Politics: cameroon’s sovereignty will be my topmost priority- Espoir Matomba

The 45-year-old leader and flagbearer of the United People for Social Renovation says one of the biggest changes he will make after his election in the 2025 presidentials will be to scrap the English and French languages as official languages.

The flagbearer of the United People for Social Renovation, Serge Espoir Matomba has revealed that fighting for Cameroon’s sovereignty will be his biggest priority if he is elected president during the upcoming 2025 presidential election in Cameroon. Espoir Matomba who challenged president Paul Biya during the 2018 presidential polls, made the declaration in Yaounde last weekend.

That was during the third annual national congress of the United People for Social Renovation party, known by its French language abbreviation as PURS. The congress took place at the Yaounde Conference Center. It ran from Friday April 4 to Saturday April 5.

The event was attended by national and international political actors and civil society leaders as well as thousands of the PURS party’s militants and sympathizers. The major highlight of the event was the presentation of Espoir Matomba as the party’s elected candidate for the upcoming 2025 election which is expected to take place in October this year.  

The Secretary General of the party, René Bonono Bakota told reporters at the end of the congress that Espoir Matomba was unanimously voted for the flagbearer position by militants of the PURS structure after meeting all three criteria established. Among them, independent financial viability, individual service to the party and overall prominence.

Besides the move to select Espoir Matomba as candidate, the Yaounde congress was also punctuated by the renewable of the mandate of the 30-person political bureau of the PURS party. The team will be in place for the next five years. The new political bureau also went ahead to vote in a 10-person national bureau that will coordinate the party’s affairs for the next five years.  

The PURS party also used the congress to elect coordinators that will the party’s national and diaspora bureaus. This, with a special focus on notably ensuring the party’s expansion and effectiveness at the grassroot level and internationally. The political structure also settled on “Honor-Justice-Prosperity” as its new motto.

The people’s choice

Speaking to media professionals in an interview at the close of the Yaounde congress, the PURS party candidate, Espoir Matomba expressed gratitude to the party’s militants for once again, trusting him with the mandate to lead the structure in an exercise as important as the upcoming presidential election.

Espoir Matomba said he will work before, during and after the election, in ensuring that the PURS party is not only successful during the polls but serves the Cameroonian people to their fullest satisfaction.

Espoir Matomba declares, Cameroon’s sovereignty his biggest priority

According to Espoir Matomba his main priority as president will be to fight for the full sovereignty of Cameroon and its people. The 2018 presidential election candidate said Cameroon has been left struggling by negative external factors that can be traced back to pre-colonization and pre-independent Cameroon.

 He said such influences have extensively hindered the growth of Cameroon. “The problem with this system is that all attempts to repair the damage did not work. But this attempt to repair the damage does not work because the system was not thought by the Cameroonians,” Espoir Matomba said in partly. “It is time that we understand that those who lead us today are only a consequence of this system that has not been thought by us and for us. 

 It is for this reason that the total acquisition of our sovereignty is necessary for the good of Cameroon and Africa,” the PURS party leader added.

Cameroon needs own identity

Per the PURS party candidate, his government will strive to help Cameroon regain its lost identity and particularly invest in using local solutions in addressing the multiple crisis that are affecting the country. He said one of the strategies that he will be leveraging will be to organize a referendum to rewrite the constitution of Cameroon.

Espoir Matomba said the introduction of a new constitution will give way for the abolition of the French and English languages as Cameroon’s official languages. The media owner further revealed that the envisaged constitutional adjustment will equally cut down existing redundancies, including the number of ministries.

The PURS lead insisted that he will also bring down the number of regions in Cameroon from 10 to five while undistractedly pumping in resources and energy in other key areas like education and the economy. “We need to have our own identity. 

Today, many of you will say they are Anglophone and Francophone Cameroonians. In a simpler language, we do not know who we are. It is for this reason that we need to adopt a national language that should reflect the Cameroonian identity,” Espoir Matomba said. 

Espoir Matomba insistently frowned at what he says is the damaging division that continues contributing in hurting Cameroon and the Cameroonian people. Those status quo and setbacks, the PURS boss emphasized, are increasingly highlighting the need for the PURS party to introduce crucial changes across not only social sectors all major and minor units of the Cameroonian society.

“Some are in a hurry to suggest that we need to organize municipal and legislative elections and other regional and national elections after the presidential election. But we need to rethink. The only possible election that will take place in 2025 and 2026 will be the referendum for a new constitution. I can assure you that we will start from moving down from 10 regions to five regions” the PURS candidate stated.

Espoir Matomba the man

Espoir Matomba is not a no name in Cameroonian politics. He has been an active player in the Cameroonian landscape for at least 15 years. Espoir Matomba created the PURS party in May 2010. The native of Mbanga in the Littoral Region was elected as a municipal council in the Douala IV Council shortly after creating the PURS. He has since then retained the position of a counselor in the council area.

Espoir Matomba who has invested in several sectors in Cameroon as a business man, has led several campaigns in Cameroon geared towards ensuring the wellbeing of Cameroonians. The PURS candidate remains unapologetic that he is the key to the solutions that Cameroon requires to be able to change for good. “I want to say that it’s the year to take our sovereignty in our hands and decide that we are building a real nation.

It is for that reason that I have said I will not become the third president of the Third Republic of Cameroon, but I will become the first president of Independent Cameroon,” Espoir Matomba partly emphasized in an interview last Saturday.