After Biya became President, Ahidjo initially remained head of the ruling Cameroon National Union ( CNU ).

Ahmadou Ahidjo became the first head of the UNC in 1966 and continued in that capacity after his resignation as the nation's president in 1982.

In 1958, Ahmadou Ahidjo became prime minister of French Cameroon with a pro-independence platform.

A native of Cameroon's south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, serving as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as Prime Minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982.

Under Cameroon's first president, Amadou Ahidjo, Cameroon was split into seven provinces.

The North enjoys a relatively high level of development in infrastructure thanks mainly to its most prominent native son, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon's first president.

Sometimes a head of state assumes office as a state becomes legal and political reality, before a formal title for the highest office is determined ; thus in the since 1 January 1960 independent republic Cameroon ( Cameroun, a former French colony ), the first President, Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo, was at first not styled président but ' merely ' known as Chef d ' état ( literal French for ' Head of State ') until 5 May 1960 ; in Uganda, military coup leader since 25 January 1971 Idi Amin was formally styled military head of State till 21 February 1971, only from then on regular ( but unconstitutional, not elected ) President.

During the first months after Biya's succession, he continued to show loyalty to Ahidjo, and Ahidjo continued to show support for Biya, but in 1983 a deep rift developed between the two.

Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo ( 24 August 1924 – 30 November 1989 ) was the first President of Cameroon from 1960 until 1982.

After failing his first school certification examination in 1938, Ahidjo worked for a few months in the veterinary service.

According to his official biographer, Ahidjo was the first civil servant from northern Cameroun to work in the southern areas of the territory.

However, the plaintiff, Fon Gorji-Dinka maintains that the Bamenda High Court reached a decision according to which the court among other things held that "( b ) President Paul Biya is guilty of treason for furthering and completing the treason of Ahidjo by bringing about the secession of the first defendant ( East Cameroon ) from the United Republic of Cameroon on February 4, 1984, reinstating its name " Republic of Cameroon " which had not been used since January 10, 1961.

On 1 January 1960, Cameroon gained its independence with Ahidjo its first president.

* November 6 – Camerun president Ahmadou Ahidjo resigns, replaced by Paul Biya.

Nevertheless, upon Biya's accession to power, the Cameroonian press accused an Ahidjo collaborator named Moussa Yaya of trying to turn the northern lamidos against the new president.

The events eventually led to Mbida's expulsion from the prime ministry and his replacement by Ahmadou Ahidjo, a Muslim from the country's north.

Upon independence in 1960, Ahidjo, as leader of the Cameroon Union, was elected as President, and he persuaded part of British Cameroon to join his country.

Ahidjo unexpectedly announced his resignation on 4 November 1982, and Biya accordingly succeeded him as President of Cameroon on 6 November.

After Ahidjo resigned as CNU leader, Biya took the helm of the party at an " extraordinary session " of the CNU party held on 14 September 1983.

In February 1984, Ahidjo was put on trial in absentia for alleged involvement in a 1983 coup plot, along with two others ; they were sentenced to death, although Biya commuted their sentences to life in prison, a gesture seen by many as a sign of weakness.

Both were inspired by Beti's dissatisfaction with the post-independence governments of Ahmadou Ahidjo ; this discontent was sparked by the arrest and ultimate execution of UPC activist Ernest Ouandie and Bishop Albert Ndongmo on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government.

Ahidjo went into exile in July 1983, and on August 22, 1983, Biya publicly accused Ahidjo of plotting a coup, while simultaneously dismissing two key Ahidjo loyalists — Prime Minister Maigari Bello Bouba and Minister of State for the Armed Forces Maikano Abdoulaye — from the government.

Ahmadou Ahidjo, a northern Muslim, took his place on 18 February 1958.

Biya retaliated by dismissing all ministers who had served under Ahidjo, claiming that some of them had participated in an assassination attempt on him.

He was subsequently appointed as Minister of Justice by Cameroonian President Ahmadou Ahidjo on 3 July 1972, remaining in that position until 1975.

In an effort to better unify the north and south portions of the country, Ahidjo also ordered a road built north from Yaoundé to Ngaoundéré ( National Road 1 ).

In 1957, from January 28 to May 10 Ahidjo served as President of the Legislative Assembly of Cameroon.

* November 30 – Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroonian politician, former President ( b. 1924 )

The national football ( soccer ) team plays frequent matches in the Ahmadou Ahidjo ( or Omnisport ) stadium.

He succeeded Ahidjo as President upon the latter's surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power in a 1983 – 1984 power struggle with his predecessor.

As an official in post-independence 1960s Cameroon, Biya rose to prominence under President Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Because Biya is a Christian from southern Cameroon, it was considered surprising that he was chosen by Ahidjo, a Muslim from the north, as his successor.

Ahidjo went into exile in France, and from there he publicly accused Biya of abuse of power and paranoia about plots against him.

Ahidjo was widely believed to have orchestrated the coup attempt, and Biya is thought to have learned of the plot in advance and to have disbanded the Republican Guard as a reaction, forcing the coup plotters to act earlier than they had planned, which may have been a crucial factor in the coup's failure.

Following President Paul Biya's assumption of emergency powers in August 1983, Ahidjo, then in France, resigned as party leader.

Ahidjo was born in Garoua, a major river port along the Benue River in northern Cameroun, at the time a French mandate territory.

Ahidjo spent the next three years attending secondary school at the École Primaire Supérieure in Yaoundé, the capital of the mandate, intending a career in the civil service.

Ahidjo also played soccer at school and competed as a cyclist.

In 1942, Ahmadou Ahidjo joined the civil service as a radio operator for a postal service.

In 1946, Ahidjo entered territorial politics.

Although the Portuguese arrived on Cameroon's doorstep in the 16th century, malaria prevented significant European settlement and conquest of the interior until the late 1870s, when large supplies of the malaria suppressant, quinine, became available.

During the 1950s, bars sprang up across Cameroon's capital to accommodate an influx of new inhabitants, and soon became a symbol for Cameroonian identity in the face of colonialism.

He headed Cameroon's delegation to the negotiations on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety from February 1998 to January 2000, and after the Protocol was adopted on January 29, 2000, he became Chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Cartagena Protocol ( ICCP ).

Some migrants continued westward in search of salt ; they became the Kwassio and Bakola of Cameroon's coast.

In 2008, Limbe became the site of a cement works. The city is also host to the head office ( located at Bota, Limbe ) of one of Cameroon's largest company known as the CDC.

The Adamawa Plateau, once home to many of Cameroon's ethnic groups, soon became a pastureland, and the forest zone of Cameroon became more heavily populated.