CAMEROON: FOOLS ARE THE MAKERS OF RICHES

By AYAH Paul ABINE
At the moment of writing these words, a group of persons in Great Soppo are busy collecting 15.000 francs CFA from each inhabitant of the area in the name of “Great Soppo Water Supply Project”. The population of Great Soppo should be 100.000 people plus. If the team succeeds in collecting 15.000 from 100.000 persons, they will amass the colossal sum of 1.500.000.000 francs. If only 50.000 persons are cajoled into paying, the total collection will be 750.000.000. What a giant project!

In the context of Cameroon, nothing is absolutely wrong with the initiative per ser. Many are similar projects that have successfully been undertaken in various parts of the country, especially in the neglected countryside. But there is something highly questionable about the case of Great Soppo for a number of reasons and antecedents. One can hasten to suggest that the alleged project is only another fraud on the public in a country where the law is the low business of the weak and lowly.

A project of that magnitude, in the first place, needs public discussion, followed by technical study and careful planning. After establishing the estimated cost of the project, the funding population and the estimated cost are juxtaposed. The rate of contributions is then publicly determined, taking into account the two factors. Sufficient sensitization about the collection follows as the next step. Finally comes the actual collection. The consent of the population must be sought and obtained at every stage of the project. In a democratic community, every inhabitant of Great Soppo reserves the right to opt for water from CDE or from the new project in the alternative.

Again, Great Soppo is one of the quarters of the seat of Buea Council. Those collecting the money are not unaware that the former mayor of that council started a water supply project with the catchment situated apparently within Great Soppo. We all know that the objective was to supply water to the lower part of the municipality where Great Soppo lies. That project is still pending completion. The collectors have to convince the inhabitants of Great Soppo that there is honest reason to renounce that project, and hastily embark upon the building of water supply exclusively for Great Soppo.

Thirdly, the seat of Buea Council is largely covered by water supply managed by CDE. The water supply in question had earlier been managed by PWD; and then later by SNEC. If water is now rationed in Buea, the entire municipality so covered is affected. Sufficient proof must therefore be provided that the Great Soppo community suffers special hardship; and that that justifies the necessity and the urgency to carry out a project of that magnitude specifically for Great Soppo. Such proof seems either not to be forthcoming, or it is yet to be disclosed to the ordinary man.

Another indispensable factor is that the collection of the money must be done in a coordinated manner, and in all transparency. Every citizen must part with his money of his own volition. No-one should therefore offer self-serving vicious threats intended to intimidate the ordinary man into submission. We know no law in Cameroon which empowers any group of persons to compel members of the public to pay taxes to private individuals taking refuge under cloudy projects dressed in the apparel of public utility.

What is all the more relevant here is that few serious persons acquainted with the recent past of Great Soppo Traditional Council would honestly hesitate to impugn their probity. Not long ago, the said council got into collusion with the then Divisional Officer of Buea, and they perpetrated a fraud on the public. The so-called “representative of the Head of State” issued an edict enjoining the inhabitants of Great Soppo to pay a tax of 1.000 francs each for the coffers of the council. That was in foolhardy spite for the celebrated principle that there is “no imposition without representation”.

If in the end the council succeeded in defrauding 100.000 persons, they unlawfully collected 100.000.000 francs for themselves. As easy as that! Just half of that number of persons and 50.000.000 francs was up for the grabbing. Characteristically, they got away with it with embarrassing impunity. That, without more, is enough ground to speculate that, encouraged by the success of their previous fraud on the public, the council in question is now up for a bigger deal under the opaque banner of “Great Soppo Water Supply Project”. That is but consistent with my contention that “a taste of the forbidden is a second transgression”!

The unlawful state of affairs in Great Soppo leads one to legitimately wonder aloud how far we are from the status of a failed state. Isn’t the foundation of a failed state the existence of such lawless groups operating independently of and in defiance of the authority of the central government?

Whatever be your answer, the incontrovertible fact is that the first step towards a failed state is “disregard for the law”. And failure or neglect on the part of the central government to act in check adds fuel to the fire without fail. No-one of course nips a conflagration!

If some Cameroonians are so fantastically rich, there surely are so many foolish Cameroonians. Fools are the makers of riches!

THE AFRICAN POPULATION MUST GROW

By Chief A.S Ngwana
The earth is one of the eight planets in our Solar System, Pluto is no longer considered a planet. The superficial area of the earth is 510,066,000 KM2, made up of 148,326,000 KM2 land surface, and 361,740,000 KM2 water surface.

The present world population of 6.801,911,900 Billion people has an average global density of 45.669 people per KM2. Singapore population density is 7022.8 people per KM2, with an income per capita of US$39,500. If the average world density per KM2 were that of Singapore, then the world could in theory, support a population of 1,045,975,832,000 or 1.045 trillion people.

However according to the United Nations Population Division, a professional demographic centre, not connected with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the world population could level off at about 9 billion, by 2050. A decade ago the projected peak was 12 billion. It would appear that according to these projected figures, the world population will never reach 20 billion not to talk of 1.045 trillion.

Taking other factors into consideration, the world population has been projected to peak in the year 2150 at 9.746 billion and from there start a rapid decline. World historical and predicted populations (in millions)

Region 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 1999 2008 2050 2150

World 791 978 1,262 1,650 2,521 5,978 6,707 8,909 9,746

Africa 106 107 111 133 221 767 973 1,766 2,308

Asia 502 635 809 947 1,402 3,634 4,054 5,268 5,560

Europe 163 203 276 408 547 729 732 628 517

Latin America and 16 24 38 74 167 511 577 809 912
The Caribbean
Northern 2 7 26 82 172 307 337 392 398 America
Oceania 2 2 2 6 12 30 34 46 51

At creation of man which could have taken place any time between 10 million and 700 thousand years BC, the world population was only 2 people, Adam and Eve, one man one woman. According to the Holy Bible, God blessed them, saying to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it”. “Thou shall not kill”. These two people, man and woman, have been able to populate the earth and now their descendants are today about 6.801 billion people. The human race can only increase through births. In fact it is estimated that since man inherited the earth, there have been about 110 billion people on this planet.

The growth of the world’s population has always been influence more by selfish, political, economic and other materialistic considerations, than by God’s commandment to fill the earth.

When Europe and America wanted their populations to grow, they used slaves from Africa, and in addition, enacted strict laws to encourage population growth. . Individuals have sought to increase their families for economic reasons as during the agrarian era, to enable them produce more food and become rich. Countries and governments have sought to increase their populations in the past by enacting laws and regulations which encouraged Births and discouraged Deaths. The motivations have varied. Governments have been influenced by economic arguments to bolster their working force, so ensuring that the working population was big enough to sustain dependents; they have been persuaded that national defense requires a larger pool from which to recruit troops; and they have been seduced by the notion that national greatness is linked to population.

In 1873 the U.S. Congress enacted the “Comstock Law”, which regulated public access to birth control devices, medicines, or information for the next 60 years. It was illegal to distribute any device, (condoms etc), medicine or information designed to prevent conception, this was applicable even to physicians. In Europe totalitarian regimes of far-left and far-right and fascists regimes, imposed taxes on unmarried adults. State loans were giving at weddings, only to be written off when a couple produced children. State childcare and subsidized goods for children were meant to further encourage reproduction. In France in the 1920s, laws were introduced to limit the sale of contraceptives and payments were allocated to women who stayed (giving birth ) at home

All countries and governments encouraged their population growth, and treated abortion, manslaughter, euthanasia and murder as serious criminal offences, punishable in some cases with the death penalty.

Malthus was wrong when he said people would starve to death as a result of population growth running ahead of food production; so were the 1970s population-controllers who said massive famines would sweep the populous Third World and wipe out millions. This has been disproved by historical facts. Roger Revelle, Former Director of Harvard Centre for Population Studies, estimated that the less developed continents (whose food supplies are most precarious) are capable of feeding 18 billion people, about six times their then population, while Africa alone is capable of feeding 10 billion people, twice the then world population and about 20 times its own population The fact is that the world has developed so quickly and become so rich because the world population exploded in the past 64 years, from 2 billion to 6.707 billion today. GDP has increased by nearly 40 times. The world is much richer today than it was 64 years ago despite the great increase in population.

MAN is the center of development. Development is by people for people. Where there are no people there is no development. This is the basis of economic development. People produce technology and capital; they are discoverers of resources, the makers of communities, cities, the creators of wealth. As shown by the late Julian Simon, Population growth is positively correlated with economic growth.

The population of Europe today is about 830.4 million that is a density per square Kilometer of about 81.5 people. The population of Africa today is 1 billion that is a density of about 33 people per square kilometer.

For the population of Africa to grow and have the density of Europe per square Kilometer of 81.5 persons and enjoy all that the developed Europe enjoys today, the African population must increase to 2.463 billion people. But according to United Nations projections the African population will only reach that figure in the year 2150, while the population of Europe by the year 2150 would have dropped to 517 million people. The African Population must grow fast to catch up with that of Europe per square kilometer, today.

The predicament of Europe and other industrialized countries like Japan is that their populations are ageing and declining and soon the consequences will be disastrous and catastrophic. Their problem will not be too many children, but too few children, too few children to fill the schools and universities, too few couples buying homes and second cars. Too few consumers and producers to drive the economy forward, and too few workers to provide support, through their tax dollars, for the ballooning population of elderly. All the industrialized countries of Europe and Japan are making serious efforts to stop this declining situation.

“Cash for babies,” Governments across the globe are resorting to bribery to raise birth rates as women increasingly choose not to have babies, (“Women’s Rights) creating a demographic chasm. “Propaganda,” Campaigns have had even less effect. “Immigration,” Many of the countries facing serious population decline have resorted to changing their immigration laws to allow in migrants quickly as a short-term solution to the labor shortage. President Bush decided to reverse American’s policy of depopulating the world. On January 22,2003, President Bush declared in a broadcast that the United States “must protect the lives of innocent children waiting to be born,” but that decision has been reversed by his successor President Obama, and America once more sponsors the killing of innocent children globally through abortion. Europe, Japan and the rest of the industrialized world are trying to stop the fast decline of their populations, but they are not succeeding because decades of false propaganda of “overpopulation” have now had their effect. The “contraceptive and abortion mentality” is now firmly established and their women do not want to have babies. The popular attitude towards children is that they are inconvenient, expensive and, as a group, a threat to the environment.

As we have seen in other exposures, population growth is a must for economic development. Without people there is no development. Africa has to continue growing steadily if it must develop and grow rich. The current world total fertility rate or TFR is 2.2 per woman, not far from replacement rate of 2.1 child per woman and is falling fast globally. Although it is a fundamental right for every African couple to decide the size of their family, government policy should be to encourage every African woman to have at least 5 or 6 children. This material and spiritual sacrifice will pay the parents in their old age and Africa will benefit immensely if it invests in families.

However, there are serious efforts to stall the African population growth and to keep Africa under-populated, underdeveloped and poor.

There are serious Political and economic interests against population growth. After the sudden collapse of communism and the end of the cold war, there was a shift of priorities from military to economic security. The populations of Africa and other developing countries were growing too fast and they could become demographic superpowers causing a shift in the balance of power. Population size is getting more and more important as the determinant of international power. The United States of America and Europe have taken the fight to reduce the populations of developing nations as a priority. The populations of the developing countries must be stopped at all cost.
The methods they use are:

“OVERPOPULATION SCARE”: Sustainable development. Fallacy of Malthusian Theory. Population crisis ideology to influence international agencies and governments.

“WOMENS RIGHTS”: Invoking so called new “Women’s Rights” while underestimating and undermining the woman’s vocation to give life.“ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS”: Invoking them in an excessive or improper way to justify coercive population control.

“CONTRACEPTIVE IMPERIALISM”: Spreading abortifacient products such as RU486, Norplant, and the Pill to very poor countries.

“STERILIZATION AND CONDOMS”: Spreading globally the use of Sterilization and Condoms.

“THE INTERNATIONAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION” with branches all over the developing world as the most effective organization to control population growth.

“COERCION AND DECEIT”: The main organizations being the IMF, USAID, UNICEF and UNFPA. Countries to reduce their populations before they can get aid or soft loans. Many desperately poor developing countries feel they have no choice but to accept this Faustian bargain.

The population-controllers of the 1970s said that massive famine would sweep the populous Third World and wipe out millions. This has been disproved by historical facts. Now they are trying to convince the world that fertility is the cause of environmental destruction. Therefore Africa and other developing countries should control the growth of their populations. Whereas the ozone layer is being destroyed by the developed countries, through their industries and their wanton way of living and extravagant consumption. They produce more than 70% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while Africa produces less than 4%. Climate change is caused by the developed world, not by Africa or the other developing countries. But some governments and NGOs with special economic and political interest want to use this as an opportunity to control the African population. “Slower population growth….would help build social resilience to climate change’s impacts and would contribute to reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in the future,” the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) says. It said the battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available.

The UNFPA would like the UN to fight climate change with free condoms.

One analyst criticized the UNFPA’s pronouncement as alarmist and unhelpful. “It requires a major leap of imagination to believe that free condoms will cool down the climate,” said Caroline Boin, a policy analyst at International Policy Network, a London-based think tank.
In its 1987 report, the UNFPA warned that once the global population hit 5 billion, the world “could degenerate into disaster.” At the time the agency said “more vigorous attempts to slow undue population growth” were needed in many countries.

In 1993 the African Academy of Science refused to sign a declaration, put forward by the Western Academies of Science, in which they had advocated for a “zero population growth”. The note of the African Academy of Science read: “in Africa, population goes on being an important factor for development, without which the natural resources of the continent would remain latent and unexploited”. They also warned that “in some parts of Africa scanty population is a serious problem”UNFPA would like a “UN Climate Agreement” in Copenhagen to include population linkage so that it could facilitate its population control policy. However African countries took a concerted action and boycotted the UN climate talks in Barcelona, saying that scientist say industrial countries should reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, but targets announced so far amount to far less than the minimum.

The UNFPA was founded with the main hidden agenda of controlling the African population and those of other countries. This UN agency helped set up and run the Chinese one child policy which is responsible for millions of horrible coercive abortions. Because of this policy, there are 37 million more men than women in China. This gender imbalance is the major force driving sexual trafficking of women and girls in Asia.
President George W. Bush stopped American Policy of depopulating Developing Countries. He stopped funding the UNFPA, but his successor President Obama has revoked the suspension and has renewed the funding of UNFPA to carry out its murderous work of depopulating Africa and the rest of the world. Europe is the main supporter of UNFPA, and votes million of dollars every year to UNFPA. African countries should not contribute to the UNFPA because the money is used mainly to depopulate Africa.

The INTERNATIONAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION.

In 1921, Margaret Sanger, the racist and eugenicist woman founded the American Birth Control League which eventually became known as Planned Parenthood. The movement was designed primarily to kill black babies. Sanger was a racist who advocated eugenics, so called “selective breeding”, euthanasia, sterilization, and abortion. She published several books in which she often referred to blacks as “genetically unfit” and “human weeds.”

The International Planned Parenthood Federation is the most effective organization used to kill African children and children all over the developing world through abortion. It has branches all over the developing world.

Today its main activities are spreading CONDOMS, promoting ABORTIONS, and spreading immorality among the youth and destroying family values.

Condoms prevent pregnancies thereby stalling population growth.
Condoms do not stop the spread of AIDS in fact they promote the spread of AIDS.

This is a fact scientifically proven and practically tested. Africans love children.

Polygamy, fornication, and promiscuity are not considered sins, by African customs and traditions.

The HIV/AIDS is spread mainly by sexual intercourse. Polygamy and the African excessive love for many children, encourage Promiscuity, and promiscuity encourages the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Hence Africa South of the Sahara has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infections in the world about 76%. Condoms are promoted by the agents of dearth, to help the spread of AIDS which eventually kill the victims and stalls population growth. Condoms also promote promiscuity and promiscuity promotes casual sex, which promote unwanted pregnancies leading to abortions. Condoms are a terrible evil.

To control the spread of AIDS, Africans must change their sexual behaviors and embrace ABSTAINANCE before marriage and FIDELITY after marriage, because the more condoms they import, the higher the rate of HIV/AIDS infections.

Our friends will give us free malaria tablets, our enemies will give us free condoms

Today UNFPA and the International Planned Parenthood Federation are spending millions if not billions of dollars to spread and promote the use of condoms to stop the growth of the African population. Today they are spending millions of dollars to promote the heinous crime of abortion, the killing of the African child. They destroy morals by promoting casual sex. They encourage the “woman’s choice” to kill their children by abortion, contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which declares that “everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of person”. Therefore any person or organization or government, who or which promotes or encourages abortion, has no moral right to condemn torture, unjust wars, genocide or terrorism. Abortion is genocides against children. African governments must control the murderous activities of the UNFPA and the International Planned Parenthood Federation. They are the agents of dearth.

European culture has its roots in Christianity and its laws and customs were based on Christian values and the sanctity of life. Europe has become one of the most anti-Christian Countries in the world. Before, divorce was forbidden, adultery was an offence, abortion was an offence, contraceptives were forbidden, homosexuality was an offence, suicide was forbidden, euthanasia was forbidden. Prostitution, bestiality, necrophilia, paedophilia, pornography, and incest were forbidden, today most of them are legalized or allowed. Europe even wants to remove the Cross, the symbol of Christianity from public places.

There are billions of good God-fearing people in Europe, America and throughout the world, they must rise up against the few misguided or evil people who manipulate public opinion, and control most of the governments of the world. We cannot be indifferent to the destruction of marriage, the family and the sanctity of life. We must rise up to defend them. The choice is between Good or Evil, Light or Darkness, Life or Dearth, God or Satan. GOD MUST REIGN.

Politics and Freedom of Choice

By Tazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.

All politics is about power: the power to shape society to fit individual views; the power to create or deny equal opportunity; the power to facilitate or frustrate the exercise of individual freedoms…; the power to determine the conditions of the exercise of power in all domains of society…

A few politicians appear on the scene once in a while, and cause a people or the whole of humanity to experience the important role of politics in their lives. Such are usually remembered with volumes upon volumes of history books and biographies, to celebrate their lives and achievements. The rest of the teaming lot that seeks to have a foothold on the political league are easily burnt on the stake, or quickly disappear from memory.

The few politicians that are celebrated when they leave the stage usually make their mark because of their knowledge of human nature; because of their familiarity with the virtues and infirmities of politics, and because they understand that ambition is a strong human passion that could be insidious! They have the humility to deal with strong human egos, to be tolerant of divergent views, and to always put themselves in the place of others to experience what they are feeling; they understand the motives and desires of others, so they easily overcome personal vendetta, humiliation, and bitterness.

Because of the nature of ambition, politics is and has always been a competitive endeavour, with the people as the coveted audience! At the core of this competition is an urge to meet the expectations of the people and to exceed them, far beyond the “politics” usually referred to as a “game” in which you “win” or you “lose”.

A consequence of the competitive nature of politics is the ritual of running down real or perceived opponents! Depending on whether the politician is one of the few and far-fetched or part of the teaming lot, such ritual can be played out elegantly or inelegantly; reluctantly or with relish, but the finality is that it is always played out! Indeed, our political landscape is littered with debris from such little battles...

The unfolding drama of “crossing-overs”, resignations and the depressing political repartees that are in the news today are just part of the ritual, but such are the handiwork of the teaming lot…

With the much water that has gone under the proverbial bridge in Cameroon since 1990, we are expected to have moved away from the sterile politics of using “poaching” and “crossing-overs” to prove the goodness of the ruling party; now is time for showcasing the concrete actions and achievements of a 30-year old regime, beyond the usual empty noises about peace, security, national unity, and democracy that are more on the lips of the teaming lot than measurable outcomes on the ground.

With nothing to showcase after an obviously tiring 30 years, the space is being filled with distractions like “I will never fail… we are patiently building our country on solid foundations” of peace, stability and unity…; and recognition of “appeals and motions of support as eloquent signs of encouragement…” It does not matter that all of these have nothing to do with “pillars of nation building”, which have always hinged everywhere in the world on strong institutions and the freedom of citizens to choose their leaders through credible elections.
As the clock ticks on and time becomes a pressing factor, all our “politicians” seem to be moving towards the inevitable destination; towards where the story always ends for the teaming lot: creating illusions. They create illusions through engineering resignations from other political parties; through changing key words like “poverty reduction”, to “employment and growth” in strategy documents; through voting inflated budgets that serve embezzlers more than they serve the policy of reducing poverty and providing employment and growth; through changing Prime Ministers that always remain the same toothless bulldogs; through changing managers of a dysfunctional electoral system whose sole purpose is to serve one man…

The Cameroon society is clamouring more urgently today than ever before for “change”. Although some “politicians” continue to claim that the “change” advocated has no palpable content, content no longer really matters because the central issue is to bring on the stage the few and far-fetched politicians to guide the laying of a solid foundation for the concrete and effective peace, stability, unity and democracy needed by the Cameroon of the future.

Cameroon:MP's Protest Against "Undemocratic and Illegal" Adoption of Bills

By Christopher Ambe Shu
As the November Session of Cameroon National Assembly wraps up Saturday Decmber5,after the adoption of the 2010 Budget which stands at Fcfa 2,570 bllion ,and other bills, the past three days have been dramatic as other MP's including those of the ruling CPDM courageously joined the usually outspoken MP for Akwaya,Hon Ayah Paul Abine ,to protest against the "Undemcratic and illegal " adoption of bills .

It all started in the afternoon of December 2nd when Hon Ayah Paul Abine,took to the rostrum and said that, a few months before,Catholic Christians in Douala had taken to task the National Assembly for authorizing the President of the Republic to ratify the Maputo Protocol with alleged sinful provisions.

Hon Ayah added that his concern was not with the veracity of what the Christians alleged about the content of the protocol, but with the fact that Parliament often authorizes the President of the Republic to ratify international instruments that Parliamentarians have not as much as seen, and that it was contrary to the relevant constitutional provisions.

The Member of Parliament for Akwaya then said that he would have nothing to do with the five Bills he was holding if the relevant instruments to be ratified were not made available to him for prior studies.
Otherwise, he insisted, it should be recorded that he did not vote the five Bills purporting to authorize the President of the Republic to ratify the instruments.

The presiding Vice President of the National Assembly, Hon Baoro Theophile, ordered that the relevant instruments be made available to Hon Ayah.But the rest of Members of Parliament shouted that the instruments should be made available to all of them and not just to some.

Even though the instruments were not given to Hon Ayah, as he told the press later, the Vice President declared adopted the three Bills without a vote, implying thereby that Hon Ayah was one with the rest.
When the remaining two of the five Bills came up for debate in the afternoon of December 3, all the Members of Parliament who took to the rostrum, the bulk of whom were of the ruling CPDM party, opposed the adoption of the Bill relative to fresh accords between Cameroon and France.

As Hon. Ayah was raising a preliminary objection on the procedure the Vice President had followed the day before, declaring adopted the Bills of the day without a vote, the Vice President began to interrupt him. But Hon Ayah, with the support of most of the other

Members of Parliament present, successfully insisted on making his point. He ended up moving that the Bill being debated -be put to the vote at the end of the debates in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House.
When the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization finished answering questions from the Members of Parliament, several deputies requested to take to the rostrum for a second round of debate.
 In the face of overwhelming evidence that the Parliament of Cameroon was on the verge of making history by exceptionally rejecting a Bill tabled by the Government, the Vice President, Hon Baoro Theophile, not only refused to allow the parliamentarians to continue with debates, but he went straight on to declare the Bill adopted without putting it to the vote. The move provoked shouts of disapprobation from the parliamentarians who began to leave the hemicycle in disorder.

 Contacted, Hon Ayah said that, up to the moment of contacting him, the five instruments the President of the Republic was authorized to ratify had not been given to him, or to other Members of Parliament. He added that so had been the system all along, but it would appear some parliamentarians no longer want to give any such blank check.

 Hon Ayah concluded that the Vice President’s undemocratic conduct and the lawless “adoption” of the Bills conclusively confirm his repeated assertion that Cameroon’s Parliament is not more than a “formality institution”.

Gov’t Joins UB Authorities To Crack down on Striking Students

By Mua  Adams

The University of Buea, Cameroon, UB, that saw the light of day in  1993 as a move to decongest the lone and pre-independent state university, University of Yaounde, UNIYAO, has been hit by a major crisis of unprecedented proportion- with students striking and asking to be given their original Anglo-Saxon university status.

   After the first UB strike of 1995 that grossly paralysed the institution, the university was again hit by another strike in November 2009 where active students said to be members of opposition political parties such as SDF, UNDP and others were at the forefront of the demonstrations.

    Amongst the  supposed leaders of the strike were some student leaders and opinion holders like Paul Shipuh, Tabogo Eno-Jah, Ako Stanley, etc who narrowly escaped arrest  and whose whereabouts are still unknown.

At a time when universities world-wide are fast becoming real centers for dialogue and advancement of academic and intellectual debates, the University of Buea, U.B, has grown virile, despotic and criminal.

    The students of UB have been and are reportedly being denied basic right of expression: the free-will to present their plight, their leaders caught, molested, tortured and detained, students fleeing to unknown destinations and abandoning studies, students killed and their bodies used for rituals.

It is today 16 years, since the university of Buea was created but unfortunately, the university appears to have   been turned into a wartime zone with students  reportedly intimidated, some tagged secessionists, imposed draconian laws,  levied at will, molested and student union leaders haunted and students forced to flee, abandoning studies.

   The UB crisis of this November is the outcome of a government’s insensitivity to the cries of her people. The substance of the strike is the request from the students to have the Anglo-Saxon status of the university maintained and not rubbed into mud. According to the striking students, the French system is systematically infiltrating the UB and causing much harm to the originality and authenticity of the much-cherished   Anglo-Saxon university. The students also drew the attention of the authorities that-be that exams were being sold and leaked to students. The students’ union body, which is supposed to be a democratically-elected body, was under the influence of authorities and this, too, did not go well with the students who wanted an independent body that can face the school administration with courage and conviction. The students also protested and demonstrated against the psychological torture of their student’s union leader, Paul Shipuh, who was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and other tactics of intimidation.

    The protests and demonstrations also frowned at the growing phenomenon where marks were traded for cash or kind at the price of excellence. The strong military presence on campus and the sudden closure of all petty businesses offering photo-copying services, fast-food and facilitating their academic work also caught the condemnation of the students as they protested asking for something to be done.

   While protesting peacefully by way of sit-downs on campus and chanting songs of liberation, the leaders still found time to table a memorandum to  UB authorities.

   Amongst other things raised, the memorandum called for: UB authorities not to meddle into student’s union affairs of the UBSU; the re-instatement of the original         

   Anglo-Saxon status of the UB; produce draft transcript for students free-of-charge or cost-free; the provision of students’ answer sheets to manage mistakes and fraud; the cancellation of all forms of taxes levied on exams; a well-spelt out calendar of students’ activities a; an improvement on the security services on campus; a halt on the harassment of students’ leaders and opinion-holders; the re-opening of all the campus businesses; the creation of an atmosphere of peace and love on campus.

   While the dust was yet to settle with the students and authorities trying to break an even ground of dialogue and peace, a truck load of armed-uniformed men and women stormed the UB campus describing the students as instruments of manipulation by politicians and enemies of the state. In the raid and stampede that followed, 19 students and 14 lecturers were reportedly arrested and taken to unknown destinations with scores of others wounded, beaten and forced to flee with injuries.

   Amongst the many students that suffered huge bodily injuries and were reportedly detained included Ayuk Tang, Wabi Frankline, Kenyu Serge Herve, Tata Kwami Mbinglo, Tchaumou Marie Loue.

    After the strike, we also gathered that some students were black listed by authorities and are being sought for by security forces. They included: Mua Atumked, Ako Claude Enobi, Tabogo  Eno-Jah, Bessong Tiku, Nkongho N. Nkongho, Enow Peter, Ernest Acha, Eyambe Ebai, Erickson Abumbi, Jotso Lawrence Peligne, Kingsley Sheteh Newuh and a host of others.

  In the light of the unfolding drama, classes and activities have been grounded. Anxiety has gripped the entire nation as the fate of the students arrested and charged with secession and belonging to the radical wing of the SCNC are on the balance. Parents are confused as they do not know the whereabouts of their children.

   Some students are rumoured to be crossing the boarders to neighbouring Nigeria, Tchad, Gabon as the government Gestapo crack force is at work haunting for student-activists and suspected leaders.