Fifty six days. That’s how long Paul Biya has now been out of Cameroon, the longest stretch of his forty three years in power. He left Yaoundé on June 7 for what was described as a private trip to Europe, and until now the Cameroonian president had given no public sign of life, fueling rumors and questions across the country. On Sunday August 2, the government finally broke its silence.
It was on RFI that René Emmanuel Sadi, Minister of Communication and government spokesman, put an end to two months of official silence. The president is alive, he said, adding that there was no vacancy of power. According to him, the Cameroonian constitution only allows for a vacancy to be declared in the event of death or a permanent incapacity confirmed by the Constitutional Council, and neither condition applies here.
Asked for an exact date for the president’s return, the minister was evasive, saying only that he couldn’t disclose it even if he knew it. He did, however, insist that the return was imminent.
For the opposition, the statement hasn’t done much to ease concerns. The UDC party argued that the stability of a republic cannot rest on silence or speculation, pointing in particular to the vacant vice presidency, a post that has remained empty since the April 2026 constitutional revision. Several figures, including lawmaker Jean-Michel Nintcheu and lawyer Christian Ntimbane Bomo, had called on the Constitutional Council to formally rule on a possible vacancy of power. At 93, Paul Biya is the world’s oldest serving head of state and has ruled Cameroon since 1982. This absence already exceeds the one from autumn 2024, when he spent 42 days abroad before reappearing in public. Across his forty three years in power, he is estimated to have spent around 2,600 days abroad, nearly seven years in total. He is currently believed to be in Switzerland, according to Jeune Afrique, though this hasn’t been officially confirmed.
Beyond the absence itself, questions are mounting over how the Cameroonian state is actually being run. The government hasn’t held a cabinet meeting in several years, and the formation of a new government, promised since last December, also remains on hold. It’s a situation feeding into a debate that resurfaces every time the president disappears from view, over how the country is being governed and how much longer Paul Biya intends to hold on to power.
