A resident told the press they thought briefly that Nigeria had invaded Cameroon or worse still, that they were under an attack by Boko Haram. “I called the CRTV radio house in Garoua to find out what was happening and no one answered. So I concluded that things have taken a twist for the worse...that assailants have taken over Cameroon”, he said.
The Garoua region of Cameroon was temporarily thrown into a state of confusion and panic on Saturday, September 6 when the local branch of the national broadcaster CRTV began to air the Nigerian national anthem. According to the French language newspaper Emergence, at about 6.30 am on Saturday, transmission suddenly went off while listeners were waiting for the English newscast relayed from CRTV Yaounde.
The source said transmission was restored soon afterwards but instead of the news listeners were greeted with the Nigerian national anthem followed by a Nigerian newscast in English for over 30 minutes.
A resident told the press they thought briefly that Nigeria had invaded Cameroon or worse still, that they were under an attack by Boko Haram. “I called the CRTV radio house in Garoua to find out what was happening and no one answered. So I concluded that things have taken a twist for the worse...that assailants have taken over Cameroon”, he said.
The transmission was later traced to Radio Gotel, a Nigerian radio station broadcasting relayed news from Abuja.
Explaining the mix-up however, a CRTV source explained that their transmitter powered off and there was no technician and no announcer in the studio at the time to rectify the situation. He said since the chief of technical services was also not at post, Pierre Babagai, a guard on duty took upon himself to turn transmission back on and to conduct an automatic dial search to restore broadcast.
Instead of getting CRTV Garoua however, the automatic dial search captured the signal from Radio Gotel in Nigeria, which is not far from Garoua.
Meanwhile all chiefs of services at CRTV Garoua regional station have been interrogated on Monday September 8, at the regional headquarters of the Ministry of Communication.