Boko Haram

Hassan Sylla Bakari

Cameroon and Chad disagree over press strategy
In spite of remarks by Cameroon’s Communication minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, that the two countries had jointly elaborated a harmonised communication strategy, it emerged that both parties presented diametrically opposed and contradictory visions on how to report Boko Haram. And the visiting Chadian minister of Communication, Hassan Sylla Bakari, left Cameroon visibly disappointed, after a 3-day stay here.
By Ojong Steven Ayukogem in Yaounde
A project to elaborate a harmonised communication strategy on Boko Haram for Cameroon and Chad, did not bear the expected fruit after all; this despite three days of intense discussions between Cameroonian authorities and a visiting Chadian delegation led by the Communication minister of Cameroon’s north eastern neighbour, Hassan Sylla Bakari.
    Even though scripted remarks by the Communication ministers of both countries during a press conference in Yaounde pointed to the fact that they shared a common vision about reporting the Boko Haram insurgency, it turned out that the communication approaches tabled for discussion by the respective parties were totally contradictory and divergent.

    Issa Tchiroma, for instance, talked of a more “professional and responsible” approach to reporting the war. Though Tchiroma emphasized the need for a communication that reassures the populations while protecting the dignity of the African man, he however insisted that horror pictures of the war should not be screened and information from the battlefield be “doctored” before they are disseminated for public consumption.
    For his part, the Chadian Communication minister talked of a more aggressive and matter-of-fact communication strategy. Hassan Sylla Bakari expressed the view that a peaceful communication strategy is out of place during war situations. He said for the populations to better appreciate and comprehend what is happening on the battlefield, they should be given factual information from the warfront.
    “You don’t hide information from the public and expect them to be reassured in times of war. I urge journalists to publish facts and figures and even pictures of slain Boko Haram militants if they think that it will make their reports more credible,” he said, corroborating that “in times of war we should keep aside professional ethics and deontology, and adopt a more nationalistic approach.”
    Sylla Bakari, who obtained a diploma in journalism from the Institut Siantou Supérieure in Yaounde, Cameroon, observed that when western channels report on Africa and the third world they never bother to respect ethics; they screen pictures of starving Ethiopians and slain African Heads of State, but not pictures of French journalists that were killed at Charlie Hebdo.”
     The Chadian government spokesman mustered strong that Chad and Cameroon are independent and sovereign countries and should shun all foreign models that only seek to undermine their national interests.
He wondered why France should claim to support the war efforts against Boko Haram yet over 80% of the arms confiscated from Boko Haram are French made.
    “If they truly want Boko Haram to be eradicated then they should stop selling arms to the terrorist group,” Sylla Bakari said.
    Many journalists at the press conference supported the opinion of the Chadian Communication minister on reporting Boko Haram. Reporters said they have been the target of criticisms by the public since the start of the war on Boko Haram. They said their readers and viewers say they want to see evidence that Boko Haram terrorists are truly being killed in their hundreds by national forces. 
    “Where are the bodies of the hundreds of Boko Haram jihadists that you claim are killed by our soldiers? Every other day we see corpses of slain Cameroonian soldiers being exposed at the military headquarters here, yet you claim that we are killing Boko Haram militants in their hundreds, while only one or two of our men have fallen on the warfront. Who is fooling who about this war?” observed a commentator, who said he would believe reports by the Cameroonian media on Boko Haram only when real pictures of fallen Boko Haram militants are shown on TV screens and newspaper pages.
    When we sought the opinions of some experts at the ministry of External Relations on the harmonized communication strategy with Chad, several of them doubted if the Presidency would endorse the proposed plan for harmonisation that emerged from Issa Tchiroma’s three-day working sessions with his Chadian counterpart. The experts argued that the communication approaches of the two countries were too divergent to be harmonised.
    Issa Tchiroma also expressed reservations on the corridors of his ministry about the workability of the harmonised communication strategy with Chad. He insinuated that the Chadian approach was too incongruous as to be harmonised with the Cameroonian model.
    “We are not used to wars here and so our approach to issues cannot be the same as theirs. We prefer a more responsible and professional approach. Chad has experienced a number of armed conflicts and that may explain why their approach to issues might differ from ours,” said Issa Tchiroma on the sidelines of the press conference in Yaounde.
    An authoritative voice at the Cameroon Presidency also concluded that because of the glaringly contradictory visions of the two countries, the Cameroon-Chad joint communication strategy would certainly not be endorsed by President Paul Biya.
    The proposed joint strategy had as main highlights the putting in place of national cells for strategic communication in Chad and Cameroon, the sharing of information between these cells; the setting up of integrated media observatories to monitor developments on the war fronts and provide information to the communication cells; ensuring coherence of information put out by the “états majors” of both countries; the holding of regular press briefings with national media; amongst others.