In a healthy democracy, a communication council safeguards pluralism, transparency, and accountability. In French Cameroon, however, it polices truth as though it were contraband. Instead of defending journalists, it summons and sanctions them. Instead of promoting professionalism, it propagates fear.
By Ali Dan Ismael, Editor-in-Chief, The Independentist
There are many absurdities in the political life of French Cameroon, but few are as persistently theatrical as its National Communication Council (NCC) — a body that exists, at least on paper, to regulate communication, yet spends most of its energy suppressing it.
The NCC has become a monument to contradiction — a council that cannot communicate, a regulator allergic to dialogue, a referee who despises the game. It is a parody of public service whose very name has turned into an inside joke among journalists.
A COUNCIL THAT MISTAKES SILENCE FOR ORDER
In a healthy democracy, a communication council safeguards pluralism, transparency, and accountability. In French Cameroon, however, it polices truth as though it were contraband.
Instead of defending journalists, it summons and sanctions them. Instead of promoting professionalism, it propagates fear.
It thrives not by protecting speech, but by punishing it — turning every journalist into a potential suspect and every blogger into a target of intimidation.
When citizens post election results directly from polling stations, the NCC calls it subversion. When state media spread blatant disinformation, the council falls silent — as if neutrality has been redefined as cowardice.
It is no longer a communication council. It is a council of censorship in a regime that confuses communication with control.
THE ADOLESCENT REPUBLIC
French Cameroon is a terminal adolescent — a political entity trapped in perpetual puberty.
At sixty-plus, it still blames France for its mistakes while clinging to French approval like a dependent child.
Its institutions, including the NCC, reflect that arrested development: emotional, insecure, and incapable of self-regulation.
Every decree from Yaoundé bears the scent of the Élysée.
Every “communication guideline” looks like a translated memo from the Quai d’Orsay.
It is as if the entire information system were built on the principle that no truth is safe until France says so.
And so the NCC, like its parent regime, continues to oscillate between colonial mimicry and authoritarian panic — forever pretending to grow up but never managing to.
THE MATURITY OF A YOUNG REPUBLIC
Ironically, while French Cameroon’s institutions age without evolving, the Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, still in its formative years, has demonstrated a rare and refreshing maturity in communication.
Its messages are deliberate, documented, and debated — not decreed.
Its press organs, though young and scattered by war and exile, have preserved an ethic of clarity and truth that the Yaoundé regime lost decades ago.
Ambazonian spokespeople engage with the people, not against them.
Even under siege, Ambazonia communicates more like a modern democracy than the so-called “republic” next door.
FRENCH INTERFERENCE: THE PERMANENT SUPERVISOR
At the heart of this dysfunction lies France — the ever-present supervisor of its African prefectures.
The NCC’s job is not to regulate communication but to synchronize silence with Paris.
Every critical headline in Douala triggers a diplomatic whisper in the French Embassy.
Every journalist sanctioned in Yaoundé is a journalist whose courage exceeded the comfort level of the colonial mentor.
France sneezes; the council issues a communiqué.
France nods; a newsroom is shut down.
France coughs; a blogger disappears.
This is not communication — it is colonial choreography.
A COUNCIL THAT INSULTS ITS OWN NAME
The tragedy of the National Communication Council is that it discredits the very concept it pretends to embody.
It teaches young journalists that truth must bow before power.
It rewards silence more than accuracy, obedience more than integrity.
If there were a global award for hypocrisy in media governance, the NCC would win without competition — under the approving gaze of the French tricolor.
THE AMBAZONIAN CONTRAST
Across the frontier, the Voice of Ambazonia, independent online media, and citizen journalists continue to demonstrate that freedom of expression can coexist with national discipline.
The Ambazonian model is simple: communicate boldly, verify thoroughly, and stand by truth even under fire.
The young republic’s communication ecosystem, though imperfect, reflects a political consciousness that has already matured beyond the reach of colonial conditioning.
In Ambazonia, the pen has learned to resist the gun; in French Cameroon, the pen is still terrified of it.
EPILOGUE: THE SILENCE THAT SPEAKS TOO LOUD
The National Communication Council may continue to summon, censor, and intimidate — but its failure is already written in history.
You cannot regulate speech when your government fears words more than bullets.
You cannot teach communication when you have forgotten how to listen.
The Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, though still young, speaks with the measured voice of a nation reborn.
The Yaoundé regime, though old, still babbles like an empire in decline.
Between the two, the world can tell who has grown up — and who never will. “Because truth is the first language of freedom.”
Ali Dan Ismael
Editor-in-Chief, The Independentist on special assignment.
