Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Cameroon’s Diaspora-driven Cyberspace: A Platform for Civic Engagement or a Threat to the Biya Regime?

By Dibussi Tande

Simply put, the Biya regime has never viewed Cameroonian cyberspace as a viable space for civic engagement and public discourse, instead, it sees it as a threat to the regime – a space that must either be controlled, co-opted, contained, or simply coerced into submission.

Why and how the Biya Regime is obsessed with controlling online speech and muzzling Diaspora political activism.

On February 22, 2011, Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon’s Minister of Communications and the Government Spokesperson organized a press conference in which he lashed out at Cameroonians in the Diaspora for using Facebook and Twitter to try and launch Egypt-type protests in Cameroon:

Twitter SMS Service Restored in Cameroon According to MTN and Twitter

According to Georges Ngole Mpoudi, CIO of the mobile network operator MTN, the company has restored its Twitter SMS service which was shut down 10 days ago on the orders of the Cameroon government, supposedly for reasons of "state security". He made the announcement via Twitter late this evening. [This information has also been confirmed by Twitter]

Although details about this government volte face are still emerging, observers point to the huge amount of international bad press ( Le Monde, Jeune Afrique, Foreign Policy/Washington Post, Committee to Protect Journalists, Global Voices, Yahoo News, etc.) that the Biya regime has received in recent days over its crackdown of a marginal service which is yet to gain a foothold in Cameroon.

The Digital Disconnect and Misconceptions about "Revolution 2.0"

By Dibussi Tande

Since the mass protests that led to the toppling of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, there has been lots of conjecture and discussion about the probability of similar protest movements spreading to sub-Saharan Africa.

(c) everyday ritual

There has also been a lot of hand-wringing over the fact that it may be difficult for these protest movement to catch on in this region with its fair share of sclerotic regimes that have long gone past their expiration date.