Biya ‘Imposes’ His Preferred Secretary General On Dion Ngute

Yaounde (National Times) – In his first four months  in office as Prime Minister of Cameroon, Dr Dion Ngute has been forced by the President of the Republic to maintain key staff, including the Secretary General at the Prime Minister’s office, notwithstanding the enormous challenges facing the Prime Minister which requires him to put together and use his on trusted allies.

Sources familiar with the issue told National Times that the Prime Minister has been forced to maintain Seraphin Magloire Fouda as the Secretary General at the Prime Minister’s office, as well as three special advisors: Bertha Ndoh, Francis Fonye and Touna Mama, at the President’s insistence.

Africa Intelligence first reported the story. According to the African Intelligence report, “Dion Ngute has so far succeeded in installing just two of his trusted allies at his headquarters in the Star Building in Yaounde: 50-year-old Balungeli Confiance Ebune, an administrator and former prefect of the western department of Menoua who is the PM’s Director of carbinet, and the university professor Pierre Fabien Nkot, another 50-year-old who is from Sanaga-Maritime in the Littoral region and is his advisor on political matters”.

Dion Ngute was appointed as Prime Minister in January this year, to succeed Philemon Yang after the later failed to address the Anglophone crisis and the poor governance outcomes in Cameroon. He hails from Bongongo Baromi in the Southwest Region of Cameroon.

Although the Prime Minister of Cameroon is by the country’s constitution to come from the Anglophone regions, Anglophones have continued to criticize the Presidency of making the Prime Minister’s office a powerless institution because it is occupied by an Anglophone. According to several Anglophone critiques, French speaking Ministers are more powerful than the Prime Minister, even though the constitution makes the Prime Minister the head of government.

This report will further the debate over the extent to which Anglophone rights are marginalised in Cameroon. Observers  aver that such remains alive even among those at the highest level of the country’s powerful government.