Paul Biya has been president of Cameroon since 1982, making him the world's longest-serving non-royal head of state and, at 91, the world's oldest leader.
"He may also be dead," said the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR). "Nobody currently knows." Biya has not been seen since attending a China-Africa summit in Beijing on 8 September and missed the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last month.
Last week the Africa Broadcasting Service (ABS), a US-based African satellite TV channel, released a video that "circulated quickly" on social media citing unnamed sources in the capital, Yaoundé, claiming that Biya was dead. Rumours have "swept" the Central African nation since and have "set the Cameroonian government and its journalists against each other", said the CJR.
The government was forced to release a statement saying Biya was alive and in "excellent" health. Biya is on a short stay in Geneva, according to a government spokesman – a city where he spends so much time that "he has earned the nickname 'President of the Hotel InterContinental'", said the Financial Times.
"Biya's government doesn't communicate much. That's been the case for the past 25 years of his travels," a political consultant told the paper. "But there's something different this time."
Sources suggest Biya is now in Geneva "to rest under medical supervision after a heavy diplomatic schedule in July and August".
But if there is something amiss, "we have the right to know", a Yaoundé-based businesswoman told Voice of America. "So we are pleading with the government of Cameroon to let us know the health state of our president." | 
