Presidential Webmaster fakes Biya honouring fallen soldiers

A recent photograph showing President Paul Biya paying tribute to fallen Cameroonian soldiers at the military headquarters in Yaoundé was a scam.

The photoshopped picture which first emerged on the official website of the presidency; www.prc.cm, was immediately taken off few hours after it was posted.

The concocted picture posted on the site on Monday by a webmaster at the communication unit of the presidency showed Biya, who at the time of the event was and is still on a private visit in Europe since March 1, bowing in front of the caskets of the deceased soldiers.

The 39 dead soldiers were killed in separate operations in the Far North region and the Central African Republic. They were given military honours on March 6, in a ceremony chaired by defense minister, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o, who ironically, had announced he was representing Paul Biya.

Apparently convicted by the negative jabs that were being generated by the forged image, The Cameroon Journal gathered that the deputy director of the Civil Cabinet at the Presidency, Joseph Le, ordered it taken down.

Initially published with the headline in French that translated into English reads: “The head of state pays tribute to fallen soldiers,” the headline and picture sent the impression that the head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces was actually present at the military headquarters to pay his last respect to soldiers who died in the war he declared against Boko Haram. But that was not the case as Biya had long left the country before the event.

An attempt to reach the presidency to get their side of the picture story proved futile. However, photo experts say the picture of Biya bowing would likely have been extracted from archives of his public appearances at which he usually bow in front of the Cameroon flag.

In the meantime, the forged picture of Biya has sparked debates on social media. Some observers are wondering why officials of the presidential website could even think of concocting such a deceitful image considering that they knew there were people who were aware that the President was out of the country at the time of the event.

Last month, the Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary made one of his media outings in which he feistily, defended the point that the head of state does not need to visit wounded soldiers or pay tributes to fallen ones like his Chadian counterpart, Idriss Derby, had done during a recent visit to the country.