A former Minister has swapped his prison cell for a hospital bed after suffering from suspected liver failure. Hamidou Yaya Marafa, former Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, was admitted at the Haemodialysis Centre University Hospital, in Yaoundé, for monitoring according to doctors.

His presence there was hardly discreet despite best efforts of two officers from the Group Versatile Intervention of the National Gendarmerie (Gpign), who were seated quietly guarding the entrance to the first level of the infirmary trying to conceal their weapons.

Ten meters away stood another policeman, similarly dressed in black as the first two, doing everything to avoid attracting attention. "What are the police doing in a hospital?" Asked one visitor. "Marafa is here," replies a lady in a tone barely above a whisper.

At another door of the centre a policeman dressed in green was engrossed in a game he had bought on his mobile phone in an attempt to cure his boredom. The inner hallway remained empty apart from only a few visitors of other patients.

Just as three visitors desperate to see “the Honourable” started to become very pushy, behind them, two men in uniform appeared. "I am the doctor of the central prison, I would like to see Mr. [he hesitates and lowers his voice] Hamidou Marafa."

It is already past 5.23pm. The nurse who filters entries hastily leads the couple in the direction of room 308, while specifying to them that the sick person is still with the chief warrant officer.

Impossible to see through the windows of the room covered with a pristine white curtains, a doctor contacted by Le Messager informs them that the patient is suffering a renal insufficiency and has only been admitted to the Haemodialysis department.

He states that medical visits for patients with this disease may just be routine because the kidneys can no longer perform their role as waste disposal of the body. But it can also be for more serious cases, such as when the patient is admitted in ICU.

The senior medical team do not allow to say exactly why the former MINATD, imprisoned in Sed since mid-2012, was admitted to the haemodialysis center of Chu, or for how long he stayed there.