𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐒𝐘𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐀𝐔𝐋 𝐁𝐈𝐘𝐀 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐃𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑

Imagine yourself as a successful man, the richest in your family. You have become so powerful that even your cousins call you “aunty” or “daddy,” and your brothers no longer dare to call you by your name. At first, it feels strange, but with time, you begin to enjoy it. You begin to believe you deserve it. You start to think that you are not just another member of the family, but the reason the family exists. Now imagine that one day, you walk into a family gathering and your niece calls you “uncle” instead of “daddy.” You would feel shocked, maybe even offended. She would be right, you are her uncle, but it would still sound disrespectful. It would sound like she has forgotten who you have become. That is how power changes the human mind. It blurs the line between who you are and what you have become. If one of your sisters called you by your name, “Henry,” after years of calling you “Papa,” you would take it as an insult. You would not be reacting as a person, but as a system that has grown dependent on recognition, on reverence, and on control. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Paul Biya has been in power for so long that the idea of being an ordinary man no longer exists in his consciousness. He has become the system itself.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐱

There is a story that perfectly explains how belief can grow from illusion. A man once whispered a lie into another man’s ear. He said there was a lot of money hidden inside an uncompleted building nearby. Then he went to work and forgot all about it. By the time he returned, he saw a crowd of more than a thousand people standing around the building, smiling and murmuring with excitement. When he asked why they were there, someone told him, “There is a lot of money in that building.” He stood there, watching the crowd, and began to believe the very lie he had invented. He thought to himself, “If so many people believe it, maybe it is true.” This is exactly how a ruler begins to believe his own myth. When people consistently remind you of your greatness, when ministers kneel before you, when the media calls you “The Father of the Nation,” and when every mistake is reinterpreted as wisdom, your mind slowly rewires itself. The lie becomes truth. The man becomes a god.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫

Paul Biya has been conditioned by his environment for more than four decades. What started as a simple political strategy, loyalty, praise, and control, has evolved into a psychological cage. His entourage has built a world where disagreement is betrayal, where correction is disrespect, and where truth is an insult. In that kind of world, the ruler is never wrong. He becomes a mirror that reflects only admiration. When you are surrounded for years by people who treat you as a divine being, you start to forget that you are human. You begin to believe in your own myth. Paul Biya does not wake up each morning thinking he is clinging to power. He wakes up believing that he is protecting order. In his mind, he is the guardian of stability, the only one who can hold the country together. His belief is reinforced by the fears of those around him, fears that without him, chaos would reign. So, he stays. And the longer he stays, the harder it becomes to leave.

 

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧

Every ruler who has stayed too long faces one question that terrifies him more than anything: what happens the day after I leave? To an ordinary person, leaving power means retirement. To a man like Paul Biya, leaving power means death, political, social, and perhaps even physical. He knows the truth that all absolute rulers know but never say aloud: power protects. Without it, the same system that once bowed to him could turn against him. That is why he cannot imagine a Cameroon without himself. It is not that he does not want to leave. It is that his mind no longer knows how to exist without being president. After so many years, Paul Biya has crossed the psychological threshold where identity merges with power. The man and the office are now one. He is not simply holding on to power, he has become power itself. His presence is ceremonial, but his shadow governs every aspect of the state. Ministers speak his name before acting, governors invoke his will before deciding, and the army sees his image as the embodiment of command. In that world, concession is not just political defeat, it is existential collapse. Paul Biya will never willingly concede power because he no longer sees power as something external that can be given or taken. It has become his body, his language, and his reason to exist. The tragedy is not just his. It is collective. A nation that has treated one man as its only source of authority eventually forgets how to live without him. Paul Biya’s psychological imprisonment is also Cameroon’s. And until the nation stops calling him “père de la nation” and begins to remember his real name 𝐁𝐈𝐘𝐀 𝐁𝐈𝐕𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐎 𝐏𝐀𝐔𝐋 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐌𝐘, the illusion will continue, and the building with no money will keep drawing the crowd.