Ernest Sumelong
19 October 2008
interview
The newly elected President of the Cameroon Union of Journalists, CUJ, Charly Ndi Chia, has called on journalists to close ranks, work together and speak with one voice.
Ndi Chia also challenges journalists, publishers and the government to make the journalism profession the noble and respected profession it is supposed to be. In this must-read interview, he talks about his journalism career, his vision for CUJ and his assignment to cover the US Presidential Elections.
You were recently elected to head the Cameroon Union of Journalists, CUJ. Could we first of all know your background in journalism?
I started practising journalism in primary school, precisely in CBC Great Soppo. I was nicknamed "Mr. Mola", following an essay I wrote and which was considered by the teacher as excellent. That encouraged me to start writing.
One of the pieces I wrote was highly critical of the fact that the Ahidjo regime had arrested an Archbishop, His Lordship Albert Ndongmou and others like Wambou Le Courant, Ernest Ouandji, Celestin Takala and accused them of terrorist activities. Even in its childish delivery, it was both critical and abrasive that but it didn't get to be published because my uncle laid his hands on the script.
He had me decently caned before tearing the thing to shreds. All the same, some of the pieces I wrote were used on a popular Buea Radio programme, Listeners' Viewpoint, This programme was hosted by the venerated journalist, Ngiewih Asunkwan. Cameroon Times published some of them.
From there what later happened?
I was eventually admitted into the Government Technical College, Ombe where I did Carpentry and Joinery and upon graduating, I joined Plantations Pamol Du Cameroun. I was also correspondent for Cameroon Times in Ndian Division. When Pamol sacked me two and a half years later for insubordination, I was taken in by Cameroon Times as a Cub Reporter.
Within one and a half years, I had four promotions, the last being Sub Editor before I left for Nigeria where I was lucky to have been admitted into the renowned Nigerian Institute of Journalism where the cream of Nigerian journalists are trained. I returned in 1981 and took over the running of Cameroon Outlook, as an editor.
Two years later, my good friend Innocent Bonu "bought me over" to Cameroon Times, insisting that I should return to "our cradle" where Paul Nkemayang and I had started off. We worked for sometime before Cameroon Times went under. I started off as Correspondent for IC Publications, the publishers of New African and African Business. They sent me out to do country surveys in Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome and Principe.
It was during one of my trips abroad that "Unite Television", now called CRTV was being put in place. The Ministry of Information and Culture employed and had me seconded to Television House. By the time I voted from Cameroon Television with my feet, I was Deputy Head of Service in charge of Information at the East Provincial Station of Bertoua. What happened here is another story on its own.
However, by May, 1995, when Paddy Mbawa was hounded into jail and Cameroon Post went comatose, Charles Taku and Lawrence Tasha, made available some money from Amity Bank, and I brought back the paper to its feet. But somebody turned up, purporting to have bought Cameroon Post from its original owner, and brought in Francis Wache as Executive Editor.
I was Managing Editor and later on, Editor-in-Chief. We ran the thing for about a year and some months and when we were dissatisfied how the new Publisher was treating us, we broke away with other staff and started The Post Newspaper.
About the CUJ, at what stage did you meet the Union?
Unfortunately, I was part of the executive that messed up the Union. I was one of the four Advisers to the President, Celestin Lingo. When I was voted as President, the Union was comatose. Everyone else had practically left the boat, including some serving members of our Exco.
What vision do you and your executive have for the Union?
We want to have everybody back in the fold. We are in the tiresome but important process of rendering the Union performing and credible. We are bringing back sanity and credibility into the Union in so many ways. We have 11 positions in the executive and I am like the choirmaster with a duty to ensure that the tune is concordant, harmonious. When we meet, debate is very free and profound and whatever we resolve is often in the best interest of the Union.
One would have expected that the CUJ, being the umbrella journalists union, would want to assemble all the other satellite journalist unions. What are you doing in that direction?
That cannot be done in one day. To put it in a way, the sheep had strayed too far that it would take the shepherd a long time and so much energy to bring them back into the fold. In our one but last meeting, we decided that we were going to stretch a hand of fellowship and invite other unions to come in and we work together.
We are not like saying we are going to instruct people on what to do. If we have to speak with one voice and stay under one umbrella devoid of leakages, then, we have to close our ranks and work together. We are stretching a hand to CAMASEJ, the Commonwealth Journalists Association, the Economic Journalists etc.
We have already written letters to that effect and I have personally reached out to some newspapers where there are journalists belonging to a constellation of associations. I have been preaching to them of the need to speak with one voice and listen to newsmakers and other information stakeholders with a single pair of ears.
Besides belonging to the CUJ, you are a member of the National Communication Council and the Cameroon Media Council
No, I am not a member of the Cameroon Media Council. I am a member of the National Communication Council appointed by Presidential Decree in 2004. We are serving our second three-year term after which someone else should be appointed because I wouldn't want to pile positions on my head.
Professionally speaking, you have been practising journalism for about 30 years, how do you assess the media landscape in Cameroon?
It is easier to see those things that are disturbing than the ones that are plain-sailing. In which case I would say that it could have been better than it is today but for the fact that it is punctuated by many frivolous newspapers and other bogus media outfits. You have quite some credible gentlemen and women in both the so-called official media and private media.
You have, for instance, very brilliant and daring journalists at CRTV who have helped and continue to help in no small way, to promote good governance and democratisation in this country despite the odds. By the same token, some of them, are, short and simple, "Journalists of the Next of Kin". They are just there, scheming to be appointed chief of this or Director of that. These are the hallelujah journalists.
We also have within the ranks of the official media, "Journalists Iscariot"; and caprices who rather than tell the story as it is, who would tinker it to suit taste of their paymasters, of pen robbers who insist on a lie until it assumes the status of the truth.
On the other side of the divide, you have brazen harlots or at best, errand boys. These ones are basically at the beck and call of emergency politicians and other seekers of high office. That is practically what is happening in the Northwest Province today. See what sleaze into which these candy raps have put the traditional institutions of the Northwest Province as they cringe for vaulting power mongers and power brokers.
Back in my old house CRTV, there is a mixture of both good and bad practice. The majority of journalists here serve their conscience, despite the odds while a few others have conveniently elected to remain the dog of the new deal king, in order to acquire and maintain the status of the king of dogs as it were.
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