Cameroonians are in a fix that several months after Christopher John Lamora, US ambassador to Cameroon since 2022, bade farewell following the US Senate’s endorsement of Elisabeth Moore as the new US Ambassador in Cameroon, it is the former still acting as ambassador. Curiously, Lamora’s replacement is still serving in the same capacity in her former station in Algiers. It is the recent o-ped issued by Christopher Lamora warning Cameroonians that the new administration was cracking down on illegal immigration that served as a rude awakening to Cameroonians that he was still very much in control. The social media was inundated by comments to the effect that his three years in Cameroon were uneventful but rather saw a shift in US policy, especially concerning the Anglophone crisis. Lamora’s tour of duty was characterized by a crackdown of a dozen sponsors of separatist activities back in the US. The US government representative was clearly seen as a colloborator with the Yaounde regime at the expense of US policy of protecting those suffering repression and human rights abuse.
The Observer007 reported about sealed lips among the staff at the US Embassy in Cameroon on the subject. On Rosa Parks Street, in the Bastos neighborhood of Yaoundé, no information is leaking about the status quo at the diplomatic representation. Appointed as the US ambassador to Cameroon since the end of June 2024, Elisabeth Moore continues to serve in Algiers.
In accordance with the customs of the American administration, the diplomat was received in mid-June 2024 by the US Senate, which confirmed her appointment. An exception in the usual timing, according to experts in American politics who note that this step can sometimes take months after the president’s designation.
The question being posed is: Did the Biden administration, which initiated her appointment as ambassador to Cameroon, reconsider? Or did the advent of Donald Trump to the White House, six months after her appointment, lead to a revision of his predecessor’s decision? The only certainty is that the US diplomatic representation in Cameroon operates in a semi-waiting mode.
The situation is such that in the high Cameroonian administration, strategists had already aligned with an approach matching the profile of the former Deputy Secretary of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (Nea).
A former member of the US State Department, the arrival of diplomat Elisabeth Moore, according to diplomatic sources, was aligned with a specific role in light of the year 2025, an election year in Cameroon. Especially a period as crucial as it is scrutinized by Western embassies and particularly the United States.
Six months before the presidential election in Cameroon, uncertainty is palpable at the Cameroonian Ministry of External Relations, where it is unclear who the US interlocutor in Cameroon is during this critical period.
