Biya ‘missing’ one month after attending Paris summit!.

His peers from across the globe, who participated at the high-level global event, since regained their respective countries. On the other hand, details of President Biya’s exact whereabouts are still sketchy.

Following the close of the summit on June 23, 2023 nothing has publicly been mentioned on the exact whereabouts of the Head of State, who left the country purposely to participate at the event, according to a statement from the Presidency.

Members of his delegation, including government ministers, returned to Yaounde, barely days after the summit.

Political observers say the situation remains disturbing, especially given that the Civil Cabinet has not issued a statement to clarify public opinion on the whereabouts of the country’s President.

While it is generally understood that the Head of State is still abroad, analysts say it will make more meaning if authorities tell Cameroonians his exact whereabouts and what is still keeping him out of the country. 

“In civilised and democratic countries, keeping citizens abreast with information about their President is paramount. Our authorities have to come out of the dark ages and copy what is happening, even in African countries,” a political analyst who did not want to be named told this reporter. 

Biya’s habitual attitude

President Biya, 91, who has been in power since 1982, has made the top floor suites of the five-star luxury Geneva Intercontinental Hotel, his home away from home.

The amount of time he spends out of the country has regularly attracted international attention. His repeated absences from the country have always riled critics.

In 2018, a global network of investigative journalists known as Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, in a report, revealed that President Biya had spent nearly 60 days out of the country in 2017 alone on private visits. 

The Group had also noted that President Biya had spent a third of the year abroad in 2006 and 2009. 

After going through 35 years of reports in the state-run newspaper, Cameroon Tribune, the group estimated that the Head of State had spent at least four and half years in total on “private trips” and an extra year on official visits as at 2018. 

That number could be much higher since archives of the Cameroon Tribune have gaps that “span several years,” the report said. 

A majority of Biya’s trips have been to Geneva, where he frequents the five-star Intercontinental Hotel.

Governing from abroad?

President Biya has literally been governing the country from abroad ever since he jetted off for Paris in June.

Though out of the country, President Biya has continued exercising his presidential duties, signing decrees and appointing persons to key positions in the country.

He has since taking sojourn abroad, signed a series of decrees appointing officials into public structures.

On July 5, President Paul Biya signed a decree sending Major General Ngambou Esaie, on second section in the military, considered as retirement.

Earlier on July 4, President Biya had penned a series of decrees appointing officials into state universities. The appointees included Secretaries General, Deans of Faculties and Directors amongst others. 

During the appointments of July 4, Biya also appointed senior journalist, François Marc Modzom, as Director of the Yaounde Advanced School of Mass Communication, ASMAC.

Biya has regularly performed key functions while even abroad. In 2012, President Biya delivered his traditional February 10 message to the youth, from abroad.

The address delivered abroad had stirred controversy then as it animated public debates.

Cameroonians grumbling in silence

Since his coming to power in 1982, President Paul Biya has come under public censure over the frequency of his foreign trips; with critics saying the benefits are not commensurate with the cost to the taxpayers. Most Cameroonians have been grumbling in silence while describing most of his trips abroad as wasteful spending of the country’s tinny finances.

Most of his silent critics have been criticising President Biya for prioritising foreign engagements against the backdrop of fewer domestic travels to attend to pressing national issues. President Biya has not visited the two Anglophone Regions, since the crisis that has since morphed into an armed conflict, erupted in 2016!

He has also rarely attended key national events including the funerals of top government and state officials. He has always been represented at such events. 

While Biya regularly makes trips abroad, he seldom makes trips in the country to areas affected tragedies. 

To the chagrin of many, the President did not visit the town of Eseka in 2016, when some 76 persons perished while on board a train which derailed en route to Douala.

President Biya, for more than five years, has only been represented by the Prime Minister, Head of Government, at the football Cup of Cameroon final that closes the country’s sporting season.

Many have, as usual, only been grumbling in silence, suggesting that the presence of the Head of State, at such an important sporting jamboree, avails him the unique opportunity to commune with the football loving citizens of Cameroon.