Banda Kani challenges Elimbi Lobe’s national political aspirations

In a recent interview on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, the national president of the Nouveau Mouvement Populaire (NMP) highlighted the renowned political inconsistency of Elimbi Lobe, a commentator featured on Info Tv.

Cameroonian political figure Banda Kani expressed strong disapproval of what he termed the “tribal agitator” Elimbi Lobe. During an interview shared on his platform on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, the leader of the Nouveau Mouvement Populaire (NMP) voiced his profound exasperation with Elimbi Lobe. This frustration stemmed particularly from Lobe’s appearance on Info Tv, a Yaoundé-based television channel, where he controversially labeled the revered nationalist Ernest Ouandié a “bandit”.

“By calling Ouandié a ‘bandit,’ Elimbi Lobe has disgraced himself,” asserted the pan-Africanist Banda Kani. He added that Elimbi Lobe would never achieve the stature of a formidable political leader. “He has diminished himself to a mere scoundrel. He has become a political actor who will never command national respect in this country. He has reduced himself to a small-time politician from a canton neighborhood, whose sole strategy appears to be securing a parliamentary seat,” Kani further elaborated.

Could such statements have been made during his time with the SDF?

Delving into historical context, Banda Kani highlighted Elimbi Lobe’s shifting political stances, noting a stark contrast in his rhetoric when he was an activist for the Social Democratic Front (SDF). “He is employing an electoralist strategy. Examine his past. Consider his own words in 2011, while he was with the SDF. He lauded national integration. He even praised the significant contribution of the Bamiléké people to national development, going so far as to state that his closest friend was Bamiléké, and he intended to name his son after him,” Kani recounted.

“By 2015, he was actively condemning tribalists. Could he have uttered such remarks during his tenure with the SDF? The party would undoubtedly have intervened. We are dealing with a minor politician who believes that merely being elected as a deputy will represent the pinnacle of his political career,” Banda Kani concluded, offering a pointed critique of Elimbi Lobe’s political trajectory within Cameroonian politics.