A well-liked Cameroon radio journalist who had been lacking following what a media rights group known as an abduction has been discovered useless, his employer and police stated on Sunday.
Martinez Zogo was managing director of Yaounde-based personal radio station Amplitude FM and the star host of a preferred day by day program, Embouteillage (Gridlock).
On the air, the 51-year-old usually tackled instances of corruption, not hesitating to query vital personalities by identify. Zogo served a two-month jail sentence for felony defamation in 2020, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported.
AMINDEH BLAISE ATABONG / REUTERS
He had been lacking since Tuesday.
“I went to Ebogo (15 kilometers north of Yaounde) early this morning where I saw and recognized the body of Martinez Zogo. The prosecutor’s deputy was present and his wife was there to identify him,” Amplitude FM radio editor in chief Charly Tchouemou informed AFP.
The dying of Zogo was confirmed to AFP by a police supply who spoke on situation of anonymity.
A big crowd gathered as Zogo’s physique was taken to the morgue of Yaounde central hospital for an post-mortem, a member of the sufferer’s household informed AFP on situation of anonymity.
Social media has been awash with posts following his disappearance with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemning “the brutal abduction of a journalist.”
According to RSF, Zogo’s badly broken automotive was discovered outdoors a police station in a suburb of the Cameroonian capital Yaounde on Tuesday.
“There are many grey areas regarding the circumstances of his brutal abduction,” Sadibou Marong, head of the sub-Saharan Africa workplace of RSF, informed AFP.
“The authorities must launch a rigorous, thorough and independent investigation to establish the full chain of responsibility and the circumstances that led to this sad event,” Marong stated.
Cameroon’s nationwide journalists’ union condemned a “heinous assassination” and urged media employees to put on black on January 25 as an indication of mourning.
“Although Cameroon has one of the richest media landscapes in Africa, it is one of the continent’s most dangerous countries for journalists, who operate in a hostile and precarious environment,” RSF says in its Cameroon nation profile.
The International Press Institute, a Vienna-based press freedom group, urged Cameroonian authorities to “promptly investigate the horrific murder and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice”.
The political opposition was additionally indignant, with Social Democratic Front (SDF) deputy Jean-Michel Nintcheu denouncing a “crime which cannot go unpunished.”
On Sunday, a number of Cameroonian tv channels devoted their applications to Zogo’s dying.
Cameroonian-French author Calixthe Beyala stated she was “dejected, saddened” by news of his dying.
“I knew he was dead as soon as it was announced that he was kidnapped,” she informed Info TV.
“We can ask ourselves the question: whose turn is it? Each of us can find ourselves in this situation for something that we might have said.”
Killings of journalists and different media employees jumped 50% in 2022, with a mean of 1 journalist killed each 4 days, in line with current figures launched by the United Nations.
“These journalists were killed for a variety of reasons, including reprisals for reporting on organized crime, armed conflict or the rise of extremism, and covering sensitive subjects such as corruption, environmental crimes, abuse of power, and protests,” UNESCO stated in an announcement.