The wellbeing and whereabouts of Paul Biya, Cameroon’s 91-year-old, made a hot news across Africa this week.
Though his absence from the UN General Assembly in New York was well taken for his attendance at the China-Africa summit in Beijing in early September, his stay away from this week’s summit of French-speaking countries (La Francophonie) at Viller Cotterêts, north of Paris raised eye brows.
Seeking to kill off rumours over the president's public disappearance, Cameroon’s ambassador in France stated that Biya was “in good health” and in Geneva - his habitual base when away from home.
Other sources suggested this was because he needed to rest under medical supervision after a heavy diplomatic schedule in July and August.
After all, he is Africa’s oldest head of state and the second longest-serving, narrowly beaten to that record by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of neighbouring Equatorial Guinea.
Such mundane indications were not enough to still speculative guesswork about Biya in Africa-interested media and political circles.
So finally the government spokesman, René Sadi, issued a formal denial of the rumours, adding that the president would return home "in the next few days".
And the head of the president's private office, with him in Geneva, also said he was “in excellent health”.
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