Cameroon: Hon Ayah Insists Enow Tanjong and Igelle Elias, newly elected MP’s, are dishonorable

After an article in The Recorder Newspaper of October 28, 2013 titled Ex-Governor Tanjong dismisses claim he was elected MP without enrolling as voter, Hon. Ayah Paul (one of Cameroon’s career magistrates of Exceptional Class)who is the Secretary-General of People’s Action Party (PAP), whose Parliamentary Candidate Akoson Raymond made the allegation that the ex-governor did not register as a voter, has written a strong rejoinder to The Recorder in which  he describes  the above mentioned newly elected MP’s as dishonourable. Below is the rejoinder:

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Dishonorable Enow Tanjong and Igelle Elias

BY Hon. AYAH P ABINE

Hon Ayah Paul

Dishonourable Enow Tanjong and Dishonourable Igelle Elias both of Manyu Constituency have told The Recorder shameless lies about their reprehensible conduct relative to the September 30,2013,parliamentary election – lies that are squarely consistent with the image of CPDM that coincides with profile of a crime syndicate. Few informed observers would take them seriously anyway!
    The point is that when rumours started circulating that Enow Tanjong had not been registered on the electoral rolls, I gave myself the assignment to investigate the matter. It may interest the readers to know that I have been a legal official, carrying out criminal investigation on the ground for years. In my enquiries, I did find out that Enow Tanjong truly had not been registered

     But when CPDM made it public that he was the party’s candidate for Upper Bayang (in Manyu Constituency), Enow Tanjong hurriedly had himself registered by the Buea ELECAM Municipal Branch, and a voter’s card was issued to him.
     By Cameroon’s electoral code, it is not competent of the Buea branch of ELECAM to register anyone or to issue a voter’s card for a polling station outside the Buea Municipality, let alone for far-off Fotabe in Upper Baying. 

     Brandishing a voter’s card today for Fotabe simply implies one of two instances of criminal conduct. The one case is that the card is a forgery for having been issued by Buea that did not have jurisdiction ratione loci over Fotabe. In the second place, if the card for Fotabe was issued by the Upper Bayang ELECAM Municipal Branch after that of Buea had been issued, it amounted to double registration, contrary to the law. To repeat in summary, both cases are criminal. … Horrible acceding to an honourable office over a threshold where fumes of criminality gyrate!
    As for Dishonourable “Chief” Igelle Elias, it was conspicuous fraud!
My findings are that Igelle went into a fraudulent deal with some treasury staffer in Buea whereby Igelle was given two blank receipts for whatever consideration. When the treasury boss discovered that two treasury receipts were unaccounted for, he raised hell and the fraud filtered to the public. Igelle quickly returned one of the receipts that was still blank and retained the one he had filled in. (The latest information we have is that the one filled in has now been returned to the treasury and that the sum filled in is 2.7 million).
      If Igelle tells The Recorder today that he paid the deposit at Mamfe, that brings out his criminal conduct all the more. If he did pay at Mamfe, it does mean that when Igelle’s raw fraud in Buea was discovered and the blank receipt was returned, “smart” Igelle immediately turned to Mamfe for a cover-up.  And if he had paid at Mamfe, what was Igelle’s motive for procuring two blank treasury receipts when Igelle as a “stores accountant” knows very well that receipts never issue in blank in financial transactions? What in short was the motive? … The answer is blowing in the wind! 

    Indeed, this time around, Manyu has produced a very rare race of (dis)honourable criminal parliamentarians!

Fight Against Unemployment : African Leaders Implored to transform natural into job opportunities

                                            By Christopher Ambe
     African governments and leaders have been called upon to henceforth ensure that the exploitation of the natural resources of their countries is largely intended for the common good of citizens. 

    They have  been  implored  to transform the abundant natural resources of their  conuttries  into job opportunities for the millions of qualified  but unemployed Africans, and  to make "local content and local participation" in mining, oil and gas projects a focus of their administrations

Dr. Makongo (extreme right)  making a presentation at launch of African Gas Association(AGA),in Kenya

   Dr. David Makongo , a Cameroonian - born but US-trained natural resources legal and policy expert   made the  plea   recently  in a presentation ,titled "Local Content And Local Participation In Natural Resources Projects-The Key To Africa's Development?" at Safari Park Hotel in Kenya during the inaugural meeting of The Africa Gas Association in conjunction with World Alliance for Decentralized Energy .

    The conference, which ran from October 14-15, assembled participants from (USA, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, United Kingdom, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Israel and Norway .It was chaired by the President of the African Gas Association Mrs. Pamela Namai, - a Kenyan resident in USA and working for the American Gas Association. She is also cofounder with Dr. Makongo and Foraline Olejembola of Nigeria of the Afro-American Consortium (AAC-3) dealing in natural resources, infrastructure, equity and financing across the globe.

    "This is the change Africa needs. It is the change Africans should be calling for because it carries more meaning in our nations than the mere change for sitting presidents," Dr Makongo, who was one of several speakers, noted.
"For Africa to be a stable place for business and an island of hospitality, host countries and foreign companies must merge their politics and policies so to create jobs for Africans right here in Africa.
"Companies should start seeking social licenses backed by solid local content and local participation plan that clearly shows how many local skills will be developed, how many local employees will be hired and what quantity of and quality of goods and services a company intends to source locally, as opposed to importing throughout the value chain of a mining or oil and gas project"

Mrs.Pamela Namai,President,AGA

    Dr. Makongo strongly advised that governments in dialogue and consultation with companies on the other hand, should put in place sound local content policies and legislation as guarantee for employment of locals to whom these resources belong and use of local goods and services- not forgetting technology transfer so that locals can also be competitive abroad. 
"No Africa government should grant a license to an investor who has not complied with the local participation plan agreed to. It is good to know what Africa will get before a license is granted …This is also important for companies to make profits because a key license any foreign company must seek to acquire for business success even higher than an exploitation license is a social license granted by the local community directly impacted by company's project."
   The international expert argued: "There is no justification what so ever for Nigeria to have 36 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and over 19 cubic billion barrels of natural gas reserves, ranking 5th biggest petroleum exporter in the word, yet three quarters of Nigerians still live far below poverty line. 

   "There is no convincing explanation why Nigeria that has made over 600 billion dollars in petroleum product sales since oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in the 1950s should still be owing local and foreign creditors a combined more than 50 billion dollars."
Asked whether Africa's abundant natural resources are a curse or blessing, Dr.Makongo retorted, "If Africa's natural resources endowment are ever going to serve as a blessing, local content and local participation policies and laws similar to the Norwegian model for success must be put in place as a catalyst in the way of doing business for Africa's socio-economic growth and development to be stimulated."

    For such development to occur, Dr. Makongo appealed to the West to stop giving Africa fish and start giving Africa fishing nets.
    Dr.Makongo, who was highly applauded for his thought-provoking presentation, urged African governments to stop budgeting for   war weaponry and start building bread, butter and groundnut factories right here in Africa.
  Natural gas development holds tremendous opportunity for the African Continent, and is a "prime mover" for broader economic and social development, it emerged.

   Dr. Makongo recalled that, before the scramble for Africa began about 1884, natural resources belonged to the traditional leaders who had sole authority to authorize anyone to exploit them. But he regretted that the colonization of Africa -spearheaded by Europe, viciously changed dynamics asAfricans were ruthlessly dispossessed of their fertile lands without compensation. 

"They were pushed to find new habitation slums on top of which they were sometimes compelled pay pole tax to their occupiers. The trend changed again during independence as most new independent African nations drafted new constitutions making all natural resources below and above the ground the property of the state and nationalized most foreign owned companies." He stated that, due to lack of technical expertise, lack of much needed capital, corruption and mismanagement, nationalization policy failed and by 1980s till date most African countries had become heavily indebted to both the World Bank and IMF 

The oil and gas experts in family picture at the launch of Africa Gas Association,in Kenya

   "Today African nations have become needles in the world economic stage where they pay more interest to the World Bank and IMF than they provided food, water and shelter for their own people who sit atop the rich resources. This must change today.
"The change Africa needs today should be such that companies partner with government institutions to seek for ways to transfer technology to indigenous communities in a way that is sustainable enough for local skills and services to be equally competitive in the international market"

   He bemoaned the fact that there are many educated African men and women living in resource-rich Africa, yet they cannot find jobs with companies tapping these resources.
Other speakers such as Pam C. Namai Partners of Afro-American Consortium from USA, Ambassador Richard Titus Ekai- Principal Secretary Ministry of Mining Kenya at the meeting elaborated a lot more on Africa's outlook for Natural Gas production and use.

   It should been noted that, Dr. Makongo has championed the cause of local communities in Ghana, Guinea, Burundi, Congo DRC, Mali, Rwanda, Bonavada in Cameroon and now is on track to becoming a legal and policy luminary leading awareness of local content and local participation in mining and oil and gas regimes in Africa. 

    According to him, this is the only way Africa -blessed with abundant natural resources can- stop looking like a joke on the world economic stage. Africa should stop borrowing more money and start paying less interest to the WB and IF and use the surplus income to create jobs and in paying for education, hospitals, clean water, electricity and road infrastructure for their own people right here in Africa. If this is put in place with good governance, accountability and the fight against corruption is genuine and not aimed at wasting scare national resources to quiet political opponents, Africa will grow and develop at a pace that will shock the entire universe.  

   Dr. Makongo is founder of Makongo & African Partners LLC, Partner with Afro-American Consortium (www.aac-3.com), and founder of United Support for Peace and member of ABA and IBA.

[Also Published In The RECORDER Newspaper,Cameroon,of October 28,2013]

Cameroon:Ex-Governor Tanjong dismisses claim he was elected MP without enrolling as voter

By Christopher Ambe 
Retired Governor Enow Tanjong, one of the newly elected MP's for Manyu, has dismissed as unfounded an allegation contained in a petition addressed to the Board Chairman of ELECAM, Cameroon's elections management body, by Akoson A. Raymond, People's Action Party (PAP) parliamentary candidate, Manyu ,that the former was elected MP at last September 30 legislative election when he did not enroll in the electoral register as required by law.

 The petition, emailed to the The Recorder, was copied to media organs  and foreign representations  in Cameroon.
The petition, titled "Time For ELECAM to Prove Neutrality and Competence", calls for ELECAM to initiate legal action to ensure that retired Governor Tanjong's parliamentary seat is declared vacant.   

  But when the The Recorder met retired Governor Tanjong in Buea, for investigation, on Friday, October 25, the MP-elect regretted that such a serious allegation could be made against his person by someone who himself wanted to be the people's representative .Describing it as unfounded, he went straight for his voter's card(Number 05676861), which he came and handed to this reporter for a view.

 The MP-elect said he was one of the first to enroll in the electoral register in Buea with his polling station being the Military Sector, opposite the Nigerian Consulate-General of Nigeria, after the launching of biometric registration. He explained that when he later decided to run for parliamentary election in Manyu as a CPDM candidate, he informed ELECAM about it and he was issued a voter card with his new polling station as Government School  Fotabe A, where he reportedly voted.  

 

 Retired Governor Tangong who said he was contemplating legal action against the writer of the petition, remarked, "The people of Mamfe wanted me to be their MP and bring sanity to what was going."
He said the motivation behind such as a serious allegation was bad faith and could only come from "drowning people who have nothing to offer to the population"

  In the same petition, Mr.Akoson alleged that another MP-elect for Manyu Chief Igelle Elias Terhemen, forged his 'attestation of Deposit of his Caution Fee, which was one of the requirements to qualify as a parliamentary candidate.

But when The Recorder contacted Chief Igelle by phone, he too dismissed the allegation. "…Go to ELECAM and check, my attestation of deposit of one million FCFA is there. I paid in Mamfe treasury. You can go to ELECAM and get the reference number and then go to Mamfe Treasury and find out yourself."

Following is Mr. Akoson Raymond's petition:

The Board Chairman,
Elections Cameroon,
ELECAM, Yaounde.
Sir,
Time For ELECAM to Prove Neutrality and Competence

The Intelligence Unit of People's Action Party, PAP has uncovered disturbing facts that would cause some if not all of the parliamentary seats in Manyu automatically become vacant after the Supreme Court's proclamation of results of the legislative election Thursday October 17, 2013.
 
Fact One: Hard evidence from the Biometric database at Yaounde reveals that retired governor Enow Tanjong from Fotabe village, Upper Bayang, one of the CPDM list members for parliamentary election in Manyu DID NOT REGISTER on the electoral register. Section 156 of Law No. 2012/001 of April 19, 2012 relating to the Electoral Code spells out paramount eligibility criterion for parliament which is to be registered on the electoral registers.
 
Note: Sec. 161 (2) of the Electoral Code provides; 'The seat in the National Assembly of a member or alternate shall AUTOMATICALLY become VACANT if, after proclamation of the results of the election, it is established that such member or alternate was INELIGIBLE...'
 
Fact Two: Again, sufficient evidence there is that Igelle Elias Terhemen from Akwaya -- a list member of the CPDM Parliamentary list in Manyu faked his 'Attestation of Deposit of his Caution Fee'. The said Igelle Elias did not pay his caution fee. This means that Sec. 166 of the Electoral Code was violated which of course, has penal consequences.
 
Note: For non payment of his caution fee, Igelle Elias Terhemen crumbled the CPDM parliamentary list. ELECAM knows what happens to incomplete lists submitted for screening. It is only logical to state that CPDM DID NOT participate at the legislative election in Manyu.
 
PAP salutes the effort of ELECAM thus far and understands that no institution can function perfectly without shortcomings. However, such shortcomings must be fixed when noticed. The neutrality and fairness of ELECAM will be measured on how they weigh in to arrest this situation.
 
In the coming days, PAP shall be organizing a press confab where the evidences will be brandished.
 Respectfully submitted,
Akoson A. Raymond,
PAP Parliamentary Candidate,
Manyu.
E-mail: akosonako@yahoo.com
Tel: 78358029

CC: Media houses;
      All embassies and diplomatic missions

[Also Published in The Recorder Newspaper ,Cameroon,of October 28,2013]

Cameroon:Government Told University of Buea Needs Teaching Hospital

By Christopher Ambe 

The Minster of Higher Education, Professor Jacques Jame Ndongo inaugurated, on October 23, the Teaching Laboratory Block of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Buea(UB),away from  UB main campus.He described  the new building as a " wonderful gift from President Paul Biya"

Cameroon's Higher Education Minister  Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo being received at the ceremony

The Vice-chancellor of UB, Dr. Nalova Lyonga,who was thankful  to the State of Cameroon for funding  the realization of  the  project, used the ceremony to call on the government to  construct and equip a teaching hospital for the university, which graduated its for first batch of medical doctors last year .

"It is important that when we have a place like this there should be an amphitheatre and teaching hospital", the VC told the minster who, she noted, has been very supportive of the growth of UB. "The Minister has done a lot of good things for the university."
She saluted renowned professors such as Gottlieb Monekosso (present at the event) and Nasah Boniface, who baby-sat the project .The VC also hailed Group Waga, for constructing the befitting structure.

Reacting to the development worries and plea of the VC, Minister Fame Ndongo, in his inaugural speech, declared, "The construction will continue because it is part of the Greater Accomplishments of President Paul Biya. We have money to add more of such buildings"

Prof Fame Ndongo acknowledged that for some time now Cameroon has suffered acute lack of health professionals such as doctors, pharmacists and dentists. He said Government is now doing best to bridge the wide gap between doctors and patients. The doctor-patient ratio in the past years used to be one doctor to over 10,000 patients. He the training of more doctors now is approved institutions is in line with Government resolve to narrow the gap.

The minister commended the UB pro-chancellor Prof Maurice Tchuente and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Nalova Lyonga, whom he likened to an iron lady as well as other UB officials for making the varsity the pride of academia in the Ministry of Higher Education. He expressed the wish to see UB always remain "The place to be"

Partial view of the Teaching Laboratory Block   recently inaugurated

Earlier in a speech, Professor Ngowe Ngowe Marcelin, dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, had presented the faculty which started in 1993 with few students but today it has over 800 .Prof Ngowe  said the faculty just produced its first official journal and boasts of a website. He stressed the need for the faculty to be fenced round and for more equipment and personnel  

The inauguration of the structure was witnessed among other dignitaries by Fon Ndikum Clement, Secretary-general of the Southwest Region, representing the Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai.
The construction of the  new faculty buildings has reportedly consumed over four billion Fcfa.
[Also Published in The RECORDER Newspaper,Cameroon,of October 28,2013]

Cameroon:Mayor Ekema Patrick, Fight The Good Fight!

By Christopher Ambe

Buea Mayor Ekema Patrick

The brilliant election of Ekema Patrick Esunge, in his mid 30’s, on October 16   as the Mayor of Buea, headquarters of Southwest Region, no doubt, suggests that more is expected from whom much has been given.  That means the new mayor must fight the good fight-that is, put the interest and development of the Municipality above anything else.

In other words, this means Mola Ekema-“son of the soil’, must work in collaboration with all development stakeholders within his reach who have the modernization of the municipality at heart  if he must  transform his victory into concrete project realization.

Luckily for Mola Ekema, the 41 councilors of Buea with whom he will work closely for the new five years are said to be a development-oriented team, judging from their profiles.

For instance, you have  people such as Dr. Amos Namanga  Ngongi,former UN Undersecretary-general ,one-time Deputy Executive Director of World Food  Program and  Member of United Nations Management Board; Professor Victor Julius Ngoh, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the prestigious University of Buea;Chief David Molinge  of  Muea Town ;Emmanuel Motomby Mbome, a  chartered treasury accountant and President of  the National Athletic Federation; Mosoko Edward  Motuwe,former  Deputy Mayor of Buea  and a human resource management expert, and Dr. Ngange  Lyonga Kinsley, communication consultant/lecturer. 

The mayor-elect himself is a cool-headed administrator, one -time first Deputy Mayor of Buea,  then Interim Mayor before his October 16 brilliant election by 35 out of 41 councilors as mayor.

After his election which was free and fair, Mola Ekema, apparently as a sign of his readiness to work with all who matter, embraced Mrs. Hannah Etonde Mbua (Principal of GHS Buea), who had contested for the post of mayor during a CPDM selection meeting two days behind and was defeated by Mola Ekema, by 28 votes to 13.

A native of Buea, the mayor-elect is conscious of the strategic position of Buea (former capital of German Cameroon, former capital of British Southern Cameroon and seat of the then West Cameroon Government) in the history of what is today known as the Republic of Cameroon.

There is no doubt that Mola Ekema will face challenges in the performance of his mayoral functions. Lke it or not, there are people surrounding him and pretending to be friends, who will be secretly pulling him down. But a development-focused manager has the moral duty to identify his challengers and transform them into admirers.

Mola Charles Mbella Moki, served dutifully as Mayor of Buea   for 11 years-not without obstacles- and was raised (by election) to the rank of one of Cameroon’s  pioneer senators

Mola Ekema, you have skills and potentials to brave the odds in order to succeed as mayor. Don’t relent in your efforts to execute whatever development blue-print you have. The people’s expectations are high.Buea is begging for modernization.

Conscious that Mola Ekema fought a good fight, to change his status from First Deputy Mayor to Interim Mayor, and then to a full-fledged mayor, The Recorder Newspaper can only wish you “Greater Achievements” during your five -year mandate. 

(Also published in The Recorder Newspaper, Cameroon, of October 28, 2013 as commentary)

Cameroon: Fabricated Electoral Majorities: Time for Paul Biya to Think Differently!

By Asonganyi Tazoacha

OK, however they came by it, the CPDM once more has the “comfortable” or “large” majority it was asking for. It won 305 of the 360 council areas, and 148 of the 180 parliamentary seats. The case of the senate is since history. So, not much has changed. What it could do in the past with its “comfortable” majorities, it can still do today.

By Paul Biya’s own understanding, when he finally accepts the putting in place of what the 1996 Constitution describes as a Constitutional Council, his “democratization process” would have gone full cycle. He would have come to the end of what he described in the past as his mission of “bringing (or giving) democracy to Cameroon.”

Paul Biya is important in the political chessboard of Cameroon because he is President of the “Republic,” and head of “State.” So the question that should be asked and answered today, perhaps urgently, is how we came by a “republic” and a “state” whose “president” or “head” Paul Biya has been proudly totting around since 1982.

In principle, the “republic” is the political form – the structure - that preserves the public space where free, unimpeded social and political activities are carried out by the people. That public space is called society. The political structure of society is the “state.” The French view society as corrupted, with the task of the state (government) being to influence society in a positive corrective manner. The task of the French Revolution was therefore to construct a state – detached from the King - capable of imposing itself upon the disorganized movement of society.

Indeed, the French Revolution which lasted from1789 to1799 was a period of radical social and political upheavals in France, marked by events like the proclamation of the Tennis Court Oath, the assault on the Bastille, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, and the march on Versailles, all of which culminated in the proclamation of a “republic” and the execution of King Louis XVI.

Indeed, the French Revolution went through phases of temporary halts, debates, self-doubt, coups and restorations. The victory of republicans over monarchists at the beginning of the Third French Republic marked the victory of the Revolution across France. The French revolution therefore instituted what we can refer to as constitutional republicanism. The acquisitions of the French Revolution can be said to be epitomized by the French Constitution of October 5, 1958, which remains the government project – or blueprint - of France up to today.

Our own history has it that at independence in 1960, French Cameroun inherited from France, a highly centralized Jacobin-type “republic” with an oppressive state charged with transforming the Cameroun society with the force of arms or the force of law. The “republic” and the “state” as we know them today are therefore not an inheritance, a legacy from our forefathers. We became heirs to them by a twist of history. Thus, not having shed sweat and blood for the advent of the “republic” like the French did, commonsense required that after the “republic” and the “state” were thrust onto us, and reunification was overlaid on them, we had to sit down and think about the type of institutions we needed for the exercise of power, that would best define our own state, our own republic and society, and our own democracy, rather than blindly impose French-type institutions on the French-type “republic” and “state” we inherited from France, and hope that we have completed the process of “bringing democracy” to Cameroon.

Interestingly, in the French old order which was overthrown to institute the republic, the Monarch was the representative of the state, the particular incarnation of its universality; the Monarch was the state. He reigned absolutely, and the law (the constitution) constituted him as the King, and he represented the fundamental law. Unfortunately, the “republic” that was handed down to us by France was imprisoned in the French Old Regime’s political logic because one man seemed to be constituted like the King of Cameroon. Human nature, the reunification project, and other demands of history imposed an urgent need on us, and required that we undergo self-examination to get out of the “prison,” and institute a republican model accepted by all of us.

Instead, Paul Biya for over 30 years has been the subject/object of his political initiatives. He has been the subject that proposes laws and the object to which the laws are applied. He promised to give democracy to society, but the process of giving the democracy became a series of circles he spun around power, to protect it for himself. The process of “giving” democracy became a frustration for those who wanted a legitimate political order; and an opportunity for those who wanted a political order cut to size, to serve Paul Biya and those who gyrated around him.

He has repeatedly fabricated “comfortable” majorities at elections, and used them to make laws for the rest of us. The laws, invariably, always failed to meet Immanuel Kant’s touchstone for good laws: they were not laws that “the people could have willingly imposed on itself.” The fabricated “majorities” have been used over and over again to put the people in a state of helplessness by “unjust coercion, by treacherous designs,” and by a series of ruses.

I agree with my friend Azore Opio that Cameroon is sick, bedeviled. The present “laws” in Cameroon can only be compared to French laws which Louis Antoine de Saint-Just described during the French Revolution as laws that “those executing them are not revolutionary enough …In the present conditions of the Republic, the constitution cannot be established…It would become the guarantee of threats to liberty because it would lack the violence necessary to repress those threats…It is impossible for revolutionary laws to be executed if the government itself is not constituted in a revolutionary manner…”

We cannot continue to amuse ourselves in a “republic” where power is not checked. We have to stop behaving as if we do not know that it is the checks and balances provided by institutions that are important, not just the separation of powers. We have to agree that the power exercised on our behalf must be derived from inside society; that a government has authority over society only in so far as it is part of society, and knows itself as part of society.

In France from whom we got the concept of the “republic” and the “state”, the President of the Republic is only the administrator, not the owner of res publica – the republic. All Powers emanate from the Nation; and the powers are only exercised by strict delegation. According to the constitution of France, “National sovereignty shall vest in the people, who shall exercise it through their representatives and by means of referendum. No section of the people or any individual may arrogate to itself, or to himself, the exercise thereof.” The revolution had ended the reign of a King – an individual – through whom the people exercised their sovereignty.

In our Cameroon of today, the constitution states that “National sovereignty shall be vested in the people of Cameroon who shall exercise same either through the President of the Republic and Members of Parliament or by way of referendum. No section of the people or any individual shall arrogate to itself or to himself the exercise thereof.”

The Cameroon constitution can be said to be a copy of the modern French constitution emasculated and purged of all efforts at checks and balances, and then bound as the constitution for Cameroon. The President of the Republic of Cameroon is constituted as the French King of yore – having full control over the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Like Maximilien Robespierre of the French Revolution, he exercises a monopoly of power exactly as had the despots of the French Old Regime.

This cannot be allowed to continue to endure. Time has come for Paul Biya to think differently, following this other fabricated electoral majority.

Cameroon:University of Florida Donates Books to UB

Both Institutions Hope To Sign MOU Soon

By Christopher Ambe 

The College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Florida (UF)-USA, has donated some 400 specialized text books and journals to the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC), of the University of Buea (UB), Cameroon.

 

From L-R:Dr Julius Che Tita ,Prof Julius Ngoh... take a look at the books

The donated books are in the areas of: Online Journalism, Public Relations, Media Ethics, Critical Thinking, Feminism, Advertising and Media, and Research.

The presentation of the books, last October 18, on UB Campus, was witnessed by Professor Victor Julius Ngoh, UB Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of Research, Cooperation and Relations with the Business World, sitting in for UB Vice-Chancellor Dr.Nalova Lyonga while Professor Juan Carlos Molleda of University of Florida, addressed the audience online from the USA

Professor Ngoh was thankful for the donation, which he described as marvelous, noting that the books are of high quality.

“ Books are among the key resources of research and good education”, he noted ,adding that UB Vice-Chancellor is very happy with the link between the 160 year-old University of Florida and the 20 year-old University of Buea.

Professor Ngoh hoped that an official MOU between the Department of JMC ,UB and the College of JMC,Florida  would soon be signed ,to solidify the relationship between both institutions. 

Cross -section of  UB/JMC Students and lecturers at the donation ceremony

He particularly thanked Dr.Julius Che Tita, Head of Department of JMC/ UB who personally facilitated the donation from the UF, where he had graduated with a PhD in Public Relations. Professor Ngoh called on other UB staff to use their connections with people and institutions around to support the progress of UB.

 Commending the book donation, Professor Martha Njikam Tumnde,Dean of the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, under which  the Department of JMC /UB  runs,  said “books are carriers of knowledge and the ladder to progress”. Recalling that three lecturers from the Department of JMC/UB got some formal training at the College of JMC/Florida, Professor Tumnde expressed the urgent need for the formal twining of both institutions. She said the books would be put in the University Library for the benefit of all.

 

 Addressing the audience of UB students and lecturers at the donation ceremony via Skype from the US, Professor Juan Carlos Molleda, Chair of the Department of Public Relations, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, Florida, said he hoped the donated  books would enhance the academic competence of students.

 Asked if the University of Florida was interested in signing a MOU with UB, Professor Molleda said it is possible. He indicated his College’s willingness to assist JMC /UB in its post-graduate degree programmes.

 

Dr. Julius Che Tita, one of the pioneer lecturers of JMC/UB and now its head of department (HOD), said in spite of the fact that online journalism is now in vogue, the books are of relevance to students and will help improve their reading culture.

  

The Department of JMC/UB, which started in 1993, has graduated more than 1200 with Bachelor and Post-graduate degrees.

Professor Enoh Tanjong, now Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences UB, who was the first-ever HOD of JMC/UB, also witnessed the donation ceremony, animated by musical displays and news casts by student journalists.