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| Ahmadou Babatura Ahidjo |
Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo was the
first President of Cameroon. He was the son of a Muslim chieftain. Encouraged
by his mother at a young age, Ahidjo attended a local religious school and
taught himself to read and write French. Although he struggled at first with
his higher education, he graduated with honors from the prestigious Ecole
Priamaire Superieure, in Yaoundé. After completing his education, the
young Ahidjo secured himself a job with the Colonial Postal Service. His job
duties required him to operate and repair telegraphs and radio transmitters. As
a result, he was often on the road crisscrossing his country, where he began to
build up a network of contacts in the major cities of the country. He learnt a
lot during his travels and this fostered his sense of national identity and eventually
provided him with the necessary intelligence and erudition to govern a
multi-ethnic country like Cameroon. As France relinquished its hold on its
former colonies, Ahmadou Ahidjo guided Cameroon through its first two turbulent
decades of independence. Known today for his surprise exit from politics near
the end of his life, Ahidjo's iron clampdown on his nation for a quarter
century in the name of national unity continues to echo through modern
Cameroonian society.
Childhood and early life
He was born on August 24, 1924 in
Nassarao, a village near Garoua in Cameroon. While his father was a Fulani
village chief, his mother was a Fulani slave. Ahidjo's mother, who was Muslim,
sent him to a Quranic school. When he failed an important school exam at the
age of 14, he quit school and started working as a veterinary assistant. At
the age of 15, he enrolled at the Ecole Priamaire Superieure, an elite
school in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.
Career
After graduating from the school at
age of 18, Ahidjo joined the postal service where he worked as a radio and
telegraph operator. His job required him to travel extensively throughout the
country. This enabled him to make important contacts in key cities around the
country.
In 1947, at the age of 22, he entered politics
and was elected to the Cameroon Territorial Assembly.
From 1953–1956, Ahidjo served in
Paris as Cameroon's representative in the Assembly of the French Union. He
then served as Vice Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior in the first Cameroon
Government in 1957. He eventually formed his own party, the Cameroon Union (CU)
in 1958 following the fall of the government of Prime Minister André-Marie
Mbida , and became the new Prime Minister.
During this time, a nationalist wind of
independence was blowing over colonial Africa and the radical, nationalist
Union of the Populations of Cameroon UPC was demanding immediate independence
from France. To press its demands it had taken up arms against the French
administration. Ahidjo used French troops to clamp down the rebellion and offered
amnesty to those who surrendered.
When Cameroon finally gained
independence from France in 1960, Ahmadou Ahidjo was elected as the first
President. A year later, he invited the territory of British Cameroons to join
his nation and the two territories; the Republic of Cameroon and Southern
Cameroons joined and became the United Republic of Cameroon after a plebiscite
sanctioned a vote approving the union. The Cameroon Union CU was then renamed
the Cameroon National Union (CNU) and became the only party in the
country.
President
Ahmadou Ahidjou was re-elected as president
in 1965, 1970, 1975 and 1980. Although he continually called for unity between
the different segments of the country rendered so by cultural religious and
ethnic diversities, Ahidjou had to continually repress rebellions throughout
his long rule.
In 1975, Ahidjou appointed his long-time protégé,
Paul Biya, to be his Prime Minister. The greatest surprise came when
Ahidjou shocked the nation by suddenly resigning on November 4, 1982. After
resigning he named Paul Biya to take over as president.
Despite rumors that he was suffering from a
mysterious terminal illness which many speculators used to explain his sudden
resignation; Ahidjou began touring across Cameroon in January 1983 to canvass
support for Biya. After Biya's legitimacy was sufficiently well established,
Ahidjo left for France.
An attempt to overthrow Biya by a
rebellion lead by soldiers mostly from the northern part of the country like
Ahidjo in a coup in June 1983 was put down with great difficulty and soon Biya
and Ahidjo began hurling acrimonious accusations at one another, eventually
resulting in Biya's government passing a death sentence against Ahidjo in
absentia.
Biya remained in power in Cameroon
and Ahidjo divided his time in exile between Senegal and France till the time
he died.
Over a span of three decades,
Ahmadou Ahidjo successfully ruled a vast multi-ethnic, multi-racial patchwork
of different tribes. He led Cameroon’s transition from a French colonial
territory to a fully independent bilingual nation.
