By Hans Ngala, February 14, 2017
Cameroon Journal, Buea – Most Anglophone Cameroonians still have vivid memories of images presented over CRTV on February 11 supposedly from Buea. The images were meant to give the impression that 11 February in Buea saw huge participation by the local population. CRTV showed a mammoth crowd marching past in front of what, however, was the old Buea Grandstand, not the new one. CRTV, Gov’t’s operated television, displayed a crowd of hundreds of people in white t-shirts over black jeans, a sight only commonplace on Labour Day or May 20.
CRTV presented the show as a Live programme, but then, the camera supposedly at the Buea Grandstand was focused on just one spot even as the alleged live march past took place. The images and those from the 20th May Boulevard in Yaounde were broadcast simultaneously, but while the Yaounde event was shown from several angles, the one, supposedly Live from Buea had only one angle. Even the Yaounde event was so empty that one official saved face by excusing the poor turn out on the fact that most schools in the city now march in their various localities, a move by government to decongest the Boulevard, he said.
CRTV broadcast supposedly of the Buea event was played over and over and had the same people marching back and forth. It is interesting to note that all along during the supposedly “live” broadcast, no secondary school billboard was seen, though the images seemed to give the impression that some 3 schools or so marched. And their images were stark different from images that people on the ground saw. Those who witness the timid march past performed by prisoners from Buea Central Prison, students from the Police Academy with shaved hairs, have said the CRTV images in no way looked like the colors of the people who marched in Buea.
Apart from the prisoners and Police students, others who marched were mostly Francophone students most of whom were ferried in from the Littoral and paid to participate in the march past.