As Cameroonians celebrate their national day today, many are really worried about the future of their country.

They are indeed not worried about escalating food prices, rising housing cost and security. They are worried about the real health status of their president whose health situation is shrouded in an unnecessary mystery.

For years now, the country’s president, Paul Biya, has been a colony of diseases and this has been a real concern, as his entourage is doing all in its power to conceal everything.

Biya has been a regular customer at various Geneva-based clinics and hospitals but the citizens of the country he governs, most of the time, remotely, have systematically been kept in the dark about the diseases that have, for a long time, been threatening to claim their president’s life.

The drama has been going on for too long and it is getting more ridiculous and grotesque by the day as scarce resources are employed to give a false image of the president.

Today’s drama has been carefully crafted by the national network, CRTV, which has provided some of the most blurry pictures of the event just to hide the truth.

Biya is old. At 90, he cannot be in the pink of health. He currently walks like a child who is learning how to walk. He is losing his mind, but this is just what age does to the human mind. Seeking to hide the obvious only makes Cameroonians to openly demonstrate their frustration and bitterness towards a man who has disappointed them on many levels.

CRTV has moved from the inefficient to the ridiculous. Nobody really trusts the images it is broadcasting about today’s celebration as the government is hiding lots of things which Cameroonians already know.

Who does not know that Biya has lost his energy and his greatest expectation is death? Who does not know that he is physically run down by time and stress? Why spend much time, energy and financial resources to prove a point that even a child knows the answers?

Cameroonians have lost faith in Biya and the institutions he has created. His dishonesty, corruption and incompetence have made of him the most hated African president. His collaborators and all those engaged in the charade that has been going on for too long are only helping to diminish the regime’s credibility if it has any.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai