Media Control Freaks: Running After Media Revolution!

By Tazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.
It used to be known as the press, then the news media, and now just the media. They all mean the same thing these days! The radio, television, newspapers or the web, are all inanimate things, but they can teach, illuminate and inspire to the extent to which the humans behind them are determined to use them to those ends.
Creative programmes like "ça va se savoir", the Jerry Springer Show, Judge Judy, or Le Tribunal of Sky One Radio are all media programmes in what has become a vast-entertainment-arena-cum-media world. Some of the programmes are animated by those who have never taken a single course in journalism – on the internet, a journalist does not even need to be human; but this is no excuse to get at a programme for frivolous reasons...

With the communication revolution that has humbled even the most ardent dictators and control freaks, it is incredible how easily our new communication boss uses frivolous arguments from people who claim to want freedom from the press, to stifle freedom of the press! The man seems to be all over the place with outdated methods and approaches, urging the media to do only what he wants them to do!

When one considers the many pacts he signed, the many oaths he took and the many declarations he made in honour of freedom of the press while he was in the wilderness, and how easily he has become a turncoat and started signing new pacts, taking new oaths and making new declarations from his new station at "home", it is difficult to believe anything he says and does! The vehemence with which he spoke while in the wilderness is the same vehemence with which he speaks his new language so pleasing to his new soul mates!

The communication revolution is the possibility of creating new images through digital-era doctoring, live-from-everywhere satellite television, live-from-everywhere mobile telephone messages transmitted through satellite, the Web, internet and much more. The revolution can contribute to the fight against crime, but if not well managed, it could end in the futility of bad options and worse options. The bad options would be the refusal to do the right thing well, like mismanaging digital national identity cards for selfish ends of winning elections; the worse options, the wish to "control" the malleable mobile phone sector. Indeed, with the set-up of our mobile phone market, and the extension of the Cameroon network to other countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and others, fighting crime by tracing the origin of calls can be as futile as fighting a translational disease only in one place or one country!

However many colours the truth may bear, the function of journalists excludes keeping secrets; indeed, a journalist has no right to interpose a blockade between information legitimately acquired and the public they serve. For this, they usually get into trouble with power, and distinguish themselves by the courage and integrity with which they stand up to power. It would be remembered that journalists were on the "enemies" list of Nixon, unearthed during the Watergate hearings; the aim of the Nixon administration was to use government "machinery to screw our political enemies". Since it is clear that like Nixon, the Cameroon government considers opponents, adversaries and rivals as "enemies", the question that has not yet got an answer is whether there are appropriate measures – legislation, rules and regulations – to ensure that government does not misuse phone registers to create insecurity for its "enemies".

Interestingly, the technology that governs mobile phone identification is the same technology that would govern identification of voters. If the government has become so caring about the security of citizens, one expects it to be equally caring about their sovereignty. This belated interest in the power of new technologies for information and communication should lead to a reawakening about the urgent need for a voters’ central database in Cameroon.

Web journalism and mobile phones have extraordinary power to conduct credible opinion polls about any type of issue, including the popularity of individual persons. The cloak-and-dagger game the CPDM is playing within its ranks with motions of support and proclamations of Paul Biya’s candidature for 2011 gives the sorry impression that they think Cameroonians do not believe that he is indeed the President of the CPDM. The macabre exercise seems to have turned into a conduit for those appointed into government to show their gratitude to the man; and for those out of government to announce their desperate presence to the man. In the process, the country’s time is wasted and the image of the country is tarnished more than they usually attribute to the opposition and those in the Diaspora.

People like our new communication boss who suddenly find themselves on the other side of the divide, usually get cynical and indulge in rhetoric based on their misunderstanding of the nature of politics and of man. Overnight, they transform themselves to high priests of their "domains". This is why our new boss has suddenly forgotten that society – in which journalists are found – can never coincide with its political representation – the government. Journalism is the province of selfless servants of the truth. Government’s attempt to define patriotism as the singing of the praise of the government is foolhardy; so too is the attempt to seek the synthesis of the plural media landscape, that democracy makes impossible.

For journalism to thrive and play its role as the Fourth Estate, government must always remain a news subject, not a news partner! Otherwise, we may be manipulated into confusing freedom of talking with freedom of speech!

Eliminating Solid Waste Materials in Our Communities

By Mofor Samuel
A clean environment is the responsibility of every human being। It starts with each person doing his or her part to avoid polluting the air, water and land. Environmental health has become a major global concern in the last three decades. Economic growth and industrial pollution have brought about serious changes in the environment. The consequent problems include global warming, unfavourable changes in weather systems, deforestation, erosion, poor sanitation etc. The environmental degradation has brought virtually all countries to the realization of the dangers posed by the deteriorating environment. Our country Cameroon is no exemption to the environmental problems mentioned above. Presently erosion is a major problem in the southern half of the country while

deforestation and desertification cause great concern in the northern parts of the country.
Environmental health remains poor in Cameroon. The reason being that in our urban and semi urban communities, necessary services are not provided at all, poorly provided or badly managed. The provision of services should be guided by policies which are faithfully implemented, as well as laws and regulations which are impartially enforced. It is up to the consumer to maintain proper balance between environmental and economic issues. With enough individual concern and pressure, salvaging and recycling will replace dumping as the primary means of disposing of waste.

The importance of proper management of solid waste for the health of the individual and the community cannot be overemphasized. The components of solid waste management includes: storage in generating premises, collection, transportation and final disposal. Proper and sanitary handling of solid waste materials in the premises where they are generated constitutes a very important link in the chain of activities for efficient solid waste management.

Bins should be made of durable material to prevent easy disintegration, enable them to withstand wear and tear for a reasonable length of time; and must be designed to keep waste out of sight and reach of insects, rats, dogs, cats and other animals. But for households, public places like markets, parks, motor parks, public gardens, schools churches, mosques etc must have containers for solid waste storage. The disposal of solid waste materials is the final treatment given to the waste in order to make it stable or environmentally friendly. Sanitary methods for the elimination of solid wastes in our urban and semi urban communities include the following: sanitary landfill or controlled tipping, composting, biogas, incineration, sorting, recycling and pulverization.

The recycling of solid waste materials should be a deliberate policy in Cameroon. People should be made to be aware of the possibilities and financial benefits of recycling solid waste. In the printed edition of The Recorder No. 11 of November 1, 2007, this contributor in a write up titled: "Environmental Protection and Scavengers", called on local council authorities to strengthen and encourage the activities of this group of people by throwing their full weight behind them- providing necessary training, machinery, infrastructure, personnel and materials etc. Council authorities can still dialogue with them to see how the activity can be better coordinated. Therefore the government needs to encourage and facilitate private sector participation in the recycling of solid waste.

Sustainable handling and management of solid waste materials equally need a proper identification and classification of solid waste materials:
Garbage: Waste from the preparation, cooking and serving of food. Market refuse, waste from the handling, storage and sale of produce and meats. They are generated in households, institutions, and commercial concerns (hotels, stores, restaurants, markets etc).

Rubbish: Combustible (primarily organic) - paper, cardboard, cartons, wood, boxes, plastics, rags, cloth, bedding, leather, rubber, grass, leaves, yard trimmings. Non combustible (primarily inorganic) - metals, tin cans metal foils, dirt, stones, bricks, ceramics, crockery, glass bottles etc.

Ashes: Residue from fires used for cooking and for heating buildings, cinders.
Bulky wastes: Large auto parts, tyres, stoves, refrigerators, other large appliances, furniture, large crates, trees, branches, palm fronds, stumps, flotage.
Street refuge: Street sweepings, dirt, leaves, catch basin dirt, contents of receptacles. They are found in streets, sidewalks, alleys, vacant lots etc.
Dead animals: Small animals- cats, dogs, poultry. Large animals like horses and cows.
Abandoned vehicles: Automobiles, trucks.

Construction and demolition wastes: Lumber, roofing, and sheathing scraps, rubble, broken concrete, plaster, conduit, pipe, wire insulation.
Industrial refuse: Solid waste resulting from industrial processes and manufacturing operations. (food processing wastes, boiler house cinders, wood, plastic, and metal scraps and shavings etc. They are generated from factories, power plants etc.
Special wastes: Hazardous wastes- pathological wastes, explosives, radioactive materials, security wastes-confidential documents, negotiable papers. Are generated by households, hospitals, institutions, stores, industry etc.
Animal and agricultural wastes: Manures, crop residues. They come from farms and feed lots.

Sewage treatment residues: Coarse screenings, grit, septic tank sludge, dewatered sludge. Source- treatment plants, septic tanks.
This general classification of solid waste materials has been made available to readers courtesy of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Publication: Guidelines for Local Governments on Solid Waste Management. This publication is targeting individuals, households, communities, industrialists and above all decision makers etc.

A variety of approaches are needed to protect communities from filth and contamination. The first stage is to salvage and recycle solid wastes- both industrial and household. Manufacturers should also be encouraged to produce items-cans- capable of being reused, recycled or disintegrated when attacked by invasive bacteria. Government incentives can be provided to encourage the recycling of junked automobiles.

Finally the individual can influence the production of the various types of packaging and containers for food products through wise purchasing. Consumers can avoid products that are not biodegradable or reusable, or that cannot be recycled. Consumers could also avoid products infancy packages, giving first choice to products packaged in recycled material and products that do not need packaging. Such an effort, if undertaken by many people, would eventually bring about change in the kinds of containers produced by manufacturers.

Individuals can also continue with their efforts to eliminate litter. Beer cans and other garbage thrown onto the road side, into wooded areas and on to beaches not only destroy the appearance of the land, but are also harmful to wildlife. On the whole, a vigourous enforcement of litter laws would be helpful in this regard.

Buea:Rain Against Irresponsible Waste Disposal

By MOFOR SAMUEL
Buea -Cameroon:The contravention of regulations governing the approval for plans for homes and other premises by architects, engineers, builders, house owners , proprietors, greedy local government authorities, town planners and policy makers, coupled with the allocation of any and every available space for the construction of human settlements, with little or no provision nor respect for drainage systems, sewer lines and the collection and disposal of solid waste often poses serious environmental problems.

Global warming in all its ramifications has led to unfavourable changes in weather systems. This has resulted to heavy rains, floods, erosion, worsened sanitation amongst others in some of our communities and settlements.

Residents in some quarters of Great Soppo and even beyond for some time now have known no sleep since the month of June came to its end. In fact rain water coming as run off, has declared an open war with residents in what this commentator will describe as ‘Back to Sender parcel’ to residents, as if to say their mail was not meant for that particular destination, as far as the irresponsible disposal of household waste is concerned.

It should be noted that this commentator had in one of his write ups sounded the alarm bell that the Community Graveyard in Great Soppo was being submerged by household waste. Apparently since no one dared to take any action, the rain is now paying residents in their own coins.

Fast running rain water through its erosive action is cutting off heavy chunks of solid waste from the mountain of garbage found on the cemetery in Great Soppo and distributing them systematically as it cascades down the slopes to the low land areas. No body is spared in this distribution. Landlords and other residents could be seen engaged in hot water as far as pointing of accusing fingers and victim blaming are concerned. Not even the chief’s palace in Great Soppo is spared by the onslaught of the fast running water and it load. Planlessness of recent has been widespread in some quarters of Great Soppo and even beyond. Even where plans exist, they are most often observed in the breach. For example landlords do not respect drainage systems and even sewer lines. The end result is just the ugly experiences that residents are currently witnessing with the arrival of the rains. But then is Great Soppo the only area that is faced with this problem of solid waste disposal?
Garbage disposal in most our communities pose a serious national problem which simply not go away and should be a matter of deep concern at every level of government.
How do we deal with the vast amount of waste which makes our urban and rural communities and settlement breeding ground for vermin and disease? How can the average Cameroonian be made to be conscious of the seriousness of environmental problems like improper human waste disposal, unsaved water supply and massive air pollution.

Mountains of refuse have become more or less permanent features of many of our towns and cities. Such a situation is intolerable and we must not tolerate it. The problem of garbage disposal has besieged us for so many years due to political constraints, corruption, inadequate manpower, maldeployment of staff, inadequate provision of materials as well as misguided inter professional conflicts, and ignorance – widespread ignorance as well as counterproductive cultural beliefs and practices constitute a major constraint in programmes, if any, for community mobilization for environmental health

Aware of the barriers on the path of winning the battle against filth, this write up seeks to highlight the need for every one to get involved in environmental sanitation – policy makers at all levels, individuals and communities, the media industry and the private sector, professional, cultural, religious, social organizations and clubs not leaving out the non governmental organizations.
Solid waste include garbage (house hold waste) papers, empty plastics and sachets, cartons, glass, scrap iron, old tyres etc. Industrial waste and hospitals waste are special forms of solid waste. Furthermore, the composition of waste varies from place to place – neighbourhoods within a town or city. It depends on food habits, cultural practices, the occupations and trade of the different people that make up the community or settlement. For example, the types of food that people eat determine the type of waste they produce. At one point in time, leaves were used to wrap most of the food sold or produced. Therefore leaves constituted about 80 percent of solid waste in most of our semi-urban and even urban settlements. Between 1990 and today, that is if this commentator’s judgment is not contested in any quarter, plastics have largely replaced leaves as food wrappers. These plastics are currently posing a very serious threat to the environment due to the irresponsible manner which they are being disposed of.

Indiscriminate disposal of solid waste without regard for hygiene or sanitation have become the order of the day. In rural areas as well as in towns and cities, on streets and highways, the story is the same: refuse everywhere and anywhere. Our markets, motor parks and other public facilities present very disgusting and nauseating sights. Mountains of refuse more or less form permanent features, blocking roads, drains and steams. Most of us pass by unmoved and unconcerned. We even sell, buy; cook and set up businesses in the midst of filth.

The health hazards caused by the indiscriminate disposal of solid waste are many and varied. Physical hazard include fires and injuries from sharp objects and broken bottles when people tread on them while dumping refuse, squatting to defecate on the refuse or scavenging. The resultant wounds are invariably contaminated and could lead to serious disease like tetanus, which could be fatal. The blockage of roads by refuse leads to traffic disorder and increases the risk of accidents. Blockage of drainage systems and streams leads to flooding which occasionally reaches disastrous proportions with loss of life and property.

Finally the indiscriminate disposal of solid waste leads to the transmission of diseases: cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, polio, hepatitis, worm infections etc. Solid waste dumps serves as breeding grounds for flies, mosquitoes, rats and other vermin, which are responsible for the transmission of malaria, yellow fever, trachoma etc.

It is very evident that we have developed a culture of filth. Such a culture is most unsatisfactory and if left unchecked, can lead to disaster. The prevailing situation and condition can be arrested and reverse if all of us want to.

ICC IS THE RIGHT ANSWER

*By Ayah Paul Abine
Those advancing criticisms against the ICC for prosecuting only African leaders appear to be completely divorced from the African realities. And their criticisms seem to be inconsistent with the incontrovertible legal principle that all persons are equal before the law. It is even tempting to contend that some of the points put forward to buttress those appreciations are more moral than legal. But the ICC is a court of law.

Few would dispute that many are African leaders who have entrenched themselves in power so much so that they do die in office without having been held to account for their atrocities against the very people they profess to lead. For their protection additionally, they have castrated their national courts by fusing the Judiciary with the Executive and making themselves the heads of both, thereby rendering the courts wholly impotent generally, and especially as against themselves. Nor is anyone familiar with the African story unaware that a number of contemporary African leaders have, in superfluity, enshrined in their constitutions absolute immunity for life for themselves within their national borders, with the result that they have placed themselves above their constitutions; and, by extension, above all State institutions, the Judiciary inclusive. None of these unfortunate developments can be said to be true of the West.

If we took Cameroon as an example to illustrate a weak judiciary, we would find that the President of the Republic appoints and dismisses members of the judiciary in his capacity as the head of the Judicial Council. He similarly disciplines, promotes and transfers them. It is not uncommon to hear even officially that he is the number one member of the judiciary. In other words, he heads both the Executive and the Judiciary. In that powerful position, he would strike fatally anyone below who dares to threaten him with mere investigation. Conversely, the subordinates cower in subservient subjugation for the protection of self and profile.

As we are all equal before the law, how else would any like leaders, suspected of heinous reprehensible conduct such as war crime, and crime against humanity, be held to account outside international tribunals like the ICC, in the face of the castration of their national courts? Would national courts have jurisdiction in the circumstance as an exception to the rule of natural justice that no-one should be judge in his own cause? Otherwise, with the entrenchment of African leaders in power for life, or at least indefinitely, what is the viable and just alternative to prosecuting them before the ICC?

We could well be right to blame international NGOs for their tilted clamouring for justice as we crusade for fairness in the dispensation of justice in our world of a global village. But that calls for the genuine unity of Africans in order to give ourselves the necessary weight to be effective like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. It does us no good that we unite only in the effort to shield from prosecution our peers who are accused of crimes against humanity because in them we see ourselves. Nor is it justifiable at law to invoke failings on the part of international NGOs to defeat justice, well grounded as our cause may be in morality.

With the leave of readers, I wish to state here that for the little that has been my lot to read, I have not chanced upon any legal principle to the effect that one can invoke as a defence against prosecution the fact that some other persons, suspected of committing similar offences, or even the same offences, have not been prosecuted. Defence in criminal law is personal. To repeat for emphasis, prosecution would not be rendered nugatory just because some of the offenders have not been prosecuted. It would be noted that the Prosecution reserves the legal right even to drop charges against a co-accused in order to use him as a witness. Doing so does not vitiate the prosecution of the remaining accused.

If well-meaning Africans there are, or even non-Africans, who want to stand up for justice in Africa, therefore, their struggle should be in defence of the defenceless who are losing their lives and property daily because they are powerless before powerful lords with insatiable lust for power and property. Arguing the case for immunity to prosecution in favour of those powerful lords on the ground that they are sitting presidents, or that charges have not been brought against some non-Africans that we have arrogated to ourselves the right to find guilty even before their being investigated, would be encouraging more lawlessness in Africa; siding with oppression, and retarding further our retarded development.

I think that ICC is the right answer to the African oppressors in our present circumstances!

*AYAH Paul ABINE is a career jurist and Member of Parliament,Cameroon’s National Assembly

CAMEROON’S SOILED IMAGE!

By AYAH Paul ABINE
Within a fortnight, two patriotic Cameroonian ministers have summoned up journalists of the private media in attempt to coerce or induce them into cleansing Cameroon’s image abroad. Very commendable indeed! Who on earth would want to wash his dirty linen in public? But the dichotomy between the public and the private media resembles the difference between reputation and disposition. The one is wholly in the limelight while the other is invisible. The latter is quite proximate to platonic love. If love has been represented as blind, it is because sight is the most unreliable of the five senses we have. What the eyes lead us to see in a dream for instance does not exist in reality. And when we throw up, we hate to see what on the tongue was so sweet, at times just seconds before. An Ibo man would jocularly ask succinctly: Who di shit for mop? We realize here that what was so sweet on the tongue is like abdominal waste before the eyes. And that is the vast difference between external visual judgment and internal reality.

Reputation being conclusions from external perceptions could be utterly misleading. We have just seen the example with vision above. What is dependable and durable then is disposition which is not only a natural endowment but is internal and direct. It is no lesson to anyone that feeling is the only sense that is exclusively personal. That is the inner drive that activates the being. As a gift from God who made us in his own image and likeness, and saw that “it was good”, disposition should be the target of our endeavours. False images built on false representation and faulty premisses are inimical to nation-building. That a weak foundation lacks the solidness to sustain the structure it carries for long is of common knowledge.


To put it the simplest way, patriotism is the rendering of honest and decent services to the nation with intent to secure the greatest joy for the greatest number. That is the direct antonym of misrepresentation which procures but abstract beatification and satisfaction of a few “good tifmen”. It is beyond doubt that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Even the Christian model, Jesus the son of God, rebuked someone for calling him holy. And he added that “There is only one holy one, my father in heaven”. When we fall, therefore, we should, like Jesus on the road to Calvary, get up with honest penitence and humility and continue carrying our crosses towards our doomsdays. We only add to our sins in our endeavour to place ourselves above our Saviour with inflated holy epithets purchased from the Pharisees. If one was a priest, one would have liked to direct the above cautionary words of Jesus to the Minister of Communication and to the President of CONAC.


The former tendered an inducement to the private press in the name of partnership in a bid to cleanse our international image with patriotic misrepresentation. One would have liked to suggest to the minister that the best solution is for him to convert the private press into public news media. Otherwise, the indestructible truth that there is a yawning chasm between the two is beyond destruction. One would also have wished to point out to him that one of the cardinal ingredients of vibrant democracy is the dissenting voice. Conversely, unison is the demise of democracy. Differences in appreciation do tickle critical reflection, and that is what helps to sustain the building of a better society. It would be fallacious to imagine that Cameroon can depart from those global, tested principles and yet end up with lasting results.

As for the President of CONAC, he completely contradicted his very mission of fighting corruption. By assigning to himself the mission to attempt to corrupt the private media with hollow representation veiled with barren slogans as patriotism, Mr. President rendered his commission nugatory. Every honest man would have thought that he would, in pursuance of his real mission, urge the private press to help him to expose the corrupt in our country. By no stretch of the imagination can anyone contend that it was within the jurisdiction of the elderly President of CONAC to invite the private press to fight for the cleansing of our image abroad by the corrupt concealment of facts. There can be no greater corruption than tendering invitations to Cameroonian pressmen to corrupt the intellect – the throne of conscience.

Mr. President may wish to know that the Ghanaian private press was not coerced into misrepresenting Ghana’s image abroad in order to attract foreign investment. Neither was it gagged with the rotten eggs of hens stolen from the commonwealth. Rawlings began by teaching the ordinary Ghanaian to be a true citizen and to earn his living honestly. He also taught that assiduous performance was the destroyer of poverty. He dispensed his teachings by personal examples rather that with sterile disquisition by regurgitation. We are living witnesses that the Ghanaians who roamed our streets as mobile tailors and tinkers all returned home to make Ghana the African model of today. Tender money to an ordinary Ghanaian carrying your luggage at a Ghanaian airport today and he/she would turn it down politely, informing you that he/she is being paid for the job.

Such are the lessons almost all Cameroonians need today, much more than high-sounding nothing awkwardly fashioned to justify unproductive disbursements. Those indeed are the sweet little deeds that build up the good image of a nation. Such virtues cannot be preached from the throne of Lucifer. They are pragmatic and do originate from firm individual and collective convictions.

But we so lack those basic notions of probity, even at those high levels in our country nowadays, that we can afford, without qualms, to invite fellow-Cameroonians to resort to the corrupt practice of falsehood in the name of cleansing our image abroad. One would have liked to feel that we all know full well that it is only the truth that sets a people free; and that only when people are free can they be productive.

Turning our backs to the truth patently explains why we are marking time, or even retrograding, while the rest of the world is making strides in the outer space. Few communities with minimal levels of morality would, to say the least, countenance the destruction of their collective image on the international scene by persons incapable of understanding even the missions assigned to them; or those shamelessly dragging those communities down the abyss of wrongdoing with unmeasured and crude pronouncements. But Cameroon is unique, in hopeless obsessions!

NB:This Piece was written on July 31, 2009 by Hon.Ayah Paul Abine, Member of Parliament for Akwaya,Cameroon. Mr.Ayah ,a career magistrate ,is generally described as a constructive critic of the Biya -regime