It was in Senegal where she had been in exile for 38 years that Germaine Ahidjo died. She died at the age of 89 and was buried in Yoff Cemetery in Dakar with her husband Ahmadou Ahidjo, the first president of independent Cameroon, who died in 1989.
as reported from Dakar, Thea Ollivier
The current Cameroonian president Paul Biya lamented after the death of Germaine Ahidjo, the former first lady from 1960 to 1982. The man he considers to be “endowed with a strong personality”, “contributed with his husband to the influence” of Cameroon, according to the head of state . It was “the privileged witness of the history of its independence and the beginning of its construction as a free country,” he added.
38 years in exile
However, Germaine Ahidjo has lived in Dakar for 38 years, exiled since the death of her husband Ahmadou Ahidjo, accused of being involved in the 1984 failed coup against Paul Biya.
She then fought all her life to rehabilitate her husband and for his remains to be returned to Cameroon during an official funeral, an unconditional demand on Germaine Ahidjo, even if it meant creating disagreement with the Cameroonian authorities for several years, without stopping. ever reached. Even for her mother’s funeral, Germaine Ahidjo will never have set foot on earth in her country of origin again before she dies.
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