From Courtroom to Crackdown: How Biya’s State Turned Kamto’s Verdict Into a Campaign Tool

The verdict that wrote itself

Call things by their names. What happened to Kamto wasn’t adjudication; it was lawfare—procedural weapons deployed to predetermine outcomes. The public was barred, private livestreams were killed, microphones were cut the moment “inconvenient” facts surfaced, and the ruling read like it was drafted before counsel rose to speak. A Constitutional Council worthy of the title would have aired the evidence, punished forged endorsements, and applied the rules consistently across parties. Instead, it chose loyalty over law.

Rule by communiqué, not by consent

The minute the gavel fell, Paul Atanga Nji reached for his scarlet “URGENT” stamp. His edict criminalises “unauthorised gatherings” and “digital calls to disobedience”—phrases elastic enough to snare a meme, a hashtag, or two citizens with placards. Yaoundé was ring-fenced with armour; phones were searched at roadblocks hours from the capital; cameras were treated like contraband. This is governance by permit and fear.

Then came the paperwork to match the truncheons: a prefectural order dumping 29 MRC supporters into renewable administrative custody—a bureaucratic shortcut that sidelines judges and lawyers while the campaign clock ticks. In Biya’s prefectocracy, ink replaces due process.

The chorus from the kiosks

You can measure a country’s democratic pulse by its headlines. Ours flatlined. “The Great Absentee.” “Hostage-taking.” “State gangsterism.” Even the cautious papers dropped euphemism. Across French and English columns, the verdict was identical: law as camouflage for power.

Tradition for hire, legitimacy for sale

While protesters coughed through tear gas, thirty Sawa chiefs filed into the Secretariat-General to pledge loyalty and present gifts to the regime’s campaign chair. Citizens who assemble are thugs; courtiers who assemble are patriots. Co-opting sacred authority might pad the evening news, but it hollows the throne rooms that accept stipends to bless a foregone conclusion.

This pattern is not new—only bolder

• 2018–2020: mass arrests for peaceful marches.

• Samuel Wazizi: died in state custody, still no accountability.

• Martinez Zogo: abducted and murdered after probing high-level graft.

• Anglophone war: civilians pay the price while dialogue is deferred.

The through-line is unmistakable: when ballots threaten the palace, batons and by-laws do the talking.

Why October 12 is at risk of becoming theatre

Removing the only heavyweight challenger converts an election into a pageant. It breeds apathy at best, volatility at worst. A country wrestling with war, inflation, blackouts, and a youth bulge cannot survive on staged consensus. You do not govern a wired generation by gag order; you only prove you’re afraid of what they might say.

What a constitutional course correction looks like—now

If the regime wants to pretend at least, let it act:

1. Release the 29 held under administrative detention or charge them before a judge—immediately.

2. Rescind the “URGENT” communiqué that criminalises online speech and peaceful assembly.

3. Restore open justice: publish the Council’s full reasoning, unedited video of proceedings, and the document trail behind the MANIDEM endorsement dispute.

4. Protect the press: stop throttling livestreams and harassing reporters around the courts.

5. Invite credible observers and commit—publicly—to accept their findings, not just their presence.

6. Accountability, not amnesia: name and prosecute those responsible for Wazizi’s death, Zogo’s assassination, and documented protester abuses.

None of this is radical. It is the minimum for an election to be more than a ceremony.

The choice facing those in power

Robes fray. Titles fade. Archives don’t. The record will show a Council that bent the rules; a ministry that ruled by threat; a prefect who swapped courts for custody; and a campaign that bought endorsements while selling out institutions. If this is the legacy the regime wants, it can keep marching. But it should stop asking the country to call it democracy.

Biya’s state can still choose law over fear: let competitors compete, let citizens assemble, let cameras roll, let judges judge. Otherwise, October 12 will not confer legitimacy; it will document its absence.

Cameroon deserves better than a ballot managed by panic and a court that confuses obedience with justice. If the system is as strong as it insists, it should prove it the only way that counts—by facing the voters without handcuffs, gags, or “URGENT” stamps.