The world’s oldest president left for a ‘brief stay’ in Europe. He hasn’t returned in two months

When Paul Biya won his first presidential election in Cameroon in 1984, Nformi Bime was 23 and still a student.

Bime is now 65 and retired from teaching. Biya is 93 and remains president. Last year, he won a disputed eighth term that could keep him in office until he is nearly 100.

“The best is yet to come,” Biya said before the election, which his opponents described as fraudulent and which was followed by deadly clashes between protesters and police.

For the past two months, however, the man who has ruled Cameroon since 1982 has been thousands of miles away. Biya left the country on June 7 for what his office described as a “brief private stay in Europe”, but his absence has now become his longest uninterrupted stay abroad in years.

Last week, government spokesman René Emmanuel Sadi told French radio RFI that Biya was in Geneva, Switzerland, and was not hospitalised. He provided no further details about the president’s location or activities.

A president rarely seen in public

Biya became Cameroon’s second president after independence in 1960 and is now one of the world’s longest-serving leaders. He first won office in 1984 under a one-party system and subsequently won six more elections after multiparty politics was introduced.

He has spent extended periods outside Cameroon during his presidency, but his latest absence has renewed questions about his health and who is effectively running the country in his absence.

Rumours surrounding Biya’s health and whereabouts have been a recurring feature of public life in Cameroon, where the president is rarely seen in public. His government has repeatedly dismissed reports that he was seriously ill or had died.

In 2024, the government went as far as banning media organisations from discussing Biya’s health, describing the issue as a matter of national security.

Biya’s lengthy rule also highlights a broader contrast across Africa. Despite having the world’s youngest population, several African countries remain governed by ageing leaders whose political careers began decades ago.

For millions of Cameroonians, Biya is the only president they have ever known.

Bime’s children belong to that generation. His oldest child is 32, while his youngest is 18.

Abit Riassai Acha, a 26-year-old doctoral student and community youth leader at the University of Yaoundé II, is also among those who have known only Biya as president.

“Growing up, President Biya was the only president I knew, so his presidency has been part of my entire experience of Cameroon,” Acha said. He voted for the first time in last year’s presidential election, supporting 38-year-old opposition candidate Samuel Hiram Iyodi.

After more than four decades under the same president, questions about Biya’s leadership have continued to grow.

“Because this has happened repeatedly over the years, many Cameroonians have become used to it,” Acha said of Biya’s prolonged absences. “But becoming accustomed to something does not necessarily mean that people should stop asking questions about how the country is being governed.”

Iyodi, who finished eighth in last year’s presidential election, has called on parliament to ask Cameroon’s Constitutional Council to consider whether Biya’s prolonged absence amounts to a vacancy in the presidency.

Such a move, however, is unlikely to succeed given the dominance of Biya’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement.

Despite remaining abroad, Biya has continued to make major decisions. Earlier this month, he approved a significant military reshuffle, demonstrating that he continues to exercise presidential authority from outside the country.

The prolonged absence has nevertheless prompted officials to reassure Cameroonians that the president remains alive and in control.

Sadi dismissed concerns about a power vacuum, telling RFI that “President Paul Biya is alive” and “will soon return.”

From hope to frustration

Bime remembers a time when Biya represented change.

He first heard Biya’s name in the 1970s, when Biya served as secretary-general of the presidency under Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo. After Ahidjo resigned in 1982, Biya succeeded him.

When Biya appeared on the ballot two years later, Bime regarded him as a “representation of hope”.

“We believed he was young and dynamic – handsome too. He meant so much to Cameroonians,” he said.

Few people at the time imagined that the man viewed as a symbol of a new beginning would remain in power for more than four decades.

For his critics, the frustration is not simply about the length of Biya’s presidency but also what they regard as his failure to improve living conditions for ordinary Cameroonians.

Political analyst Collins Molua Ikome, a Cameroonian based in Germany, said he witnessed some of the country’s problems during a visit in April.

“Roads in Cameroon are extremely bad. I even witnessed a fatal accident,” Ikome said.

He also cited frequent power outages, corruption and a shortage of employment opportunities for young people.

Wilson Tamfuh, a professor of public and international law at the University of Dschang, said Cameroon has institutions capable of keeping the government functioning when the president delegates responsibilities.

According to him, key responsibilities can be handled by the prime minister, the secretary-general at the presidency and cabinet ministers.

The bigger issue, Tamfuh said, is whether the government is effectively addressing the country’s longstanding challenges.

“People want the Anglophone crisis resolved, standards of living ameliorated, more good roads, fewer people on the streets with degrees, and more,” he said, referring to the prolonged separatist conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

Whoever eventually succeeds Biya will inherit a country facing multiple challenges, including attacks by Boko Haram militants in the north, the separatist conflict in the Anglophone regions and growing economic frustration among young people.

Healthcare is another major concern.

Ikome said access to quality healthcare remained beyond the reach of many Cameroonians, particularly those unable to afford treatment abroad.

“Life expectancy in the country is below 70 years. However, Biya has far outlived that due to access to medical healthcare abroad, which the ordinary Cameroonian cannot access due to poverty,” he said.

The disparity reflects a broader issue across Africa, where political elites have often sought medical treatment or maintained residences abroad while public services at home remain inadequate.

For Bime, the issue is deeply personal.

After decades of waiting for political change, he wonders whether he will live long enough to see another president lead Cameroon.

He fears Biya could outlive him and many other ordinary citizens who have spent their entire lives under his rule.

“Anytime they have a cold, they run overseas and are taken care of, but the other Cameroonians are dying because of lack of care,” Bime said.

Credit: CNN