Why African leaders like Cameroon’s President Paul Biya are hiding his health

Rumors of poor health have hit two African presidents in recent weeks, prompting mixed reactions and revealing that the well-being of leaders is often treated as a state secret.

It started with 91-year-old Cameroonian President Paul Biya, whose ministers denied he was sick and insisted he was in “excellent health.” However, the media in Cameroon was at that time excluded from reporting about his condition.

Then Malawi’s House of Representatives dismissed rumors that President Lazarus Chakwera was unwell by releasing videos of the leader jogging and doing push-ups in the capital Lilongwe.

“You have to reflect a certain kind of man to dominate in politics – you can’t show weakness or vulnerability,” says Miles Tendi, an associate professor of African politics at Oxford University, of the pomp and secrecy surrounding African leaders and their health surround.

Chakwera and Biya took very different approaches to countering rumors of disease, but they had a similar intent – to project and protect an image of strength and masculinity.

But perhaps most important is keeping rivals and opportunists at bay.

Prof Tendi says the game of politics is a “masculinity performance” that must be performed to maintain power.

He adds that the masculine nature of politics makes it extremely difficult for women to succeed. There is currently only one female head of state in Africa. Samia Suluhu Hassan in Tanzaniaand she inherited power as deputy leader when her male boss died.

Political leaders in Africa and beyond are expected to be symbols of strength and resilience.

Particularly as the leader ages, his health becomes a highly sensitive matter of enormous national importance, as we saw in the US elections this year.

Adekeye Adebajo, a professor at the University of Johannesburg, said that the continent’s leaders “give the impression that the health of their country depends on their own personal health” and that a leader’s illness is often treated as a state secret.

If something happens to them, it could impact the economy and markets and change the political landscape, a Zimbabwean security expert told the BBC. For this reason, additional precautionary measures are being taken.

In countries with weak political institutions, political succession procedures are often not well established, leading to fears that a leadership vacuum could lead to a power struggle.

Over two decades ago, the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, was assassinated by one of his bodyguards.

Authorities refused to admit he had been killed and continued to claim he had been sent to Zimbabwe for medical treatment while they considered what to do next.

In fact, it was his body that was flown across the continent in an elaborate charade.

His inexperienced son Joseph was eventually elected as the country’s next leader.

In Malawi, the government delayed announcing the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika in 2012, sparking speculation that it was trying to prevent the succession of his vice president Joyce Banda.

But in neighboring Zambia, where two presidents have died in office, and in Ghana, where then-President John Atta Mills died in 2012, constitutional processes functioned smoothly.

Over the years, various African leaders have responded to questions about their poor health with either silence or anger.

In 2010, Zimbabwe’s former leader Robert Mugabe described years of speculation as “naked lies from the Western-manipulated media.”

Three years ago it was announced that Tanzania’s President John Magufuli had died after weeks of denying he was ill. People were even arrested for spreading false information about his health, only for them to ultimately turn out to be right.

One of the most extreme cases of a government concealing its leader’s health occurred in Nigeria, where President Umaru Yar’Adua was not seen in public for five months.

His office said he was undergoing treatment in January 2010 and was “feeling better.” However, there were numerous reports stating that he was “brain dead.”

Yar’Adua never appeared in public again and his death was announced in May of the same year.

“Some of these people just want to stay in power,” Prof. Tendi said, even to the bitter end.

Many leaders, including outside Africa, do not believe that their citizens have a right to know about their health, which is kept strictly confidential.

But there were exceptions.

After seven weeks of official sick leave in 2017, Nigeria’s President Buhari revealed to his country that he had never been “so sick” in his life, but did not say what was wrong.

Cameroon’s former president Ahmadou Ahidjo is believed to be the only African leader to resign for health reasons in 1982 after ruling for 22 years.

This kind of transparency and relinquishment of power is rare. More than 20 African leaders have died in office, some without telling their country that they were unwell at all.

The example was not adopted by Ahidjo’s successor, Paul Biya.

Leaders may fear that disclosing health problems could embolden their rivals or even foreign powers seeking to influence or destabilize the country.

Some presidents have been overthrown after news of their poor health became known.

In 1996, it was publicly revealed that the kleptocratic leader of Zaire (now DR Congo), Mobutu Sese Seko, was being treated for prostate cancer.

This undoubtedly made it much easier for Laurent Kabila to lead a Rwandan-backed rebel group across the vast country.

Too ill to coordinate resistance, Mobutu fled into exile in Morocco, leaving Kabila to seize power.

“If you are seen as weak, that is a signal to your internal competitors,” Prof Tendi said.

But Nigerian farmer and teacher Abeku Adams, 41, who has seen two presidents die in office, said the secrecy could also be a “cultural thing.”

“In many African cultures, secrecy about one’s health is viewed as part of the healing process. This could be the possible reason why they hide or lie about their health,” he said.

While private citizens have the right to keep their medical records confidential, it is argued that political leaders do not have this luxury because their health can have an impact on the entire country.

As more African countries adopt stricter succession processes, there are calls for greater transparency around the health of their leaders, particularly from the continent’s increasingly younger population.

“Governments owe it to their citizens to share such information,” Mr. Adams said.

He insists that because citizens pay taxes, they should have insight into the health of their leaders.

It could be that Malawi’s highly competitive political system and next year’s elections have prompted Chakwera to do his public exercises – to show he is fitter than his main rival, Peter Mutharika, 15 years his senior.

In contrast, Biya faces little electoral threat – he has already won five, despite opposition complaints of vote-rigging.

In a true democracy, a leader’s health should be transparent, a political analyst told the BBC.

But the nature of politics in much of Africa, where ruling parties are often accused of election manipulation, military coups are always a threat and even elected presidencies can be hereditary, transparency is not a practice that many leaders appear willing to adopt any time soon.