Announced cabinet reshuffle: Biya enjoying the suspense, nation on standstill!.

Services are virtually nonexistent, following the President's address to the nation. The corridors are silent. Files are not circulating, and decisions are few and far between. Even leaders are abandoning their offices, “gripped by panic", to borrow from one of the commentators in Yaounde.

As the suspense flares, at least two lists of the "leaked government" have been circulating in the social media. 

At the weekend, the Publisher of Le Jour, Haman Mana, who is currently a university don in the United States of America, posted on the social media that he had been "consulted" to join the government.

Haman, who is a known acerbic critic of the Biya regime, if actually he was consulted, would not be surprising. 

In the past, President Biya appointed Issa Tchiroma Bakary as Minister of Communication and Government Spokesman, at a time he was too critical of the Biya regime.

If Haman was offered a position in the government, he would surely have turned it down, which should explain why he has made it public.

President Biya promised a cabinet sweep in "the coming days". Many commentators interpreted the phrase to mean within three days. 

But it is vintage Biya, the Maradona of politics, as "in the coming days" in English phraseology means "during a period of consecutive days immediately after a specific event, point in time".

It does not specify the number of days which could run into several days beyond a week or even a month.

That announcement of the new government has been made on numerous reports over four decades in power, putting members of government under high tension with corridors of ministries buzzing with rumours about the identities of the future appointees. 

Even before the scoop, a new government was imperative for several reasons. There were at least four empty seats caused by death or resignations.

Each of the ministerial vacancy questions continuity of the State as it should correspond to a specific responsibility, a chain of decisions, and a capacity for arbitration.

Governance experts note that: "When a seat remains vacant, a function is weakened, and public policy slows down. In administrative science, interim appointments are conceived as a transitional solution, not as a sustainable mode of governance".

Filling the vacancies is an imperative of institutional rationality. Allowing voids to persist at the highest levels of the executive branch fuels inaction, dilutes responsibilities, and undermines accountability.

Apart from the death and resigned members, there are some who have served for over two decades and afflicted by an inertia known as "achievement fatigue”. 

They have long achieved the objectives assigned to their mission. The momentum fades, for lack of a renewed spark, and stagnation sets in due to a depleted core of motivation.

They are overwhelmed by the constant management of the same issues over and over. Their public action thus loses its creativity, brilliance, and impact.

That should explain why the new government of "Great Hope", to use President Biya's campaign phrase, should be made up of youth and women of mettle, creativity and competence, to reflect the national character where each Division has enough of personalities of such specificities of performance.

Infighters within the ruling party want the cabinet to reflect the electoral weight of appointees. If that is the case, however, note should be taken that in some Regions like the South West and North West, for example, the results did not reflect the will of the people, given that most CPDM elite of the said Regions can hardly visit their constituencies without security escorts.

In addition to that, many others, even in Regions without insecurity, have been so old on the job, overdue retirement, yet want to stick to their positions so as to use it to hide the smelling skeletons in their cupboards.

The Guardian Post, however, urges the Head of State who has often insisted on good governance, to make a clean sweep, sooner than in the coming days so as to set his government that has been in a sleep of death since the new term began.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3666 of Wednesday January 07, 2026