Bombay Durpun - President Biya lands back in Cameroon after health rumours

The West African nation's 91-year-old leader appeared on television after the presidential plane landed, shaking hands with officials next to his wife Chantal, as a jubilant crowd waited to greet him.

Supporters wearing outfits displaying his portrait chanted to the beat of a drum and lined the roads as his motorcade swiftly left the airport for the presidential palace, according to CRTV, which dedicated a programme to his return.

Questions about Biya's health and whereabouts grew when he disappeared from public view after leaving Beijing at the beginning of September following a China-Africa cooperation summit.

"Today the president is on his way and this will put an end to all the speculation," declared a CRTV presenter.

Aircraft flight tracking sites showed that a Boeing with aircraft registration CMR001, previously used to transport Biya, left late Monday morning from Geneva, where official sources said he had been residing for several weeks.

Large posters also appeared in the Cameroonian capital welcoming back the head of state who has ruled the country unchallenged for more than four decades.

"Welcome home, Mr President of the Republic," said one billboard with a portrait of Biya on a blue background, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

On October 8, after consistent rumours about Biya, the government released a statement saying he would be back in the country in the next few days.

Then the government formally banned local media from discussing the state of his health.

The Cameroonian leader also did not participate in the United Nations General Assembly in New York nor a summit for French-speaking countries in Paris.

In recent days, he's been represented by his Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute at different events.

Biya has been Cameroon's president for more than 41 years, second in Africa only to 82-year-old Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has held power in Equatorial Guinea for 45 years.

For years Biya has frequently travelled overseas, either for medical visits or for lengthy stays at a high-end Geneva hotel.

In 2018, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a group of international investigative journalists, estimated that over a span of 35 years he had spent a total of four-and-a-half years abroad at a total cost of $65 million.

He has not picked a successor and not ruled out running again in the next presidential elections in October 2025.

Since 2018, he has cracked down on the opposition, jailing hundreds of peaceful protestors including the runner-up in the last elections, Maurice Kamto, who spent nine months in jail without charges in 2019 and was freed only after heavy international pressure.

O.Mallick--BD