Cameroonian authorities have banned discussions about the health of the president, Paul Biya, after the latest round of speculation about his prolonged failure to appear in public.
Interior Minister, Paul Atanga Nji, in a 9 October letter to regional governors, stated that discussing the 91-year-old president’s health is a matter of national security, adding that ‘any debate in the media about the president’s condition is therefore strictly prohibited.’
Nji, who said offenders would be prosecuted, instructed the governors to set up units to monitor broadcasts on private media channels. The ban also applies to social networks.
The directive follows an awkward denial by the government spokesperson René Sadi earlier this week of rumours that Biya had died either in a Paris hospital or in Geneva. The Cameroonian ambassador to France also added that the president was in good health in Geneva.
Biya has been president since 1982, long before most people in the central African country, where the average age is 18, were born. He was prime minister in the seven years prior and succeeded Cameroon’s only other president, Ahmed Ahidjo.
Rumours of Biya’s death swirl in the media intermittently, fuelled by the frail-looking president’s regular absence from Cameroon and the public eye for long periods.
Biya has not been seen publicly since attending the China-Africa forum in Beijing in early September.
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