To understand Paul Biya’s seemingly interminable tenure, one must first understand Cameroon, its neighbors, and Biya himself. Despite over four decades in office, he remains an enigmatic figure to many Cameroonians, including his own ministers—an observer who is rarely observed. His speeches are highly scripted, his protocols rigid, and he rarely grants interviews; the last interview he had with a local journalist was in 2002. He addresses the nation only thrice a year, leaving Cameroonians to catch brief glimpses of their leader during National Day celebrations or as he departs for one of his frequent trips abroad—a habit that has earned him the rightful nickname of “absentee landlord.” As Fareed Zakaria observed about the late Queen Elizabeth II, Paul Biya is simply boring—however, unlike the queen, who “remained boring for the sake of Britain,” Biya’s perceived dullness serves only his own interests.
The Central African subregion, which includes Cameroon, has a long history of creating a cozy environment for sit-tight leaders. Take Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang, who has been in power since 1979 and is the longest serving head of state in the world today. While Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville had his first stint as president from 1979 to 1992, returned to power in 1997, and has remained the Congolese head of state ever since. Chad and Gabon were in the same situation until fairly recent changes of leadership: Idriss Déby remained in power for 30 years, while Omar Bongo and his son, Ali Bongo, remained the Gabonese heads of state for 41 and 14 years, respectively.
Biya has been described as the Lion Man, Jesus Christ, the Sphinx, father of the nation, an enigma, the Maradona of Cameroon’s politics—yet none of these descriptions seem to fully capture who he truly is. Unlike other long-serving African leaders, like Paul Kagame or Yoweri Museveni, who engage with the public and occasionally share lighthearted moments, Biya maintains an aloof, elitist persona. His prolonged rule is facilitated by Cameroon’s inherent complexities—the nation’s diverse ethnic and linguistic makeup, encompassing over 250 groups, hinders unified opposition. Political allies exploit these divisions, fueling tribal sentiments, while religious and colonial legacies contribute to this fragmentation. The predominantly Muslim north is often at odds with the Christian south, while lingering differences between the Anglophone and Francophone regions—stemming from colonial divisions—further complicate a unified stand against the long-serving leader.
It is near impossible to overstate the scope of authority held by Cameroon’s current president. Cameroonian writer George Ngwane—a victim of Biya and his entourage’s unchecked powers himself for daring to criticize the establishment—referred to the leader as “Father Christmas.” “With the nod of his head, the stroke of his pen and the state of his mind,” Ngwane writes, “He can, at best, miraculously turn five loaves of bread and two fishes into a mammoth feast—or at worst vindictively abandon any regional potential oasis into a desert.” While the compelling description falls short of capturing the full range of Biya’s powers, the captivating prose compellingly approximates the near-biblical authority he wields in the country’s political landscape.
Biya’s ascent to the presidency was a stark departure from the expectations of his family, who raised him in a small village in southern Cameroon’s Congo Basin rainforest. Initially destined for priesthood, he instead pursued law and political science at the University of Paris, swiftly climbing through Cameroon’s bureaucratic hierarchy upon his return. Rather than shepherding a congregation, the Lion Man has become a dominant political figure, securing repeated, often contested, electoral victories for 42 years with relative ease. While you might wonder how the 92-year-old leader has accomplished this feat, the answer lies in the events that have shaped him, with keen observations from his past enabling him to outmaneuver or neutralize challengers.
When a young Biya served in Ahmadou Ahidjo’s government, he was perceived as a humble, meticulous, level-headed, and seemingly unambitious young man—qualities that set him apart from others who openly coveted their master’s throne. These traits charmed Ahidjo—Cameroon’s first president since the country gained independence in 1960—earning Biya his full trust. However, as Brutus famously remarked in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “lowliness is young ambition’s ladder.” Beneath Biya’s humility and silence lay his true nature, which only Ahidjo’s wife, Germaine, seemed to recognize, suspicious of his quiet demeanor.
Time eventually proved Germaine right. Ahidjo, who had ruled since Cameroon’s independence in 1960, was by every account a dictator—a benevolent one, credited with Cameroon’s economic growth and low corruption. Biya, his loyal prime minister for seven years, became president in 1982 after Ahidjo’s unexpected resignation. It is alleged that the president was tricked by a French medical doctor to resign on health grounds.
Biya’s tenure initially inspired hope, but his rule quickly devolved into a disappointing reign marked by high corruption. After relinquishing his position as head of state, Ahidjo remained chair of the then ruling Cameroon National Union party, attempting to exert influence from behind the scenes. Biya resisted this interference, leading to two coup attempts in 1983 and 1984 by Ahidjo loyalists to retake the throne, both of which Biya swiftly suppressed. “The victory is complete,” Biya declared after the failed 1984 coup. Ahidjo had fled the country in 1983, sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal (the sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment). The former head of state died of a heart attack a few years after. To this day, his body remains interred in Senegal after his death in 1989, with his wife by his side; his remains are not welcome in Biya’s Cameroon. Alas, Ahidjo was repaid in kind by his own student in a brutal manner of poetic justice, as during his own reign of terror in Cameroon before excommunication, political opponents also faced brutal repression, with many executed and others forced into exile.
Biya famously rewards loyalty; some of his closest allies are those who helped him avert the two coup attempts. As one journalist aptly explains, Biya’s regime is a “gerontological oligarchy: government of the elderly exclusively for the elderly.” Over the years, he consolidated power by strategically filling government and military positions with his own ethnic group, effectively suppressing potential dissent. As Chairman of the Higher Judiciary Council, Grand Master of the National Orders, and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, ministers are required to put his name first to get anything done. The phrase “high instructions from the president of the Republic” is prominently featured on almost every official document; woe betide those who dare to defy them.
Following the attempted coups of 1983 and 1984, the challenges for Biya were far from over; as years have progressed, so have moments when the nation has united against him. The so-called third wave of democratization in Africa came knocking in the ’90s, and after initially resisting the momentum, Biya reluctantly expressed his desire to be remembered as the man who brought democracy to Cameroon, resulting in the country’s first multiparty elections in 1992. Biya emerged as the winner with barely 40 percent of the votes; his main challenger, John Fru Ndi (who founded the Social Democratic Front party in 1990 under immense challenges by the Biya administration, resulting in six people being killed by law enforcement at the launch) was widely believed to have won, and the Supreme Court judge who declared the election results admitted that his hands “were tied.” Street riots ensued after the elections, but were eventually quashed: The main protagonist, Fru Ndi, was placed under house arrest, while other leaders of the SDF party and supporters were arrested and detained.
Since 1992, Biya has put in place mechanisms to completely divide opposing political parties; there are now about 300 political parties in Cameroon, with some believed to be secretly funded by his government. Biya appoints and dismisses members of the body that manages Cameroonian elections in Cameroon at will, some of whom are former members of his ruling party. He continues to test the limits of his sovereign mandate: In April 2008, his party scrapped presidential term limits after violently suppressing riots over rising prices in February of the same year. No one dared challenge him, and he went ahead to win the 2011 and 2018 presidential elections with over 70 percent of the vote.
One of the most important cogs in Biya’s wheel is his wife, Chantal Biya. Always dressed to the nines, Chantal offsets Biya’s aloof demeanor with her cheerful public engagements. Her humanitarian activities through her eponymous foundation have not only helped to give her a good public image but also helped shore up the reputation of her husband. Similarly, Biya has also used football as a means of securing and maintaining his political authority. The Cameroonian national team’s historic performance in the 1990 World Cup, where they became the first African team to reach the quarterfinals, lent Biya massive political leverage. Often referred to as the “number one supporter” of the national football team, Biya frequently draws comparisons between Cameroonians and the Indomitable Lions (as the team is affectionately called) in his speeches. For Cameroonians, football is akin to India’s cricket—a match on the pitch is one of the premier moments when the spirit of the nation seems…
