Lynsey Chutel

President Peter Mutharika returned to Malawi on Sunday Oct. 16, just as he’d promised. Mutharika left to attend the United Nations General Assembly mid-September and just didn’t come back. His cagey communications team would not divulge the leader’s itinerary, sparking rumors that he’d died, and the hilarious hashtag #BringBackMutharika.

Mutharika is the latest African president to disappear without a word to his people. Communication between leaders and their constituents often grow quieter after elections. Poor public relations are a signal of the lack of accountability and transparency displayed by many African leaders.


Peter Mutharika


Mutharika’s jaunt in New York had nothing on Cameroonian’s president Paul Biya’s spontaneous stays at European hotels. In 2009, his three-week holiday in La Baule, southern France cost $40,000 a day.

“Like any other worker, president Paul Biya has a right to his vacations,” information minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said at the time. Biya has been in power since 1982.



Paul Biya

But this time, one Cameroonian won’t let Biya catch a break while his country suffers. In a video that is going viral on social media, an unidentified man stands outside the Intercontinental in Geneva, condemning Biya and his entourage for living in a hotel for two months while Cameroonian’s struggled to make a living back home.

“I’ve come back again to the Intercontinental to make a fuss, to ask what are you still doing here? What do you do everyday?” the man shouted, continuing to berate Biya until hotel staff shooed him away. He staged the same protest earlier this year and vowed to return until Biya went home.

The physical absence of leaders further exposes poor leadership. In many instances a president’s illness—or death—has given way to a power vacuum. The offices these disappearing presidents occupy (when they’re around) center around personalities and their allies, rather than creating strong institutions that serve the people.

Malawians in particular have every right to be suspicious of a disappearing leader: In 2013 an already dead president Bingu wa Mutharika was still connected to life support and flown to South Africa for medical treatment, according to a report by the Global Post.

An inquest into his death showed that his allies tried to keep up the lie to avoid swearing in then deputy president Joyce Banda in order to clear the way the way for his brother, Peter Mutharika (the younger Mutharika eventually had to win an election to gain power).

Across the border, death rumors that proved to be true plagued Zambia’s last two presidents. President Michael Sata disappeared from public view in 2014, missing an address to the United Nations and Zambia’s 50th independence celebrations. He joked in parliament, “I am not dead,” when he resurfaced, but died a few months later in October 2014 of an undisclosed illness.


Michael Sata

Sata’s predecessor, Levy Mwanawasa, had a stroke at an African Union summit in Ethiopia and was whisked away to France where he was declared dead at age 58 in 2008. Mwanawasa’s office spent some energy during his term dismissing rumors of the late president’s ill health.


Levy Mwanawasa

In Guinea-Bissau, president Malam Bacai Sanha died of an undisclosed illness at age 64 in a Paris hospital in 2012. The president was also in and out of hospital during his term. Rumor had it that he was suffering from diabetes, but his office was never open with the public. Diplomats told the press he’d been in a coma before his death.


Malam Bacai Sanha


It’s an all too familiar story for many Africans: Leaders’ whose aides swear they’re fit as a fiddle, dying in office under a cloud of mixed messages. A politician admitting to ill health the way Hillary Clinton did during her campaign, expressing vulnerability and displaying openness, is almost unheard of on the continent, even for leaders who have been firmly ensconced in office for years.

Africa’s longest serving ruler, Omar Bongo died of cancer in a Spanish hospital in 2009. Just hours before his death was publicly announced, officials angrily denied reports of his death and banned Gabon’s media from discussing the president’s health.


Omar Bongo

Ethiopia’s longtime ruler Meles Zenawi’s illness was described as “minor” just weeks before he died in a Brussels hospital in 2012, aged 57.


Meles Zenawi

In 2010, Nigerian president Umaru Yar’Adua’s death caused a constitutional crisis. The severity of Yar’Adua’s illness was hidden from the public and some politicians, as Yar’Adua failed to formally transfer his powers to his deputy president Goodluck Jonathan before being airlifted to Saudi Arabia.

The latest gaffe by current president Muhammadu Buhari shows that the Nigeria still hasn’t learned how to control the message.

For more information check the source.

Source: https://qz.com/812172/the-mystery-of-africas-disappearing-presidents/

cc:Lalasticlala, Mynd44, Seun

Africans and their sick presidents

FP now Seun
Abi na everytime be celebrities news
This is Educative now

OP, just add President Buha**'s name to the list because we all know something is wrong somewhere.




African leaders and hogging positions of power like it's their birthrights are one and two.
Mugabe, 92, is still going to contest in elections.

Hayatou, caf president for 29 YEARS now is still running again.



This continent....... Only God can save it.

Who agitated the colonial masters leave
I'm short of words.
Don't know how I feel after reading this.
If this is not depressing, what is?
And some peasants wanna die in place of these leaders





Sure the jokes section of NL's still kicking