Cameroon says President Paul Biya is well amid death rumours

Cameroon has assured that Paul Biya, its 91-year-old President is well, following his long absence from the central African country.

“The President is in good health and will be back in the country any moment from now,” Rene Emmanuel Sadi, minister of communication and government spokesman, said in a statement read on a state radio broadcaster.

Biya has not been seen in public since attending a China-Africa forum in Beijing in early September. His failure to appear as scheduled at a summit in France last weekend stoked speculation that the nonagenarian was unwell.

“Rumours of all kinds have been circulating through the conventional media and social networks about the president’s condition,” Sadi said in the statement. “The Government unequivocally states that these rumours are pure fantasy … and hereby issues a formal denial.”

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Opposition parties and civil society groups have been calling for an update on the status of Biya’s health and his exact whereabouts.

After Beijing, Biya paid a private visit to Europe, Sadi said.

With no clear succession plan, Biya’s death would bring more political turmoil to West and Central Africa, which has seen eight coups since 2020 and several other military attempts to overthrow governments.

Cocoa and oil-producing Cameroon, which has had just two presidents since independence from France and Britain in the early 1960s, is in the grips of a secessionist war that has killed thousands and a violent Boko Haram insurgency in the north.