By
Christopher Ambe
In what looks like a return to censorship, the
critical talk show programme of the Southwest Regional Station of state-owned Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV),Buea ,rated by listeners as the best programme of
the station, has ,surprisingly, been banned.
Although it is the
station manager David Chuye Bunyui, who signed the banning order, it is
believed that Southwest Governor Bernard Okaka Bilai, must have influenced the
ban because of growing criticisms of the latter’s administration by the
panelists of the club.
In his banning order,
Station Manager David Chuye Bunyui, failed to state the reason for the ban,
which has been widely condemned by advocates of press freedom.
“We cannot be moving
forward and backward with the fight for a free press in Cameroon”, remarked one
angry listener, who learned of the ban. “There is no doubt that what animates
democracy in any country is a free press.”
An official of CRTV
Buea who preferred not to be named and who is totally against the ban by his boss
told The Recorder that even the National Communication Council (NCC) would not
have banned a popular programme as press club without a warning to the accused.
The ban, styled as
Note of Service and dated July 22, 2014, simply reads, “The program “Press
Club” broadcast on the regional radio station from 8-9 AM is henceforth
suspended from the air till further notice. The head of the regional station is
charged with the implementation of this notice”
Contacted by The
Recorder in his office to find out why Press
Club was banned, Mr. Chuye Bunyui claimed that “the manner in which the July
12 edition of the programme was done was most unprofessional” but refused to grant a full interview
He said one of the
two guests-who are both legal experts-
on the programme that day used insulting language to refer to some local administrators, allegedly implicated in what
is today known as Fako land –grabbing. The guests were Ikome Ngongi,a retired
UN legal consultant and Fako elite, and Tambe Tiku Christopher, a University of
Buea law don and Southwest regional coordinator of the National Commission on
Human Rights and Freedoms.
The ban has come amid
complaints of anonymous death threats by journalists of the different media
houses who constitute panelists of “Press Club”. The journalists reported the
death threats following their dissection, on air, of certain sensitive matters
of public interest such as illegal land acquisition in Fako by some administrative officers, who by law
are not supposed to own land where they administer.
The Recorder gathered
that after the July 12 edition of Press Club,in which the Southwest Governor Bernard Okala
Bilai,was cited as an alleged land grabber, he angrily invited the station
manager of CRTV Buea and seriously warned
him about the critical nature of the programme which he (the governor) thought was causing hatred or dislike of some people
from other parts of the country who have acquired landed property in Fako.
It is believed that the
governor must have pressured Mr.Chuye Bunyui to submission, to suspend the
programme, even if the station manager would not disclose it.
Panelists of Press Club are Editor Christopher Ambe of The Recorder Newspaper, Ayang Mc Donald of
Eden Newspaper, Dr.Ernest Molua of The Entrepreneur Online, Nana Walter Wilson
and Editor Bouddih Adams of The Post Newspaper, and Senior Journalist Matute
Menyoli of CRTV Buea who is the current presenter/moderator of Press Club.
Apart from Matute
Menyoli, the rest of the panelists are all from the independent media
Until the July 22
ban,the programme, which was launched in April 2006, had been running for over eight
(8) years uninterrupted despite its critical content, which has been helping
defaulting workers of both the public and private sectors sit-up.
Senior CRTV Journalist
Sam Bokuba who conceived Press Club
and served as pioneer moderator/presenter said the programme was born out of
the desire to provide wider leverage to media professionals “to make informed
comments and analysis on news events”
Worthy of note is the fact that, Press Club’s
edition of September 19, 2006 on speculative reporting, got shortlisted for the
finals of the 2007 BBC Excellence Radio Awards and the programme has received an
award from the Cameroon Association of English-speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ)
for its significant contributions to nation-building.
Shocking revelations
made on Press Club on the illicit
acquisition, by some local administrators, of land ceded by the Cameroon
Development Corporation (CD) to indigenous communities in Fako, caused the Government
of Cameroon to set a commission of inquiry, whose findings are yet to be made
public. Investigation into the alleged land grabbing has left those implicated panicking, and
they are believed to be the ones covertly threatening the lives of the panelists.
So serious is the
matter of land grabbing in Fako Division that, the Minister of State Property,
Surveys and Land Tenure,Mrs.Jacqueline Koung
A Bessike,has, in a circular dated July 18,2014 and addressed to the Governor
of the Southwest Region, the Senior
Divisional Officer(SDO) for Fako among others, stopped any further land
surrender in Fako by CDC ,pending the findings of investigations.
President Biya’s war
against corrupt practices has already sent many high-level government ofcials
to prison.
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