Editorial: Biya's absence; Gov’t should respect press freedom.

Last Tuesday, the Cameroon government was at variance with that dictum, which aligns with the United Nations Universal Declaration of freedoms and rights.  

According to the Minister of Territorial Administration, MINAT, Paul Atanga Nji, “Any debate in the media on the state of the health of the President of the Republic is therefore formally prohibited…offenders will have to face the rigour of the law”.

All 10 state governors are by the ministerial fiat required  to create “monitoring units responsible for monitoring and recording all broadcasts and debates in private media and identifying the authors of tendentious comments, including those who act through social networks”. 

After some dozen government officials and ruling party barons vigorously denied alarming rumours about the bill of health of President Paul Biya, and with assurance that he was in "excellent health", “works and goes about his business in Geneva” and “will return to Cameroon in the coming days”, The Guardian Post thought the sleeping dogs fanning the rumours would have been ignored.

We agree with the Minister of Territorial Administration that the health of the president, unlike in other democracies, should be kept secret. But when he goes to the hospital, like he once visited an eye centre in Yaounde, it should be public knowledge.

The president is also known to have occasionally announced "short private visits" to Europe without anybody raising an eyebrow. 

But when he leaves for a summit in China, and a month after leaving the country, there is no official announcement where our beloved "God given" leader and "number one goal getter", to quote a CRTV commentator, patriotic Cameroonians should demand explanation.

Cameroon, no doubt, is a bilingual country. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the health bill of any public official should be public knowledge. But in the Francophone system, it is the reverse.

How to balance it in Cameroon is a different ball game where truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, should be separated from rumours, lies, misinformation and outright fabrications.

On both sides, the freedom of the press should be paramount. Journalists, especially the social media hoods and many bloggers, do not write the biblical Gospels.

Information and Communication Technologies, ICT, have made the media easily accessible to everyone. But it has also made it more difficult to separate facts from fiction and so has had it good and bad sides.

Nevertheless, as Albert Camus, French philosopher and author has said, "most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”

The Cameroon Liberty Law on Liberty of Communication is one of the most draconian as it criminalises libel, which universally is a civil offence. To add salt to injuries, there is also the National Communication Council, NCC, which goes after gutter journalists with excruciating sanctions to defaulters. 

So why not let the laws go after reckless rumour mongers whose spin mills are even not at the reach of the Cameroon government? 

Was the rumour about the health of the president not fanned by the social media?

Does the Cameroon government, talk less of the country’s ten governors, have the means to police and monitor the world wide web digital revolution that has made every citizen a potential journalist?

At The Guardian Post, we adhere to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics that our “role is to seek truth, provide a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues, and act independently”.

But there are quacks, charlatans and social media spin nurses who the governors cannot monitor. For them to attempt to do so will be a violation of press freedom that does more harm to the image of the country and the personality of the Head of State.

MINAT quotes security concerns in its attempt to gag the press but to cite Thomas Jefferson again: “The only security of all is a free press”. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3259 of Monday October 14, 2024