When Biya’s age becomes issue of debate!.

President Paul Biya’s “experience” is what the ruling CPDM party in Cameroon has been banking on to oil the dominant machinery of his regime. 

Since his “brief private stay” in Europe, that has extended to over two months, the debate is now shifting from health, cost to taxpayers, working abroad, transition, to his advanced age.

Last Sunday, on Vision 4 Television- a media organ noted for its support for the ruling party, Dieudonné Essomba, an economist and self-proclaimed “Biyalist”, said: “...at 93, one is inherently handicapped, and this affects how the State is managed.”

The statement on the media organ’s popular programme, “Club d’Élites”, has expanded the debate on the impact of old age on the governance of the State and the ruling CPDM.

His analysis comes at a period marked by the extended absence of the Head of State abroad, which has been fuelling intense speculation about his health and reviving questions about the reality of the exercise of power in Yaounde.

According to him, reaching the age of 93 entails unavoidable physical and cognitive limitations that directly influence one's ability to govern a modern State.

In reaction to government’s narrative that the President is not ill, Essomba said: “Illness is a medical reality. We are talking about disability; that is to say, at 93, one is inherently disabled, and this affects how the State is managed," he explained.

Talking about the “Very High Instructions” the President gives to the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the economist claimed that the President's immediate political entourage is taking advantage of his vulnerability, linked to his age, to advance its own interests, under the guise of supreme authority.

"We experienced a period of governance at the Unity Palace, where we were told about “Very High Instructions” from morning till night. It was in response to the reaction of people who began to seriously doubt these high instructions that they disappeared," he added.

For Dieudonné Essomba, the major problem lies in the excessive centralisation of power in Cameroon. The absence of a Vice-Presidential post with genuine Constitutional powers paralyses the State apparatus whenever the President is absent or weakened.

“Knowing President Biya, he couldn’t have changed his behaviour simply because people denounced the high-level directives. This means that there were people exploiting the President’s age to infiltrate his agenda, under the guise of high-level directives,” he said. 

While expressing worries over governance, due to the President’s age, he questioned the fate of the ruling party after Biya.

During celebrations to mark the 39th anniversary of the CPDM, he said on the same television channel, where he is a consultant, that: “It’s a mistake to think the CPDM is a political party. It’s a tool to support Biya’s regime. The CPDM is therefore incapable of managing a simple transition. They never planned to live without Biya”. 

He predicted major difficulties for the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, CPDM, should President Paul Biya no longer be in power.

"The advice I can give the Head of State is that the people he governs with, are deceiving him. Paul Biya is still useful to us for only one thing: to maintain the system he created, because this system is not viable without him. If he leaves now, it risks falling apart...it's a farce we know all too well in every regime. All it takes is for the system to change now, and the next day, the CPDM people will change their tune,” he said. 

He drew examples: “It was the same thing in Syria and Guinea. When Alpha Condé was replaced in Guinea, the people who supported him turned against him. It's a game we know well...all CPDM's rhetoric is gibberish. The CPDM is made up of people who will change the day Biya is gone, they will all change,” he had said.

Another articulate commentator, John Lawson, wrote in the media at the weekend that: “…the CPDM party was conceived to never need to exist on its own. This is its founding paradox. And this is its current tragedy. This architecture of total dependence was a strength in a stable regime. It has become an existential weakness in a regime in transition”.

With old age of a towering leader still with a firm grip on the ruling party and State apparatus on the front burner of national and even international debates, Cameroonians must now anticipate a government and party after Biya, since, no matter how long he lives, like all human beings, he has to quit the stage one day.

How are the governed and the ruling CPDM prepared for that inevitability? The answer, as Bob Dylan said in his 1962 protest song is, “is blowing in the wind." 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3883 of Wednesday August 19, 2026