Reaction to George Ngwane’s Open Letter to Charles Ateba Eyene

By Augustine Tita, in Buea.

In an open Letter to Charles Ateba Eyene (deceased), published online and later  in The Post Newspaper of March 3,2014,  Mwalimu George Ngwane joined thousands of mourners at home and abroad to pay glowing tribute to the fallen hero who was also one of his former students.

 We all weep for the loss of this widely acclaimed  social critic who for many, despite his unflinching support for the ruling party that is arguably responsible to a large extent for the political cacophony and buffoonery the country is going through, had come to represent the voice of the voiceless.

    In the said letter,Mwalimu George Ngwane,taking us back to an encounter he had with Ateba Eyene in 2002,while he was Vice-Principal of the Anglophone section in the Government Bilingual High School in Kribi,states inter alia”You (Ateba Eyene) asked if you could use your high connections to propose me for the position of principal and I said I would rather follow the  legitimate path to upward career mobility”

   Curiously enough, the writer tells us in the ensuing paragraph that he was appointed Provincial Delegate for the Southwest in the Ministry of Culture in 2004 a post he held for three months, certainly creating a record in the annals of administrative appointments in terms of longevity.

   Two things, however spring to mind from this: 1) In spite of all his pronouncements about good governance, was Ateba Eyene also an influence-peddler ready to use his high connections to secure juicy appointments for his comrades?

 II) Was it the natural order of things for Mwalimu George Ngwane to leave from the Ministry of Secondary Education to the post of Provincial Delegate of Culture?

By the way, after his “functionless appointment” in the Ministry of Culture, can he tell us what is his present function in the Ministry of Secondary Education where he was sent since 2010?

   Lastly, I would like to take exception to the comparison he makes between Charles Ateba Eyene and Albert Womah Mukong.Whereas the latter identified  the ruling party(CNU as it was called at the time)as source of  all the political transgressions and other societal ills afflicting our beloved nation and consequently refused to identify himself with the political regime emanating from it, the former remained until death a fervent militant who believed- despite all signs to the contrary, that change could still be effected from with