ROLE OF THE MEDIA


Multi-party rule brought about the birth of many newspapers in 1990.


task very difficult. Thus, publication took the form of hand written tracts, typed and circle styled pages, which were secretly disseminated by way of distribution through long distances on foot. The administering authorities fought hard to stamp out this new phenomenon but the population became increasingly aware of the necessity to know what was going on.


The role of the media under the monolithic system Cameroon was given independence in 1961 and by this time the embryonic written press had gained flesh and the political parties too had matured to the extent that the first indigenous government under Ahmadou Ahidjo considered the press and political parties as dangerous to the unification process of the newly born Federal Republic of Cameroon. In 1962, the then Head of State issued a series of edicts commonly referred to as “the 1962 Ordinances” abolishing all the various press organs and creating a new offence in the law known as “subversion”. Anything that was said or written that tended to criticize


government, state apparatus or its members was tantamount to the crime of “subversion”. A secret police force was instituted and given unlimited powers to enter private premises to conduct searches for written documentation and books that propounded ideas contrary to those of government. It was subversion to pretend to be a reporter or journalist outside the state-owned media. The accused were brought to a military tribunal installed in Yaounde and were tried summarily. Those sentenced to death were immediately executed and those sentenced to life imprisonment were deposited into concentration camps that had been set up for that purpose. In 1966, all the various political


parties, unions and syndicates that flourished during the colonial era and the early years of the Federal Republic of Cameroon were fused into a single political party with the Head of State as its leader. Again, it was subversion for one to pretend to be a political leader outside the one party and many political leaders went the way of the journalists. It is during this period that one


can ironically assert that the media constituted a vital fourth estate though it played a role that in a democracy would be described as wholly negative. The party-state created a single national radio station3 single newspaper.4


and a Parliament was a


caricature because its membership was hand picked.5


The media was


thus used to propagate government policy and when Parliament was meeting, all the speeches presented by the Members of Government were broadcast live with intermittent applause and hand clapping from the “Parliamentarians” and subsequently echoed by the single government newspaper. Hardly did a Parliamentarian take the rostrum except to rise to a motion of support to the Head of State and government. Nothing was known of the business that occurred in the House. Bills said to have been presented by government and adopted in committees were read out in plenary and adopted by applause and hand clapping. Thus, a type of media culture was built into the monolithic party- state system, a press culture of deceit, of false propaganda of government


activities and commentaries in their favour. The private media was stifled.


No one dared criticize or speak against government for that would constitute the crime of subversion. This monolithic Parliament was simply a rubber stamp for a dictatorship that enjoyed unlimited broadcast by the state-owned, party-owned audio- visual and written media. This state of affairs lasted 40 years.


The role of the media under the multi-party rule On 26 May 1990, a group of citizens from the English speaking part of the country broke the spell by forcefully launching another political party6


in


Bamenda of the North-West Region. This triggered a wave of protests and street manifestations. Newspapers were born overnight and reporting of daily events became the rule of the day. This also led to the formation of many other political parties and finally the surrender of the government. By November of that year, the one party Parliament voted laws authorising the formation of political parties7 creation of press organs.8


and the The Parliamentarian | 2014: Issue Three - Cameroon | 21


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36