After 29 continues days abroad:

Biya returns home looking hale & hearty

But this prolonged absence of the president from home has raised questions about his

physical and mental ability to continue to perform his duties as head of state of Cameroon

By Essan-EkoninyamEwube in Yaounde

President Paul Biya

on Saturday 25 June 2016 when president Paul Biya returned home he had made exactly 29 days away from his office at the presidency in Yaounde. When he left the country on 27 May 2016, the official announcement was that he was going on “a short private visit abroad”. No mention was made about where exactly the president was going and what he would be doing out there.

                But after four complete weeks abroad, analysts are of the strong view that he overstayed his short private visit and should have long been on his way back home, whatever he must have been doing out there.

                Even regime insiders were deeply disturbed by this prolonged stay abroad by the president. Without exception, the consensus view was that he is helplessly tired and has lost interest in his job as president of the republic of Cameroon.

                This is all the more because during such prolonged absence abroad it is ussually not clear who assumes the interim. Because of this the country lacks real leadership. Not even the decisions that are often read on public radio as having been signed by the president give the impression that he is working whilst away.

                The argument that analysts advance is that the President of Cameroon does not work abroad; he has his office at the Unity Palace in Yaounde, and not abroad.

                The analysts therefore find it unacceptable that the president tries to transfer his office to a European capital. They wonder whether there is some where else in the world where a president who is not hospitalized abroad stays away from his country for so long a time.

                The consensus inside as well as outside the regime is that the president is physically and mentally too exhausted to be able to continue to hold down his job any longer. Many are of the opinion that it was high time that he considered arranging for a peaceful and democratic transfer of power.

                Another option open for Biya, some analysts suggest, is for him to revise the constitution to make the post of president to be more ceremonial and/or representational, while the PM’s office becomes truly and essentially executive.