Cameroon’s president has not been seen for 54 days, and asking about his health is a crime On 7 June, Paul Biya left Cameroon for Switzerland with his wife Chantal, for what his officials called a brief private stay. He is 93 years old and he has ruled Cameroon since 1982. Fifty four days later, […]

Cameroon’s president has not been seen for 54 days, and asking about his health is a crime

On 7 June, Paul Biya left Cameroon for Switzerland with his wife Chantal, for what his officials called a brief private stay. He is 93 years old and he has ruled Cameroon since 1982. Fifty four days later, neither he nor the first lady has been seen in public, addressed the nation, or given any sign of life the public can verify. It is the longest absence of his four decade rule.

Understand what is missing here. Not a holiday, but a country’s head of state. Jeune Afrique reported on 17 June that he was receiving care at a private clinic in Geneva after a health incident during National Day events on 20 May. The government called that malicious and unfounded, insisting he is in Geneva but not in any medical facility. In July, Channel Africa reported that relatives and senior officials, including his son Franck, had been urgently summoned to Switzerland. Yaoundé has not confirmed it. A death rumour swept social media on 17 July, and it was a hoax, traced back to a Facebook page. But the hoax spread so easily for one reason. Nobody could produce proof it was false.

Meanwhile his official accounts keep posting in his name. Congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on France’s national day. Greetings to Montenegro’s president. A man nobody has seen in nearly two months, still speaking on the internet.

Now the detail that should stop every African reading this. In Cameroon it is illegal to discuss the president’s health. A government official formally banned media speculation about it back in 2024. So the citizens of a nation are legally forbidden from asking the most basic question a people can ask, is the man who governs us alive and able to govern.

And here is where negligence becomes danger. In April, parliament reintroduced the office of vice president as part of a constitutional overhaul. They then never filled it. So Cameroon, with a 93 year old president missing for 54 days, has no designated deputy. If the presidency became vacant, the constitution passes power to the Senate president, an office whose long serving holder died in April, and an election would have to be organised within 120 days. Meanwhile Biya’s son and stepson are reported to be manoeuvring for position, cabinet ministers are publicly disagreeing, and the ruling party held a rare emergency meeting last week and refused to say what it was about.

This is what personal rule does to a country. Everything is built around one man, so when that man disappears, the entire state holds its breath and nobody is allowed to say so out loud. Cameroon is not governing right now. It is waiting.

A nation of 30 million people, with a median age of 19, cannot get a straight answer about the whereabouts of the only president most of them have ever known. And by law, they are not even allowed to ask.

-HistoricalAfrica