Tchiroma connects Biya's fake photo saga to hackers

Minister of Communication and front man for the Biya’s regime, Issa Tchiroma Bakari, has disowned a fake photograph that appeared in the Presidency’s website, concocted to show President Biya honoring Cameroon fallen soldiers from the Boko Haram war.

In a press release read over state media – CRTV, yesterday, Tchiroma shamefacedly lied that the photoshopped picture of the head of state shown honouring the fallen soldiers was posted by hackers who had hijacked the official website of the presidency.

He said the hackers’ plan was to embarrass the President and to soil his image and that of the valiant soldiers at the war front and that of the state of Cameroon as a whole. “This ignoble act was staged to bring down the image of the head of state, the soldiers and the state of Cameroon.”

He added that the intention of the ‘hackers’ was to foment distraction and division amongst the soldiers and dampen their morale at the war front.

He called on reporters “to be responsible and vigilant” as they report on issues relating to the war with Boko Haram at the time, he said, “when the entire nation has resolved to throw their weight behind the head of state and chief of the arm forces to terminate the activities of the terror group.”

Meanwhile, 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.

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 the same Paul Biya.

Tchiroma in his release would not explain why hackers would hack a Presidential website just to post a photograph without extracting some state data or causing any other harm to the site.

He probably also forgot that we had reported earlier that it was the webmaster of the website who actually put up the fake photo and was ordered to take it off the moment it became controversial, by the deputy director of the Civil Cabinet at the Presidency, Joseph Le.