Paul Biya: The Idolized Image of Immortality in Mortality

By Bala Ibrahim

For the late part of Monday, 07/10/24 and the early hours of Tuesday, 08/10/24, the rumour mill was busy with stories, to the effect that, the Cameroonian President Paul Biya had died. Although no details were given on the time or place of his alleged death, because he has not been seen in the public since his official visit to China over a month ago, the alleged death was easily believed by many. The news was moving from mouth to ear with caution, circumspect and complete carefulness. Everyone was being close-mouthed, because, Paul Biya is more or less seen as a symbol of personal durability.

He was born on the 13th February 1933 and has served as the second President of Cameroon since 1982. Previously, he held the position of the fifth Prime Minister of the country from 1975 to 1982. Despite his old age and long years on the throne, Biya is viewed and feared by many, as a mortal with an immortal soul. In Cameroon, the subject of his death is a technical taboo. No one is permitted to talk about the likelihood of Biya dying. To speculate his death, is akin to speculating the demise of the nation. Such is the kind of fear injected in the minds of the people of Cameroon, as far as Paul Biya is concerned.

And, lo and behold, within hours of the circulation of the rumour, the Cameroonian authorities came out with a statement, banning the media from discussing the health status of the President, particularly the rumours of his death. Interior Minister Paul Atanga Nji, told regional governors that the stories of Biya’s death disturb the tranquillity of Cameroonians. “Any debate in the media about the president’s condition is therefore strictly prohibited.” -Atanga. The Minister threatened that offenders will face the rigor of the law. I hope that rigor of the law would not catch up with me in Nigeria. In any case, I am not among the death speculators, I am only analysing the immortality of mortality. Period.

Paul Biya is 91 years old and has been in office for more than four decades. Yet, he is branded a mortal that is destined to be immortal. As Africa’s oldest head of state and the second longest-serving in Cameroon, Biya has been struggling to suppress a jihadist violence around Lake Chad, just as the country is also wrestling with a complex and often violent crisis around its English-speaking regions, including my country, Nigeria. With regards public appearances, Biya is known as a habitual non-attendee at many gatherings of African leaders. He is a leader whose absence at functions is considered normal.

However, despite the Governments denial of his death, his disappearance from the public eyes is now sparking the demands from some citizens, for proof of his well-being and a confirmation that indeed he is alive, as claimed. Since the country gained independence from France in the early 1960s, the Cocoa and oil-producing Cameroon, has had just two presidents, with Biya as the second and longest serving. The country, which shares borders with Nigeria through Adamawa state in the north-east, Akwa Ibom in the south south and Benue State in the north-central, is also strategically located as the gateway to the landlocked Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR).

The history of Paul Biya touches on how he rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975, and then as prime minister. He succeeded Ahidjo as president upon Ahidjo’s surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power between 1983–1984. Paul Biya staged a coup in which he eliminated all of his major rivals. Under Biya, some political reforms were introduced in the context of a one party arrangement in the 1980s, before the country accepted the introduction of the multiparty politics in the early 1990s. Biya won the 1992 Presidential election under serious controversy and was re-elected by large margins in 1997, 2004, 2011 and 2018.

Although Nigeria and Cameroon have enjoyed a long history of mutual respect, there is still the unsettled thorny issue of border claim between them and one that occasionally results in disputes. The Nigerian government claimed the border was that prior to the British–German agreements in 1913, and Cameroon claimed the border laid down by the British–German agreements.

The border dispute worsened in the 1980s and 1990s after some border incidents occurred, which almost caused a war between the two countries. In 1994 Cameroon went to the International Court of Justice, ICJ. After eight years of adjudication, the ICJ ruled in Cameroon’s favour and confirmed the 1913 border made by the British and Germans as the international border between the two countries. Nigeria confirmed it would transfer Bakassi to Cameroon. In June 2006 Nigeria signed the Greentree Agreement, which marked the formal transfer of authority in the region, and the Nigerian Army partly withdrew from Bakassi.

However, there are still some disquiet there, because, although the ICJ ruling instructed Nigeria to relinquish possession of the Bakasi peninsula, it did not require the inhabitants to move or to change their nationality. And amongst those picturing Paul Biya as the idolizing image of immortality in mortality, are the people of the Bakasi Peninsula. Is it for reasons of patriotism, or for the fear of fascism?