’s close circles are hiding news of his supposed death. But as probable as that may sound, even in view of the probable dynamic, I do not believe the President is dead… yet. Certainly someday, like you and me.
Coronavirus will kill presidents, topple gov’ts (II)
Not only will coronavirus kill Heads of State, it will bring down great empires and torpedo political systems. It is already exposing and shaming giants with clay feet. The greatness of the United States is in question. The relevance of the European Union is hanging on a string.
That is how I believe China will love the Western regimes to be seen now faced with their incapacitation to stand up to the challenges of coronavirus. Crisis, especially ravaging crisis like coronavirus, like devastating wars, are times for introspection, time when peoples measure the essence of the values they have upheld thus far.
Seeing how China elegantly broke the chain of transmission through state-imposed discipline, identified its sick through rigorous widespread testing and treated its sick with medical mastery, citizens and intellectuals of western democracies/capitalism have begun wondering whether the Chinese system, so long demonised, is not better for solving problems.
China, first victim of the virus is now recovering and stabilising. Last week it declared an end to the crisis and mourned its dead. While it was criticised in some parts of the world for its insensitivity to the plight of other countries still in the coronavirus abyss, it being the country by whom the calamity befell the world, China may have chosen to play the psychological advantage by making the world feel jealous of their invincibility and greatness by the show of triumph at the time the rest of the world, including its arch-rival the US are still groaning under the scourge of coronavirus.
Across history, great powers have either emerged or consolidated their global dominance by their invincibility and their support to others overwhelmed by a crisis. Thus has been America’s Dollar Diplomacy. Thus was the Marshal Plan that oiled the Trumann Doctrine by which the US emerged triumphant and all-powerful after World War Two, doling out to Europe and Africa and thus imposing its ways on them.
Out of the coronavirus “World War Three”, it is China that is taking that posture, standing that tall. It is sending material support to the US to fight the virus. It is supporting Italy, most affected European country with Spain, both fuming they have been abandoned by fellow European Union members, wondering what purpose the EU served if it should take Communist China from Asia to come to their rescue. Medical doctors from the tiny Communist island of Cuba are also coming to the rescue of European powers.
China is also sending loads of material support to Africa, the eternal global begging – begging yesterday from the West, begging today from the East. In the last century, Africa received from and was owned by western colonial powers. This time, with China coming so strong pre-coronavirus, but now consolidating its inroads with a new burst of confidence and superiority, Africa could well be on course to a second “colonisation”, a thing that could give meaning to the joke or mispronunciation, “colonial virus”.
SDF: Over-don na mboot
And finally, as predicted and in defiance of all good advice, SDF lost the last twin elections, bagging home just five seats, from 18 or so in the last mandate. If that is only a statistic, what this means in real terms is that SDF’s Parliamentary baobab, Joseph Mbah Ndam has fallen. Along with him, others like Chinda Forbi and Paul Nji Tumasang. Though they managed to get the Constitutional Council to cancel the February 9 elections in most of their constituencies and ordered a rerun, their second attempt to achieve same outcome from same causes were thwarted.
The party won only two seats from the North West, two seats won in the Boyo Division where SDF ran without a veritable challenger after CPDM lists were disqualified. With three seats won in Douala that means for the first time, SDF has more representation outside the Anglophone regions, especially outside the North West. So it can be said that SDF is no longer an Anglophone/Bamenda party. It is now Osih’s party. You bet the Fru Ndi era is over!
It looks like CPDM finally lured the party that was once its nightmare, lulled its leadership, fooled them they were indispensable external wing of the ruling party to hold the Anglophone regions under control. But having been found to be giants with clay feet, they have now been dumped.
This is possibly why: Fru Ndi, Mbah Ndam and co proved helpless in the Anglophone, now Ambazonia struggle. So what use were they to the regime? Also, seeing the way Osih flattened Forbi after Mbah Ndam sensed danger and sneaked off the ballot at the last minute in the SDF primaries for the 2018 presidential election, the signal went to Yaounde that Osih, not the Bamenda Boys now carry sway in the party.
The regime is on a dynamic to identify its future proxy allies. That is why like it dumped UPC and propped Cabral Libii’s PCRN, it finds in Osih, not Fru Ndi, not Mbah Ndam and co, its future allies.