From university teachers to content producers, including students and other observers, reactions are pouring in to support Josiane Harangada Golonga.
Following the dismissal of Miss Cameroon 2025, the Cameroonian public is expressing its disappointment with the Miss Cameroon Organizing Committee (Comica). Many are questioning the real reasons for the dismissal of Josiane Harangada Golonga. She is known by Professor Félicité Owona Mfegue as “a young woman who has already performed a strong political act, without fanfare: keeping her ebony skin BLACK as a Lenten night, in a country where too many girls still believe they must lighten themselves to exist.” For the law professor, “one does not dismiss a national ward.” Especially since she questions the legitimacy of the authority that removes the crown when it was the people who conducted the election.
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Steve Fah, a content producer, joins the academic in highlighting the rare qualities that Josiane Harangada Golonga possesses: “She is black. She is dignified. She is the fruit of hard work. She is proof that one can dream without selling oneself.” According to the influencer, this is perhaps what is bothersome in a context where being a miss has become, in the minds of many, synonymous with “luxurious travel, questionable associations, complicit silence, and appearances whitened with lightening products.” For him, “it is time for Cameroonian beauty to stop being associated with luxury hotels and lightened skin. It is time for it to be associated with dignity, education, excellence, and pride in our melanin.”
While Prof. Félicité Owona asks Josiane Harangada to enroll in law school to become a lawyer for voiceless Misses, Steve Fah calls on the First Lady to ensure the protection of the image of the Cameroonian woman because, for him, “one must not tarnish a generation.”
At the heart of the matter, Comica invoked four reasons for which it dismissed Josiane Harangada Golonga: unjustified absences from several official events; remarks and attitudes deemed disrespectful toward the institution; unilateral cessation of activities related to her mandate; and the use of a personal manager in violation of contractual clauses. However, the defense by the miss’s lawyer presents reasons that pushed the young lady to withdraw to protect herself against abuse, treatment based on marginalization, stigmatization, and insults, due to the fact that she is from the North. Not to mention intimidation and the confiscation of certain goods she was supposed to enjoy. These denounced facts reveal a certain ‘tribalization’ on the part of Comica, which contributes to increasing hate speech on the web.
Read more Comica strips Josiane Harangada Golonga of the Miss Cameroon crown
In the history of Comica, Josiane is not the first to be dismissed. Agathe Pascaline Nomgne was in 2002, Anne Lucrèce Ntep in 2009, and Julie Cheugueu Nguimfack in 2016. Audrey Aboula, runner-up for Miss Cameroon 2016, resigned before presenting the book “A Runner-up in a World of Sharks” to the public. This confirms that beyond the honors and the image of the miss displayed in public, there is a whole story behind it.
Béatrice Doudou, Miss Africa 2017 in Tunisia, runner-up for Miss Cameroon 2018, and author of the book “The Hidden Face of Misses,” draws inspiration from this dismissal to advise young girls. “My little sisters, be ambitious, but above all, be lucid. A beauty pageant is not just a crown. It is a commitment, a framework, rules and constraints, and above all, often hidden realities. Inform yourselves. Read. Understand what you are getting into. Ask questions, respect your commitments, but never betray your values or your dignity,” wrote the former beauty queen.
Read more Comica withdraws the Miss Cameroon crown from Josiane Harangada Golanga
