Encyclopedia world biography paul biya et la

President of Cameroon since 1982

Paul Biya (born Paul Barthélemy Biya'a bi Mvondo; 13 February 1933) is a Cameroonian politician who is the second president of Cameroon since 1982, having previously been the fifth prime minister from 1975 to 1982.

As of 2025, he is the second-longest-ruling president in Africa (after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in Equatorial Guinea) and the longest consecutively serving current non-royal national leader in the world and the oldest head of state in the world.

A native of Cameroon's south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as prime minister. He succeeded Ahidjo as president upon the latter's surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power in a 1983–1984 staged attempted coup in which he eliminated all of his major rivals.^[1]

Biya introduced political reforms within the context of a one-party system in the