Crumbling under heavy pile of pressures

I don’t want to think that, the army of senior reporters, most of who, had never carried out any major or minor investigative reports, produce major or minor programmes or the legions of directors that Mendo ZE appointed, paid him back part of their salaries as appreciation of his generosity. While I can’t remotely imagine that such absurdity ever happened, rumours were nevertheless floated that, it did. And that alone, was a testimony to level of sleaze which reigned at CRTV under Professor Gervais Mendo Ze. However, the actions of the former Director General of CRTV were as though, his appointments were done in revenge to the way the government consumed recklessly, monies generated by the corporation, courtesy adverts. What is certain is that, the former Director General of CRTV, was crumbling under the heavy pile of pressures from the government’s former or acting ministers, former and acting prime ministers, Colonels and Generals of the Cameroon Army, local and topflight members of the ruling CPDM party. They were pressuring him to recruit their children, their close relatives or their boyfriends and girlfriends. And worst, those they were pressurising him to recruit, were almost always not journalists or had nothing to do in such a corporation. CRTV is besides being a hide out of one of the best trained Cameroonian journalists, who ironically, are not used or are under used, she is also an example of a media house, which has all the required tools, to compete at the summit of broadcasting on the continent, but has strangely chosen not to.

One of the reasons might be poor management but the basic reason is that, she employs mostly people who are not journalists, to do the jobs of journalists. And it might also be one of the reasons why, internal productions, which would have helped Cameroonians to develop, to discover and to also love their country is absent. Hence Cameroonians are turning to foreign radios and televisions to get information about their country albeit prepared in a stereotypical manner. The greatest danger in Cameroonians turning to foreign broadcasters are not only that, those foreign broadcasters do prepare programmes for our consumption, but the real dangers are that, they are meant to cast a debilitating veil on our history, our parents and our children and above all our country. Cameroonians have the right to chose broadcasters that they do desire to read, listen or watch, but such choice must not come by default or because, there are no sufficient national offers. But I must insist that, a majority of foreign broadcasters do thrive in the promotion of family breakdown, the destruction of our social, traditional and Christian values. This does happen simply because, the deep-seated objective of most foreign broadcasters is to promote immorality and all sorts of deviant conducts and also to downgrade people and cultures that are not akin to theirs.

But whatever the criticisms that, I have made against CRTV, which is superficial, compared to the colossal reproaches worth mounting against that media outfit, it doesn’t in any mean that, the state owned media in Cameroon: Electronic or Print, is devoid of talents or productions. There are some productions, but it is not proportional to the ambitions of a public service broadcaster that CRTV is. Furthermore, in Cameroon, the government owned electronic and print media outfits, still have the best crop of well trained professional journalists in the country. But their problem remains that, they are not used effectively or are frustrated by the system under which they are operating. CRTV as I have already mentioned, has brilliant journalists and technicians, but it seems as though, the management of the Broadcasting House, which under Professor Gervais Mendo ZE, was not better run than the tomato stall of a market woman, doesn’t like hard working and professionally conscious journalists. Hence, all sort of insidious stratagems are hatched out to frustrate the best hands of the profession within CRTV or force others to expatriate. While the best ones, who want to stay, do stay, if they want to sing praise of the corrupt and wicked regime of Paul Biya.