Yesterday, 29 June 2016, President Paul Biya appointed a new
General Manager and a new Deputy General Manager at the Cameroon Radio
Television (CRTV). The two bosses are respectively Charles Pythagore Ndongo and
Emmanuel Wongibe Fomonyuy. Ndongo replaces Amadou Vamoulke who had held the
post of General Manager since 2005 and Wongibe takes over from Prof. Francis
Wette who was appointed in 2001 and served as Deputy to Prof. Gervais Mendo Ze
who is currently at the Kondengui central prison in Yaounde on charges of
misappropriation of state funds during his 17 years as General Manager of the
corporation (1988-2007), before serving under Amadou Vamoulke.
The appointments of Ndongo and Wongibe are significant from
several perspectives, the first of which is that they are both not just
journalists by profession but also old brooms that know each corner of the
house. In fact, it can be said that Ndongo has spent his entire career as a
journalist – doing what he knows best – at CRTV. He is a graduate from the
Advanced School of Mass Communication in Yaounde, better known today by its
French acronym, ESSTIC. He was one of the first to have served at national
television when it was created in 1985, working alongside other pioneers such
as Alain Belibi, Eric Chinje and Denise Epote. However, whereas Chinje and
Epote as well as others jumped ship for greener pastures abroad, Ndongo stuck
to his guns and stayed on at CRTV. When the corporation was restructured in
2015 and the Radio Broadcasting arm and the Television arms were split more or
less, he was appointed Director of CRTV Television. Interestingly, Belibi who
was his classmate at the journalism school and who like him stayed at CRTV
instead of going to work abroad was at the same time appointed Director of the CRTV
Radio wing. Prior to that, Charles Ndongo had not only served as “President
Biya`s journalist”, but had also accompanied and interviewed him on many
occasions.
Prior to his recent appointment, Emmanuel Wongibe was Director
of the Cameroon Marketing and Commercial Agency (CMCA) which is the commercial
and marketing unit of CRTV. He served as Head of the Cooperation and Public
Relations Unitof the corporation and later Technical Adviser Number 1 before.
Just before being appointed Head of the Cooperation and Public Relations Unit, he
was Deputy Editor-in-Chief in charge of English Language Magazines at
Television House. Although Wongibe has been abroad, he made it a point to return
home. In fact, after just two years, he returned home and went back to CRTV. He
gained international experience working for the American multimedia firm CNN
and for the international service of the German
Deutsche Welle. He also made his mark in international environmental
journalism, by notably taking part in an international climate change summit in
Durban, South Africa. He also served as a trainer on several programmes
organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The coming together of both Ndongo and Wongibe through the recent
appointment is not the first, for it had happened in the early 1980s when they
both served in the same unit.
The two appointees represent a new breed of bosses at CRTV in
the sense that they belong to the younger generation of top level managers. This
is in fact the first time that Paul Biya has looked in-house to choose not just
a general manager to head the institution but also his deputy. For that and
many other reasons, the two appointments have been greeted with an expression
of satisfaction from the staff of CRTV. Consequently, they are seen as in-house
people who know exactly what is not right in the “house” and how to put it
right. CRTV`s very first General Manager, Etoga Eily Florent had been appointed
from outside; so was his successor, Professor Gervais Mendo Ze who came in as a
university professor of linguistics. Although Amadou Vamoulke who succeeded
Mendo Ze trained and worked as a journalist before, he was appointed from the
private sector where he served as a close collaborator of James Onobiono, the
boss of the Douala-based tobacco company, SITABAC. Although the corporation`s
Pioneer Deputy General Manager, Dr. Nyamdi Ndifonta came in with a journalism
background, he was actually appointed from a diplomatic post at the Cameroon
embassy in London. Prof. Francis Wette who succeeded him and has now been
flushed out alongside Amadou Vamoulke is a university Associate Professor of
Journalism and mass communication.
The new General Manager and Deputy General Manager have come
to the corporation with two distinctive characteristics of theirs, which make
them stand out when compared with their predecessors. Ndongo and Wongibe are
both independent minded and thorough in whatever they do. They relate well to
other employees, even those below them.
Born and bred in Yaounde, Charles Ndongo is therefore a
Francophone, so to speak, but he speaks very good English and often makes it a
point to address Anglophones at the corporation in English, as a way of making
them feel at home. I personally had that experience with him, except for the
times when he would speak to me in Ewondo, knowing my knowledge and love for
the language, just like other Beti members of the corporation usually did when
they came in contact with me. Those others include Antoine Marie Ngono and
François Bingono Bingono and Guy Roger Eba`a. When I worked under Charles
Ndongo as Assistant Chief of Service for Television Coverages and my immediate
boss, Mbella Essengue who had been hospitalized after a malaise died, Ndongo
called me over the phone and said in English: “Mr. Tikum, your boss is no
more!”. Charles Ndongo is caring and sensitive to the needs of others. When the
Cameroonian international footballer, Marc-Vivien Foe died on a football pitch
in Europe and his corpse was brought to Yaounde, Ndongo proposed me to the then
General Manager, Prof. Mendo Ze as the journalist to do live commentaries in
English and the general manager put my name down for the activity.
The appointment of Wongibe in replacement of Prof. Wette as
Deputy General Manager has been greeted as a wrong that has finally been
righted because before it happened, many petitions had been sent to the
president of the Republic to the effect that if his appointment of Prof. Wette
was intended to be representative of the Anglophone community, then he had got
it all wrong because although the professor was Anglophone by upbringing, upon
his appointment, he identified himself more with Nde Division of the West
Region to which his birth origins belonged. It is also general belief that the
professor did not do much in his time as Deputy General Manager of CRTV to
further the cause of Anglophones in the corporation. If anything, he stood in
their way, much to the chagrin of the two general managers under whom he served
– Mendo Ze and Amadou Vamoulke. In fact, during his stay at CRTV, a significant
number of Anglophones instead left the corporation. For that reason, the new
Deputy General Manager, Wongibe has been hailed as not only being
representative of the anglophone community – he hails from Bui Division in the
North West region – but also as someone who has a temperament that militates
for reconciliation and fosters a spirit of belonging.
I can personally testify to that temperament of Wongibe`s
because when Amadou Vamoulke was appointed General Manager and he selected duos
to be trained to present television news, Wongibe was not among them.
Fortunately for me, I was. But Wongibe gave those of us who were selected,
total and undivided support and encouragement. He did everything humanly
possible to stand by us and made us succeed. For that, I take off my hat in
gratitude to him.
Critics of Paul Biya have conceded that if he has made
“wrong” appointments before, the recent appointments of Charles Pythagore Ndongo
and Emmanuel Wongibe Fomonyuy are a typical case of square pegs in square
holes. If that is the case, then Paul Biya has done his job well. The onus is
now on the two appointees to prove that they can rise up
to the challenge and deliver the goods as expected.
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