PM's charm offensive in Northern Regions: Huge ingredient for Biya's re-election.

In the political context of the presidential poll to hold in October this year, the gesticulations across the board, so far, have been to market President Paul Biya in the best way possible. 

The assignment may have been easy in the past, but contemporary, Cameroon is thick in awareness and tall in people speaking out on certain issues such that extra dexterity is needed to pull through with a political agenda.

Solving that equation for President Paul Biya and giving him another mandate at the helm of State, is what his close collaborators have been scuttling, and are still scampering round the nation to do. But Biya is not oblivious of the treasure in terms of votes that the three Northern Regions possess.

Thus, even as members of government have in recent times been dashing in and out of the Northern Regions, on different missions, there have been occasional friction and divisive voices threatening to deny Biya his usual support base.

Seemingly, rising to the billing as the sphinx who he is known to be, Paul Biya, has made good use of his Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute, to re-fire his support base in the Northern Regions.

As delicate as the missions have been, analysts are beginning to conclude, and rightly so, that barely months to the Presidential poll, PM Dion Ngute has stood out as the man presenting his master, Biya, in new and refreshing light to the people of the Adamawa, North and Far North Regions.

Prime Minister Dion Ngute, others are noting, has eroded the air of political comedy and entertainment, which some other forces had begun implanting across the three Regions. 

The witty Dion Ngute, has through different trips to the Grand North for various assignments, laboured to strengthen the bond between the population and Paul Biya.

Dion Ngute has in all his trips to the Northern Regions this far, been using one stone to kill several birds. The results, many are asserting, are benefitting even elite of the areas, who had before now been finding it difficult to make a case for Biya in their respective areas of origin. 

How this has happened, many say, boils down to the quality, humility, integrity, sincerity and above all the popularity of Biya’s messenger, Dion Ngute, in dealing with the population of the three Regions.

Servant on mission with foresight 

That Paul Biya is no ordinary leader and a political strategist, is not subject to debate, but the times have changed and so too is Biya about his choices. 

This is where analysts are saying Dion Ngute matches the status of a top envoy without class, in establishing the link between the President’s vision and the wellbeing of the population. 

Today, he is being heralded as a huge ingredient for President Paul Biya’s re-election bid in building new momentum for Biya.

At the close of April and the first week of May this year, Biya sent the Prime Minister to the ceremony for the inauguration of the 630-meter-long bridge, linking Bongor in Chad and Yagoua in the Far North Region.

But as a collaborator of the Head of State of different mettle, Dion Ngute used his time in the Far North Region to address issues that had long been threatening support for Biya. 

The Prime Minister painstakingly crisscrossed several Lamidats, holding meetings with the local population, listening to several concerns and addressing them on the spot. Others, which needed Biya’s attention, he returned to Yaounde with files.

Dion Ngute then made marathon visits to localities such as Mada, Yagoua, Kaele, Mora, Maroua, Bogo and Kalfou. 

It was during the same trip that he continued clarifying local concerns over the Mbed Mbed National Park in the Mayo-Kani Division. 

On the Park issue, the Prime Minister received several delegations, pacifying them, talking peace and reiterating the need for all to align behind the Head of State’s vision.

The fruits of these consultations, appeasements and field visits and assessments of ongoing projects, worth 500 billion FCFA, have greatly turned the political tides in the Northern Regions, in favour of Biya. 

Last week, Paul Biya again dispatched Dion Ngute to the North Region, to inaugurate the Figuil clinker processing and cement factory. 

Beyond dwelling on the importance of the multibillion project, Dion Ngute engaged the population on key presidential promises that have seen light of day.

Dion Ngute was bold, emphatic and inviting in reconnecting with the population several requests of theirs that President Biya has granted. 

As he mentioned them, it was a cheerful population that responded in affirmation to answers from Biya to them in recent years.

He told them that on the instruction of Biya, government is finalising financing agreement with the African Development Bank, AfDB, for works on the Ngaoundere-Garoua road. 

This, the PM and the population agreed, will add to the University of Garoua, the Garoua Regional Hospital Centre and the Garoua General Hospital. 

Dion Ngute also fashioned the Far North reconstruction into perspective with direct discussions with the population.  

Besides mixing such missions with a semblance of political rallies, the PM resorted to granting audiences to different delegations and grassroots supporters of the CPDM. 

Where the Dion Ngute effect for Biya’s re-election bid has taken shape, many say, is viewed in terms of the political serenity across the Grand North. 

The grumblings of a few weeks ago have given way to renewed commitments to massively for Biya in October.

On paper and in governance perspective, Dion Ngute went on two missions but in terms of rallying grassroots support for Biya, analysts say the PM has prepared the population with many now waiting just for the election day to vote massively for Biya.

PM’s visits huge ingredient for Biya

If many pretend not to know, observers of the political chessboard are unanimous that Dion Ngute’s recent outings to the Northern Regions have cultivated huge political capital for Biya. 

They are saying that before such grassroots communion that have seen thousands of people donning CPDM paraphernalia empty to the streets to welcoming Dion Ngute, the Northern Regions were not as fertile as they used to be with anything government.

Political scientists say they are not only counting on the motions of support and public declarations, which many made wherever the PM went visiting, but his heart-to-heart talk with the population. 

They are asserting that Dion Ngute has pumped in new political energy across the three Northern Regions, reconquering lost grounds and reconciling kith and kin, who are within the CPDM but had taken up swords against each other. 

Today, the swords have returned to their sheath and the people have renewed hope in Biya’s agenda.

PM Dion Ngute, many are submitting, and authoritatively so, has achieved this feat on account of being a royal, shrewd diplomat, inspiring negotiator, appealing orator, good listener and humane political perspective.

These qualities of the Prime Minister, it is being said, explains the popular admiration he continues to enjoy wherever he goes for State assignments or to represent Paul Biya.

Such huge mobilisation of support of the Head of State, he has also done them, on the sidelines of visits to the North West, South West, East, South and Littoral Regions and in the diaspora.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3475 of Monday June 16, 2025