The media world in Cameroon is mourning the passing of a media colossus. Suzanne Kala Lobe who animated the media space at the dawn of liberalisation of the sector passed away on Thursday, August 1, 2024, in the early morning after an illness.
Born on January 16, 1953, in Douala, the revolutionary who spoke the truth fearlessly was the daughter of Sara BeboiKutta Kala-Lobè and Iwiyè Kala-Lobè. She was one of eight siblings and attended primary school at Petit Joss in Akwa. She lived in Cameroon until the age of 10 before continuing her studies in France.
She earned a PhD in linguistics in 1976 from Paris-III University and an MBA in cultural management in 1989. With her thesis on the strengths and dissidences within a political party: the case of the UPC, she also obtained a DEA in political science in 1997 from Bordeaux University.
She was a member of the Union Nationale des Étudiants du Kamerun and the UPC, although she left the latter in 1998. To honor her father, Iwiyè Kala-Lobè (1917-1991), a journalist and founder of Présence Africaine, she became a journalist herself in 1992, starting at La Nouvelle Expression. She quickly gained attention with her column Ma candidate serait une femme during the Cameroonian presidential election.
In 2003, she hosted several radio segments on Radio Équinoxe, such as the shows Polémos and Livres noirs et musiquesd’Afrique, and later in 2013, she hosted the show Vendredi soir on Équinoxe Télévision. She eventually founded her own production company, EBK Productions, which owns the magazine Actu, broadcast on Canal 2 International.
She was appointed one of the nine members of the National Communication Council on February 23, 2013, by President Paul Biya and was sworn in on March 6. Concurrently, she was also in charge of communications unit at Hysacam. In October 2010, she published Les Chroniques sous le manguier, edited by Jacques Marie Lafon, and co-authored Supermarket in 2012, published by Le Bec en L’air. She was the lead singer of the group DjalaLilon and participated in Ni Africa niyoso, an album written in tribute to Ruben Um Nyobe by Bea Man Wayack, her partner.
