This story is based on a speech by Pierre Mila Assouté, a copy of which The Post obtained. Assouté is former CPDM Central Committee member and now head of the Democratic Movement for Modern Cameroon, DMMC. He has often openly challenged the CPDM leadership, a rare feat for any militant of that party.

Although Chief Mila has tried to contest in presidential elections twice unsuccessfully, this time around he says he has decided to risk his life, if need be, to be a stumbling block to the egoistic criminals and the selfish plan developed by a ruthless oligarchy.

“I am going to end my exile and come home to defend my nation in the next presidential electoral competition be them anticipated or not,” says Chief Mila.

Mila Assouté is a sounding board who seems to be piqued by a looming tinkering with the constitution, and the numerous calls for President Biya to run again at the 2018 presidential election. He is not waiting for disaster to happen in Cameroon but is agitating for a collective understanding to remove Biya from power through the ballot box in 2018.

Says Mila, “Another amendment of the Constitution of the Republic, and the re-nomination of Mr. Paul Biya, I repeat, 83 years old, to an anticipated [early] presidential election till this day is a heresy, a kind of madness and phobia that have partially attacked the political elite of our country.

At the end of his term of office in 2018, the head of state will be 85 years of earthly life inevitably mortal, especially at such an advanced age. What pressure group, therefore, wants to govern our nation in the shade and keep Cameroon under a virtual grip of a man who turns 90 soon?”

Assouté says, categorically, that the constitution “expressly prohibits the exercise of sovereignty by a fraction of the people, talk less of pressure groups.” “State power is not a private property,” he adds, saying some people take the unity palace of Yaounde to be. “The presidency belongs to us all.”

Assouté goes on to say that the palace is not a family trophy. “Worst of all, a few diehards use it as a violent instrument of domination and subjugation of their fellow countrymen,” says Assouté.

Economic crisis is wreaking havoc on Cameroon. The nation’s business, employment, and social sectors are crashing and burning. The economy is shrinking, and things seemingly won’t get better anytime soon. To survive, the country will have to reinvent itself radically.

“For decades Cameroonians have been exposed to death without water and electricity, 60 years after independence, under the control of a set of senile diktat.

Young Cameroonians in their millions can rot in mass unemployment at up to 50 years of age; highly educated, under the roof of the parents, unmarried or even able to start a family despite the high cost of education, adventuring abroad, facing the ocean waves, fleeing their country in suicidal circumstances, all of these mean nothing to them [those in power] in so far as “those who stay long in power are not those who want but those who can”.

Assouté says Cameroonian peasants die without medical care and remain abandoned in their miserable fate with no certainty of a meal per day, but as those in power and their offspring eat and live well, Cameroon is fine.

“At 85, after spending 33 years in office, Mr. Biya PAUL, has nothing more to prove of his ‘great achievements’. Is it sensible to expose the Cameroonian people to civil war just to satisfy the demands of ego and precarious vanity?” Assouté questions.

He adds, “Can we accept to be silent while being subjected to a mandatory suicide cemetery without reacting? No, I will not give up. And you, majestic and great silent people of my country, we will not surrender!”

According to Mila, the Cameroonian nation has become a cheap casino where a few individuals gamble with the lives of over 20 million citizens. Assouté says in his speech that Cameroonians should not wait lying down for Biya to leave power, but rise “against a small band of irresponsible, egoistic and selfish white-collar murderers, may be demented, traffickers of influences sowing fear and terror.”

“They cannot take hostage of the whole nation all the time,” Assouté argues. The exiled politician who lives in France urges all youths to “chase out the predators and restore order in the city a
t the next presidential elections in Cameroon.”

“The next presidential elections in Cameroon, be them anticipated or not, is a long awaited opportunity for the youths to chase out the predators and restore order in the city,” says Assouté. Assouté is gripped by fears that Cameroon runs the risk of diving into “a systemic dark hole a new if our constitution is once more violated to serve a huge personal ego.”

“Political maneuvers with hidden agendas calling on an 83-year-old whose second-in-command, in case of a vacancy, is 81 years, gives reason for fears and the desire to satisfy human vanity with the risk of causing chaos in Cameroon,” says Assouté.

Although Cameroonians have braved government gunfire and disenfranchisement at elections, Assouté does not think Cameroonians should sit and let the nation slip into tragedy.

“It is not acceptable that we watch them destroy Cameroon. The notorious adventurers with corrupt consciences placed in public affairs and with a strange notion of the state who want chaos will answer for their actions,” Assouté says. “We must stop any high jacket politics against our collective life. Power belongs to you. Let’s take it, preferably through the ballot box and let’s build our country, jealous of our freedom.”

According to Assouté, their approach is simple and rigorous: massive registration on the electoral registers, vote massively and monitor the results polling station by polling station and consequently escort the results to the Supreme Court.

“Let’s all sensitise our compatriots, the young and old, so that we can chase out the predators at the helm of the republic. We will defeat fraud this time for our collective survival. And we can, because no group of people in a country can have fraudulent militants that outnumber its proper population.