Source : Sahel weather December 2024 

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The end of the year seems to have been the occasion for a number of political players to put the October 2025 presidential election back in the spotlight. Firstly, in his traditional end-of-year speech, President Paul Biya - who has been in power for 42 years - said he was attentive to the demands of his supporters for the presidential election.According to Jacques Fame Ndongo, Minister of State and senior member of the ruling party, Biya's camp is talking about the “irrefragable” possibility of running for another term. The tone of focus on the 2025 presidential election was also perceptible in the end-of-year greetings of main opponent Maurice Kamto , who clearly stated his desire to be a candidate. Opposition deputy Cabral Libii sounded a similar note, wishing that 2024 would see the end of “the power that has plunged Cameroon into unprecedented misery and poverty”. So far, a total of ten candidates have already publicly announced their intention to run for Cameroon's supreme magistracy.

Moreover, the announcement on December 30 of the “availability of updated lists of the electoral roll” by the body in charge of elections, prompted controversy over the validity of the figures published. According to Election's Cameroon (Elecam), 7,845,622 voters were duly registered. According to Jean Michel Nintcheu of the Alliance politique pour le changement (APC) and supporter of Maurice Kamto, the method of publication of the electoral rolls suffers from “opacity”. Then, Hubert Kamga, an expert in electoral issues, estimated that the figure of 7.8 million was well below the projections of political parties and analysts.

The Boko Haram scare in the Far North

The biannual meeting of the country's regional governors focused on security issues. The Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, stressed the need to curb urban and peri-urban crime, not forgetting the situation in the eastern and far northern border areas, where Boko Haram continues to terrorize the population.With a view to the 2025 presidential election, the Minister has clearly instructed us to monitor the activities of political parties, NGOs and associations. Earlier this month, the suspension of three NGOs for three months, and the banning of two others, once again caused concern among human rights defenders. Among the organizations targeted were two entities of the Human Rights Network in Central Africa (Redhac), the Socio-Cultural Charitable Association of Cameroon, the NGO Reach Out Cameroon, etc. Minister Paul Atanga Nji justified the sanctions on suspicion of “money laundering” and “terrorist financing”. "We're very upset. (...) This decision has no legal basis (...) But then, we're not entirely surprised, because Cameroon has been living with the upheavals of territorial administration and these recurrent attempts to silence human rights defenders since 2014,” denounced Cyrille Rolande Béchon, executive director of the NGO Nouveaux droits de l'homme au Cameroun, interviewed by RFI.

Finally, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the populations of the far north of the country are crumbling under the weight of climatic hazards and the violence of armed groups.According to the field survey carried out in June 2024, this situation has altered the demographic distribution in this part of the country, creating some 450,000 internally displaced persons and a certain influx of refugees from neighboring countries. In addition, the study found that the population's overall resilience to high winds, as well as fluvial and pluvial flooding, was low, damaging crops and infrastructure.