While his Swiss doctors have done their best over the years to keep Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya, alive over the last decade, a prostrate operation gone wrong in France is threatening to kill the 91-year-old Biya whose bill of health is a top secret in his native Cameroon, a source has told the Cameroon Concord News Group Chairman.

Mr. Biya has been a colony of diseases for years and he has been able to manage those issues due to good health systems in Western countries where he has been their patron. But after 42 years in power, Biya has not been able to endow his country with good health facilities.

But a bad prostrate operation in France has weakened the Cameroon strong man and there is panic within his family. It seems the end is near, our source said, adding that such an operation could be risky, and given that the patient here is 91 years old, things could easily spiral out of control.

At 91, Mr. Biya cannot handle a full sedation and that was the first issue prior to the operation. But it is the operation itself that is causing panic both in Paris and Yaoundé, with Mr. Biya’s family losing sleep as his situation deteriorates, our source revealed.

His family members have been holding long prayer sessions, urging God to give their father another chance, but the prayers do not seem to get to their destination as his recovery is raising more concerns.

While Mr. Biya’s family is calling on God for another chance for their father, many Cameroonians, for their part, are holding secret prayer sessions, urging the same God to rid them of the damnation which has been theirs for over four decades.

Mr. Biya has become a millstone around the necks of his countrymen due to his incompetence and corruption. Cameroonians are leaving their country in droves as the economy has collapsed with youth unemployment standing at over 40%.

The country’s economy is characterized by its informality, causing the government to lose tax revenues. But the Biya regime is not in a hurry to modernize the economy and digitization which could help reduce corruption has been on the back burner for decades.

Tribalism and regionalism have been institutionalized and this is causing tensions within the country. For more than eight years, the Yaoundé government has been unable to find good and sustainable solutions to the sociopolitical crisis in the country’s two English-speaking regions which has created thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees.

Many Cameroonians hold that a dead Biya will be good news to the country and more secret prayer sessions are in the cards.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai