"The president is doing wonderfully well," confirmed a member of 91-year-old Paul Biya's security detail from Geneva as rumors have been swirling about the Cameroonian head of state's health since early October.
"Vile lies," said our source on Sunday, October 13 in Switzerland, where Biya is "enjoying his little vacation in peace while continuing to work – he hasn't been hospitalized a single day and hasn't called in a doctor. Age isn't bothering him yet, and he'll be back when the time comes."
The president has not made a public appearance since attending the China-Africa summit in Beijing in early September when he was taken ill. His absence from the most recent UN General Assembly in New York at the end of September, followed by the Francophonie Summit in Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne), France, on October 4 and 5, once again prompted a multitude of comments on social media and in the media. Some were saying he was seriously ill, while others stated outright that he was deceased.
But in Geneva, those close to the president insisted that the "Sphinx of Etoudi"'s absences and appearances are perfectly calculated. "His great experience led him to believe that no one would be listened to when talking about peace in New York," he said. As for his absence at Villers-Cotterêts, he believes it is also the result of a skillful diplomatic balancing act. As Cameroon is a member of both the Commonwealth and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, and Biya has no plans to attend the former's summit scheduled for late October, "he didn't want to give the impression of favoring one side over the other."
As for his presence at the 80th anniversary of the Provence landings on August 15, our source justified it by the president's desire to remind people that "the Africans who are drowning unassisted in the Mediterranean are the grandchildren of those who liberated Europe."
So why did the interior minister Paul Atanga Nji "strictly prohibit any debate in the media on the state of the president," on October 9, in a circular? "It's a little clumsy," conceded our source, while the minister has instructed regional governors to set up "watch units responsible for monitoring and recording all broadcasts and debate." Might there be proceedings against "offenders," who, as Atanga Nji has announced, "will have to face the force of the law"? "I don't think so," replied the man close to the president.
The day before the ban was announced, the communication minister, René Emmanuel Sadi, and the president's civil cabinet had sought to reassure the public in two separate communiqués, denying "these rumors that are the stuff of fantasy" and stressing that "the head of state is well and will be returning to Cameroon in the next few days." Instead of putting an end to the debate, the ban imposed by the interior ministry has fueled it, in a context where the presidential election scheduled for October 2025 is raising tensions in the head of state's camp, who has been in power for 42 years, around the question of his succession, which is on everyone's mind but publicly taboo.
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