Cameroon’s Biya seeks re-election for a seventh consecutive term

Paul Biya

Cameroonian President Paul Biya has thrown his thrown his hat into the ring in the October vote.

Biya,85, on Friday took to twitter to announce his re-election bid for a seventh consecutive term.

“I am willing to respond positively to your overwhelming calls. I will stand as your candidate in the upcoming presidential election,” he tweeted.

The octogenarian, who is one of Africa’s longest-serving presidents, has uninterruptedly ruled Cameroon since 1982.

The country’s main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF) has picked 49-year-old Joshua Osih as its flag bearer for the October 7 poll.

This is the first time the party has chosen a different candidate who is not the party’s chair.

Other candidates who have declared their intention to unseat President Biya include prominent lawyer and former president of Transparency International, Mr Akere Muna and Prof Maurice Kamto, a former Biya backer and the current leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) party.

Cameroon repealed presidential term limits in 2008.

The election comes at a time when the county is battling insurgency in two English-speaking regions in the west and cross-border attacks by Nigerian-jihadist group Boko Haram in the north.