EX- CRTV Journalist, Charles Sama X-rays the profession, Castigates Regime

Interviewed by Benjamin Ngah

Around the Ghana Street neighborhood of Bamenda The Times Journal spotted one of the most venerated Journalists whose voice on CRTV kept everyone fascinated; a man whose wittiness and demeanor pulled everyone who came into contact with him even for the first time to like him and sought to have a chart with him. Though on a deserved retirement, his views of life and his frankness on issues ranging from journalism to politics are quite exciting, thrilling and stimulating. For 15minutes, he granted this heart breaking interview which everyone should read. Excerpts 

Who is Charles Sama?

               First of all, I will like to thank you for having be a guest in your credible newspaper the Times Journal. I will like to appreciate the job you guys are doing in the Times Journal in terms of layout, language and the quality of news. In fact your paper is an incarnation of good journalism. I would also like to say kudos to someone like John Mbah Akuroh who also contributes in the paper. He is that kind of journalist we need for vision 2035. That said, Charles Sama is a gentleman who hails from Oku in Bui Division. I am a journalist who got retired about three years ago on the 31^st of December 2010. I worked with CRTV which is a public media for twenty nine years and I now try my hands in the private media. I work with NDEFCAM radio where I am a consultant though I also go on the air, I present news and I do just what journalism entails. That is just what I am now. I am well married with three children.

Comparatively what do you think are the difference between practicing as a worker in the public media and in the private media? What are some of the challenges?

As a matter of fact there is a big difference. For example, CRTV as a public outfit is being sponsored by government but here in the private sector, you have to look for the money from adverts else you cannot survive. If you do not look for adverts, you cannot pay your staff and the business will crumble. I am a journalist, I was not used to go and scout for adverts or things like that. People who did marketing or advertisement are better placed to do that, but in the private sector you are tempted to do all. I have had occasions to tell my boss that you cannot use everybody to go look for adverts because not everybody has the knowledge and expertise to do so. The challenges are that in the private sector, you must work very hard else you will not get a stipend. I use to call it pocket money and in my life time I was not use to spend small money but now with five thousand in pocket, it looks like gold.

Another challenge is that those who own the enterprises are sometimes not honest. Their management is like opaque. At times they just tell you there is no money and yet you do not know what they mean by there is no money. They are so ambiguous and so ambivalent.  Here you see capitalism at work. One question how come you recruit people to work and yet you cannot pay them. So there is this element of dishonesty at the level of the private sector.

You never know what comes in and what goes out. But since you have to get yourself busy, you keep on while hoping. As I always say, when you work hard, you win the heart and mind of the population and you start having adverts. Challenges are in every domain but the bottom line is to work hard and be honest.

What would you be transferring to the young journalists that you have made here by first of all making an appraisal of what you know about them now and what they are up to?

I know that here, there are many young people who have the potentials. You know in journalism, you must have the potentials, the basic background knowledge and the skills. In journalism you have to go through stages and in life every stage takes you to the next stage and that is how you get experience. When you look at NDEFCAM radio for example, you find people there who have the enthusiasm and the skills and are ready to learn. They love the profession which is the basis because when you love something, you then put in an effort to improve. I am there to lay the foundation for the young people like we like saying in NDEFCAM radio “the Radio of the new generation.”

I know some people would be grumbling out there and saying, “That man left his mark at CRTV, why is he coming to take the chicken fee reserved for some young man.” But you must lay a solid foundation for the future. Journalism simply is educating the people, entertaining them giving them the opportunity to equivocally, precisely and clearly to understand issues happening in society and persuading them to change their bad habits.

In terms of relevance and news content, when you compare the public media and the private media, what would you say in the situation in the private media especially in the North West region?

In terms of content, I think the private media is doing a very commendable job. The news generally is weighty. It is not skeletal. It has flesh and contrary to what people might think make an extra effort to go and get the news from the source. So they contribute enormously to in the growth of the society. They speak the truth because if you do not speak the truth you lose credibility. So I think they are doing a commendable job despite the harsh conditions under which they work. Sometimes they even betray the tenets of the profession simply because they want to survive. I think they have to be motivated and motivation should not be misconstrued for bribery. You know there is what we call in journalistic parlance courtesy. That is giving someone a glass of water or bottle of beer to say “thank you.”

One of the trademarks of Charles Sama at both CRTV and NDEFCAM radio has been his voice. That is what carries the whole message across to the population and they describe you as the man with the golden voice and a media guru. Would you say, is the voice nature or nurtured?

Yes, you have nature and nurtured. They move hand in glove. You can have a good voice and do not know how to use it and the other has a bad voice and knows how to use it. They are many fellows at CRTV with a good voice but do not know how to use it. You must work on your voice. This must be a conscious effort. You must work on your articulation, pronunciation and eloquence. You must do some extra work. It can be argued that every voice is beautiful but it all depends on how you use it. Louis Armstrong, the famous musician adapted his music to the kind of voice that he had and went so far with it.

You have been in this system for long and reported event since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in Cameroon. How would you appreciate the political landscape of Cameroon at moment?

I am not very happy with it. Even though I would tell you that we enjoy peace in Cameroon, we do not really have peace. Can you have peace when you are unemployed? Can you have peace when you go hungry? When children leave school and spend five years, ten years without jobs and are always going back to beg for food from their parent, we can say they have peace. Peace does not necessarily mean lack of war, there is psychological peace. When you see stinking injustice, favoritism and tribalism, how can you talk of peace?

Did you vote in the last elections?

No, I would not waste my time voting when the results are known before hand. I last voted in the 1997 presidential election and after a while I realized that there was no objectivity in the political system. I do not trust it generally and I do not pretend. I would not waste my time voting because elections in this country are already a foregone conclusion. The powers that be do everything to frustrate free and fair elections. I am talking as somebody who have observed the system for thirty years and somebody who was there before Biya came to power. We have listened to his numerous promises but many of them have not been kept.