President Biya asks ministers to join social networks

The confession is from the Minister of Communication Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who was speaking at a press briefing in the building housing his ministry on April 1, 2016.

The President of the Republic, Paul Biya, has just prescribed to his ministers more visibility on the Internet and especially on social networks. The announcement is from the Cameroonian Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary. “The head of state asked us to be more present on social networks,” he stated last Friday, during a press briefing on the security situation in Cameroon.

This admission did not leave indifferent the journalists. It was picked up by several media since April 4. This comes in a context marked by a near absence of government members on social networks, writes TicMag. Some ministers even said in published releases after “identity theft on Facebook,” that they had no account on social networks.

This was the case of the Prime Minister, Philemon Yang, Minister of Water and Energy Basile Atangana Kouna, and the current Minister of Transport, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o, when he was Defense Minister.

In the same vein, the former Cameroonian international football player Roger Milla also claimed not to have any account on social networks, like Ibrahim Talba Malla, General Manager of SONARA, who said in September 2015 that he “has never owned a Facebook profile“.

According to Tic Mag, this requirement contrasts with the exhortation made by Paul Biya in his address to the youth on February 10, 2015: “You must especially beware of misleading songs of birds of ill omen, these merchants of illusion that have project for the destabilization via social networks.

These irresponsible prophets seek to exploit you, “stated Paul Biya. Today, the Cameroonian government seems to have taken the measure of the importance of communicating via the “new media”.