The absence of the president of Cameroon fuels speculation about his health

Speculation about the welfare and whereabouts of Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya, who is 91, has become a hot topic across Africa this week.

After attending the China-Africa summit in Beijing in early September, perhaps it was no surprise that he attended the UN General Assembly in New York.

But when he did not attend this week’s conference of French-speaking countries (La Francophonie) in Viller Cotterêts, north of Paris, the rumor mill began to intensify, as he had been out of public view for almost a month.

Cameroon’s ambassador to France insisted that Biya is “in good health” and is in Geneva – his usual base when he is away from home.

Some sources suggested that this was because he needed to rest under the supervision of doctors after a heavy international schedule in July and August.

After all, he is the oldest head of state in Africa and he is the second longest-serving head of state, narrowly losing that record to President Teodoro Obiang Nguema from the neighboring country of Equatorial Guinea.

Such general indications were not enough to fuel speculative speculation about Biya in the African-interested media and political circles.

So finally the government spokesman, René Sadi, issued an official denial of these rumours, adding that the president will return home “in the next few days”.

And the head of the president’s private office, who is with him in Geneva, emphasized that he is “in very good health”.

Cameroon is in an important strategic location, as the gateway to Chad is closed with the Central African Republic (CAR).

Besides struggling to fully suppress jihadist violence in Lake Chad, it also grapples with a difficult and often violent crisis in its English-speaking regions.

In leading the response to these challenges, Biya has brought a unique personal style that often avoids the forum, without any personal need to participate in political activities or convention.

He is a person who usually does not attend many meetings of African leaders.

Even at home, with his limited speech and guarded tone, Biya has for many years isolated his interventions, mainly delegating the day-to-day operations of the government, and managing technical documents, to a succession of prime ministers.

The mysterious absence of people from the public was unusual for this mysterious president.

Rumors that he is dead appear from time to time, mainly because of these cases of disappearances from the scene.

But this low-key style belies the determination with which he came to power in 1982, ousting his successor and predecessor Ahmadou Ahidjo, promising a liberal revolution before assuming the presidency that no follower of the challenge or the protest campaign was able to deliver. shift.

As a wave of multi-party democratic reform swept across much of Africa in the early 1990s, Biya was one of the few leaders in office to adapt wisely, allowing enough change to take the heat out of many protests while still maintaining firm control.

Since winning a narrow election in 1992, he has fended off subsequent political challenges, helped perhaps by vote rigging and certainly by divisions among opponents who often lack strategy.

Now, with Biya’s current seven-year term coming to an end in November 2025, supporters have been pressuring the 91-year-old to stand up again.

Critics feel that it is long past time for Cameroon’s national leadership to pass to a new generation that can face the country’s problems and explore opportunities for development and progress with greater speed and strength.

In 2016, teachers and lawyers in two predominantly English-speaking regions, the South-West and the North-West, protested the failure to adequately provide English language rights and public services.

If Biya had responded more quickly and with a stronger and more vocal reform package, perhaps he could have quelled the discontent sooner – and thus avoided this outbreak of violent conflict between the security forces and separatist militants.

Biya later introduced reforms – to meet the demands of the English-speaking regions and, throughout the country, to devolve power to regional councils.

But sometimes citizens have had to wait for a long time before the state addresses their problems – the transferred bodies were not set up until many years after the first law of the body was passed.

Some Cameroonians, however, are comfortable with Biya’s restrained approach to leadership and his readiness to leave successive prime ministers to handle routine decisions.

They see his role as symbolic and remote, almost as a constitutional monarch.

Indeed, this representative role is part of the president’s position, which he seems to be comfortable with.

On August 15, for example, he was in Boulouris, on the Côte d’Azur in France, where he gave a detailed 12-minute speech during the commemoration of the Allied 1944 landing to liberate southern France from the Nazis – an operation in which many troops from France’s African territories took part .

And in fact, despite his frequent absences from the Cameroonian capital Yaoundé – often retreating to his village in the south of the forest or to his preferred international location, the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva – Biya continued to make important political and strategic decisions.

The main gatekeeper at the heart of power in the Étoudi presidential palace is the Secretary General of the Office of the President, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

A power system where Biya, as head of state, keeps his cards close to his chest is bound to create speculation about his intentions for the 2025 election and potential successors.

But some of the state’s most often defined high-profile figures, such as Laurent Esso and René Sadi, are now far from young.

Support groups have also been seen advocating for the passing of the torch to the president’s eldest son Franck Biya, a businessman – although Franck himself has never shown any interest in politics or expressed any such ambitions.

But in today’s Africa, where disaffection with the political establishment runs deep, especially among urban youth, efforts to establish and protect the continuity of power can be dangerous.

In the neighboring country of Gabon, President Ali Bongo was present he was fired by the army last year after the state rigged the 2023 election to give him a seven-year term despite his poor health.

And when Senegalese President Macky Sall nominated his Prime Minister Amadou Ba as his successor, he was largely rejected by voters who chose to run for office. Young opposition activist Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

Biya and his inner circle may feel confident in avoiding such situations. But that will require a shrewd reading of popular sentiment, especially among the youth and middle class in big cities like Yaoundé and Douala.

Paul Melly is the coordinator of the Africa Program at Chatham House in London.