Sixty-five days after the president’s departure, the Cameroonian public has still not received a comprehensive and authoritative explanation of his condition, his capacity to continue performing presidential duties or the constitutional arrangements under which executive authority is presently being exercised. That silence matters.
By Timothy Enongene
Associate Editor-in-Chief, The Independentist News
YAOUNDÉ/GENEVA – 11 August 2026 – New allegations published by Cameroonian journalist Boris Bertolt are intensifying questions about President Paul Biya’s health and the circumstances surrounding his prolonged stay in Switzerland.
Writing under the heading “Échos de Genève,” Bertolt claims that two fully equipped medical units have been established specifically to monitor the president: one at a private residence reportedly located near Geneva and another inside Biya’s suite at the InterContinental Geneva.
According to Bertolt, these arrangements are not merely precautionary but form part of continuing medical supervision of the 93-year-old president. He further alleges that Biya underwent a knee operation and that, because of the president’s age and overall condition, Swiss doctors rejected additional surgical procedures and opted for nonsurgical treatment.
Independentist News has not independently verified these medical allegations. No treating physician, Swiss medical institution or authorized Cameroonian official has publicly confirmed the reported operation, prognosis or medical arrangements. Bertolt’s account must therefore be treated as attributed reporting—not as an established medical diagnosis.
The most consequential allegation concerns Biya’s mobility. Bertolt claims that medical personnel fear the president could lose the ability to walk. Under what he describes as the most favorable outcome, Biya would reportedly return to Cameroon severely weakened, considerably thinner and dependent upon a wheelchair.
These are serious claims, and their repetition requires caution. Wheelchair use or reduced mobility would not, by itself, establish that a president is constitutionally incapable of governing. Many people with significant physical disabilities perform demanding public duties effectively. The relevant question is not whether Biya can walk unaided, but whether he retains the physical and cognitive capacity to understand decisions, exercise independent judgment, communicate instructions and discharge the constitutional responsibilities of his office. The reports from Geneva nevertheless acquire public significance because they have emerged within an extraordinary information vacuum surrounding Cameroon’s head of state.
Biya left Cameroon on June 7, 2026, for what the presidency described as a “brief private stay” in Europe. By August 11, he had been outside the country for 65 days. Major international news organizations have confirmed his prolonged absence and the government’s failure to announce a definite return date. They have not independently confirmed Bertolt’s detailed medical claims.
Sixty-five days after the president’s departure, the Cameroonian public has still not received a comprehensive and authoritative explanation of his condition, his capacity to continue performing presidential duties or the constitutional arrangements under which executive authority is presently being exercised. That silence matters.
A Private Medical Condition With Public Consequences
Paul Biya retains a right to medical privacy. But the health of a sitting head of state cannot remain entirely private when it may affect the functioning of the presidency, the command of the armed forces, the authentication of decrees, the appointment of officials and the direction of national policy.
The public does not require access to every diagnosis, treatment or intimate clinical detail. It does, however, have a legitimate right to know whether the president remains functionally capable of exercising the powers entrusted to him—and, if he is temporarily unable to do so, whether the Constitution’s delegation procedures have been activated. Article 10(3) of Cameroon’s constitutional framework provides that when the president is temporarily unable to perform his duties, he shall expressly delegate specified powers to the prime minister or, if the prime minister is also unavailable, another member of the government.
No transparent public account has established whether such an express delegation has been issued, which presidential powers it covers or who is presently exercising them. Nor has the government adequately explained how major decisions and presidential instruments issued during Biya’s absence are being reviewed, authenticated and communicated.
Cameroon restored the office of vice president through a constitutional amendment in April 2026, ostensibly to provide institutional continuity in the event of death, resignation or incapacity. Yet the office reportedly remains vacant. A succession mechanism cannot reassure the country when the office at its center has no occupant. The issue is therefore larger than one man’s knee, weight or ability to walk. It concerns the load-bearing capacity of the state itself. Who is deciding? Who is signing? Who is authenticating the decisions? Who is accountable?
Government Silence Is Feeding Speculation The reports from Geneva deserve scrutiny not because every rumor should be accepted, but because the government has provided so little verifiable information with which the public can distinguish fact from speculation.
When official information disappears, rumor becomes an alternative political institution. Journalists, insiders, government loyalists, opposition figures and anonymous sources compete to fill the vacuum. Some claims may be accurate. Others may be exaggerated, politically motivated or entirely false. The public is left without an authoritative evidentiary standard by which to judge them. This is precisely why transparency protects both the state and the president.
If Bertolt’s reports are false, the government possesses a straightforward remedy: release credible information, demonstrate that the president remains capable of performing his duties and explain the constitutional arrangements governing his absence. If the allegations are partly accurate but exaggerated, a responsible briefing could distinguish the president’s actual condition from sensational speculation.
If they are substantially accurate, however, Cameroon may be confronting something far more consequential than another extended presidential stay in Geneva. It may be facing the functional incapacity of the only president most Cameroonians under the age of 40 have ever known. Silence cannot answer that question. Nor can decrees bearing the president’s name prove, by themselves, that he personally considered, approved and authorized them.
A State Already Under Severe Pressure
This uncertainty comes at a dangerous time. Cameroon is confronting the prolonged war in Ambazonia, political divisions following the disputed 2025 presidential election, economic hardship, youth frustration and deepening anxiety over succession after more than four decades of Biya’s rule. A political system built around one dominant presidency eventually confronts a structural question: what happens when the individual at its center can no longer carry the institutional load placed upon him?
A resilient state should be able to answer that question through transparent constitutional procedures. Authority should transfer lawfully. The public should know who possesses which powers. The armed forces and civil administration should receive instructions through an identifiable chain of command. Parliament, the courts and the government should continue functioning without depending upon palace rumor or private access to one individual.
Cameroon’s prolonged uncertainty suggests that its institutions may have been designed less to survive the presidency than to remain subordinate to it. That is why the Geneva reports matter even before their medical details are verified. They expose a political system in which the condition of one person can generate uncertainty throughout an entire republic.
The Ambazonian Dimension
For Ambazonians, Biya’s condition does not create the unresolved national question between Southern Cameroons and La République du Cameroun. That dispute arises from a longer constitutional history, the dismantling of the 1961 federal arrangement, the erosion of Southern Cameroons’ inherited institutions and the continuing conflict over sovereignty and self-government.
Nevertheless, uncertainty in Yaoundé may have direct security consequences for civilians in Ambazonia. Unclear authority at the center can produce competing commands, political maneuvering within the security establishment and attempts by powerful actors to demonstrate loyalty or control through military action.
Ambazonian institutions must therefore watch developments carefully without assuming that Biya’s illness or absence will automatically deliver liberation. The weakness of an adversary is not a substitute for the constitutional legitimacy, administrative effectiveness, civilian protection, productive capacity and accountable external relations required to build a functioning state. The central lesson applies on both sides of the political divide: no nation should make one individual indispensable to its survival.
Cameroon Must Answer
Independentist News will not transform an unverified medical account into established fact. The allegations about medical units, surgery, diminished mobility and wheelchair dependence remain claims attributed to Boris Bertolt unless corroborated by independent evidence or authoritative disclosure. But responsible caution does not require institutional silence.
Paul Biya has now been outside Cameroon for 65 days. His prolonged absence is established. The government’s failure to provide a definite return date is established. The absence of a transparent public explanation of any express delegation of presidential powers remains a legitimate constitutional concern.
If the Geneva allegations are false, the government should correct them with credible evidence. If they are exaggerated, the government should establish the facts. If they are substantially accurate, Cameroon must activate and explain the constitutional mechanisms necessary to protect continuity, legality and public confidence.
The question is no longer simply when Paul Biya will board an aircraft for Yaoundé. Nor should it be reduced to whether he returns walking or using a wheelchair. The real question is whether he remains capable of exercising the independent judgment and constitutional authority of the presidency—and, if he does not, who lawfully carries that authority now.
Behind that question lies the problem Cameroon has postponed for decades: What happens to the state when the man who has embodied its presidency for more than four decades can no longer bear the responsibilities of the office? The government can end much of the speculation. But it cannot do so through silence. Cameroon deserves a constitutional answer.
