Famous African TV Producer, Amobé Mévégué dies at 52

The founding father of the WAN-SHOW Project and Chief Executive Officer of UbizNewsTV died on Wednesday, 08 September 2021.

Amobé Mévégué was one of those Media Professionals on whom many Africans in the Diaspora could count when it came to promoting and magnifying the thousand aspects of Africa’s customs and culture in the International Media landscape.

His broad experience in the field of broadcasting was an asset for the celebration of the sons and daughters of the continent on the world cultural stage.

Radio & TV Anchor, Cultural activist, producer and playwright, Amobé Mévégué launched his latest exciting Worldwide Afro Network project dubbed WAN-SHOW & WAN-DANCE in 2020 during lockdown due to the Covid19 pandemic.

For the implementation of this Mega project, he called for credible organizations like the African Union of Broadcasting. The innovative project brought together Social Change-Makers, Leaders, Innovators, Artists in Africa and its Diasporas.

On May 25th 2020, on the occasion of the AU Africa Day, a series of WAN concerts was aired for free in prime time, on all African channels with the technical support of the African Union Broadcasting and Thomson Broadcast. https://www.uar-aub.org/single-post/2020/05/18/five-questions-to-amob%C3%A9-mevegue

Born on October 1, 1968 in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Amobé Mévégué arrived in France at the age of five. He graduated from the Free Conservatory of French Cinema in Paris in 1994. At that time, he worked for several African and Caribbean radio stations (Tabala FM, Tropic FM, Media Tropical).

For years, Mr Mévégué was a well known voice on Radio France International’s Africa service, which millions of listeners across French speaking West and Central Africa. In 1994, he produced a radio program called “Plein Sud”.

In 1996, in parallel with his activities at RFI, he co-produced an African Music Hit Parade disseminated on the network of national television channels in some thirty African countries via CFI (Canal France Internationale).

In 1998, on MCM Africa, he created with Myriam Seurat, the first daily talk-show on Diversity. Alongside his friend the famous Ivorian journalist Joseph Andjou, he produced for Canal + the documentary film “Abidjan on dit quoi” around the theme of Ivorian humor the same year.

From 2002, and for four seasons on TV5Monde, for the program “Acoustic”, he interviewed the most outstanding figures in the international music industry. Since 2010, he has been hosting a musical variety program on France 24 Television.

“I have spent the last twenty years meeting the people of Africa and I’ve found that there is a gap between the images that are projected from Africa and the reality” Mr Mévégué, once told capacity4dev during the European Union Development Days.

For him, “what African children have as a representation of Africa is bad. They need to build their self-esteem, to go forward and to be confident about what they can do”.

In July 2020, he was awarded the UNESCO Center for Peace prize, on the occasion of the Nelson Mandela Day.

To many African artists and colleagues journalists, the sudden death of Amobé Mévégué is a great loss. May his soul rest in peace!

Irene GAOUDA