In a paper titled What Bush Got Right of August 9, 2008, Fareed Zakaria analysed and dissected the positive points of President George Bush's two-terms in office.

When I was invited to write on Biya's 26 years of stewardship, I thought aloud: does anybody have to wait for 26 years and more to get it right?

What Biya got right

Most Cameroon watchers are settled on one thing: the Biya administration is a lamentable failure in view of the effervescence and hope it generated in the early 80s. They cite galloping inflation, two-digit unemployment levels, trade balance deficit, very low domestic savings, high corruption index, high cost of living, increasing insecurity, electoral malpractices, flaws in the fundamental and electoral laws, unfriendly investment environment, poor infrastructure, low visibility in the comity of nations, institutionalised tribalism, human rights abuse and so on.

However, Biya got it right on certain aspects.

1. The Man. Writing on the inability of the Nigerian press to read the mind of President Yar'Adua, ace analyst Dan Agbese states, "the more they try to penetrate his mind, the more they realise the futility of breaking granite with their feet. The more they try to read his mind, the fuzzier the words become, and the more frustrated they become".

President Biya is cast in this same mould. For 26 years Cameroonians and his so-called close collaborators have been unable to penetrate his mind. The late president Ahmadou Ahidjo had a taste of this when he lurked horns with Biya in the early 80s. Governance by unpredictability and surprise has worked in Biya's favour for 26 years running! The tendency is for opponents to underrate him at their own peril.

Apparently, Biya is a consummate politician who projects an image of weakness; scratch the veneer and granite or lion man appears! That is probably the way he sees best to manage, albeit successfully, the myriad Cameroonian contradictions.

2. Inalienable nature of Cameroonian frontiers and normalisation of Cameroon-Nigeria relations. After the plebiscite of 1961, Cameroon lost Northern Cameroons despite frantic efforts at the International Court of Justice to recover this lost territory.

When Nigeria invaded and occupied the Bakassi peninsular, the patriotic streak in Biya got the upper hand. He was quick to assemble an impressive team of experts irrespective of political shade or leaning to present and defend Cameroon's case at The Hague. Though the court's verdict was in Cameroon's favour, Biya pronounced a no victor, no vanquished speech to the Cameroonian nation.

His speech had three laudable objectives: assuring Nigerians resident in Cameroon of government's determination to respect their rights, making sure feathers are not ruffled in Abuja and normalising relations with Nigeria. The latter is indispensable in view of the rising insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea.

Pundits maintain that diplomatic and military cooperation between Cameroon and Nigeria is the way forward in combating insecurity in the Gulf.Clearly, Bakassi shall always be a shining example of conflict resolution in Africa and the world.

3. Operation Sparrow Hawk (Opération Epervier). Better late than never sums up Biya's determination to go after embezzlers of public funds. Cleaning up the overly corrupt Cameroonian stable is quite Herculean. The quality and number of white-collar thieves behind bars is quite impressive.

Though, like elsewhere, commentators have decried the seemingly selective nature of the sparrow hawk, there are indications that the operation is ongoing slowly but surely. However, as former Ghanaian leader, Jerry Rawlings, once said, an operation that is meant to track and arrest looters of the common weal should be speedy and time bound because of the nuisance capacity of such economic, administrative and political humpty dumpties.

4.Peace And Relative Stability. No militant of the ruling CPDM party ends a speech without thanking Biya for the peace and stability that reigns in Cameroon as against the turmoil and instability in neighbouring countries and beyond. Such pronouncements can be nauseating to non-CPDM militants.

But take it or leave it, for the past 26 years while Congo-Brazzaville fought a civil war, coupsters rocked Equatorial Guinea, rebels overwhelmed Chad, the Central African Republic fought off guerrillas, and Nigeria grappled with a militant insurgency in the Niger Delta region, Cameroon was relatively at peace except for the Bakassi peninsular wahala that was handled with tact and the February 2008 riots that took the Biya administration off guard.

5.Indigenous Rights. Democracy is a system of numbers. In order to protect indigenous rights the Biya administration introduced a sociological notion into the electoral system. This takes care of some indigenes that are often in a minority in their areas of origin. However, the protection of indigenes has been misconstrued by some Cameroonians to mean exclusion. In times of crisis, this misconception is very glaring.

6.Criminal Procedure Code. Cameroon has two legal systems inherited from the English and French. The late President Ahmadou Ahidjo created a commission of legal experts to examine and harmonise the existing criminal procedures. The Biya administration had the temerity to pull out the work of these experts and table it before the National Assembly.

It was adopted with amendments and promulgated by the Head of State. A harmonised criminal procedure code ties in with the present global socio-economic and political context. It brings to the fore and enshrines the notion of presumption of innocence or habeas corpus.

7. Last Ditch Efforts At Development. After the attainment of the HIPC completion point and the conclusion of the C2D agreement with France, the government suddenly got up from slumber as if to catch up with lost time. Several development projects are on the pipeline throughout the country like a second bridge over the River Wouri, the Ring Road, and a tarred road to the Bakassi area and so on. Major towns like Douala and Yaounde are undergoing facelifts.

What Biya got right is seemingly not a final note on the Biya administration because there are indications and telltale signs that Mr Biya will continue to steer the ship of state viz amendment of Article 6 of the Constitution. However, the impenetrable nature of Biya's mind makes mincemeat of any solid prediction as to whether he will run again in 2011. In fact, like a tightrope walker, his ways are unfathomable.