Cameroon: Fako Chiefs vow to use unorthodox means against UB strike instigators

By Christopher Ambe

 Fako chiefs (traditional rulers) have expressed total anger at the recent students protest at the University of Buea, during which the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Nalova Lyonga and native of Fako, was held hostage in her car for at least three hours.

The chiefs, meeting in Limbe last February 12, have resolved to henceforth go as far as using unorthodox means to check such happenings in the future.

 They did not specify the unorthodox means they will employ, but it is common knowledge here that traditional rulers have some spiritual powers or juju power which they use to destroy their enemies with.It was not clear whether the chiefs will decide to  use such powers as one of the unorthodox means referred to in their release.

The chiefs said they were convinced that the striking students were acting “under the remote influence of some known over-zealous lecturers mainly from an identified region” but failed to identify the region.

The chiefs even went further to note that “some of these over-zealous lecturers had earlier been transferred to some newly created state universities but [they] categorically refused to move in a bid to stir chaos by perpetrating their sinister and Machiavellian plans in the University of Buea”

At a press conference organized recently in relation to the  student protest, the UB administration disclosed that  investigations  found that some lecturers /and other staff  were behind the  students’  strike on campus. The UB Administration vowed to deal with them, but did not make public their identities.

Following is a statement issued by the Fako Chiefs at the end of their February 12 meeting:
___________________________________________________________________________

FAKO CHIEF’S DIVISIONAL CONFERENCE
SOUTHWEST REGION
MINISTRY OF TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION
REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON

REF: FCC/04/2/13

Limbe, 12 February 2013

POSTION STATEMNENT BY THE FAKO DIVISIONAL CONFERENCE OF TRADITIONAL RULERS ON THE RECENT STRIKE ACTION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUEA ON THE  6TH OF FEBRUARY 2013

Meeting this 12th day of February 2013, the Traditional rulers of Fako Division after taking cognizance of the recent brutal and inhumane realities of the strike action at the University of Buea that occurred on the 6th of February 2013;

Considering that on the 6th of February 2013 a group of misguided and teleguided students of the University of Buea did take an attitude which is entirely hostile to the education and training they receive from such an institution;

Considering that the sequestration or hostage taking of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buea Professor NALOVA LYONGA, an illustrious daughter of Fako Division for over Four Hours by these misguided students was based on very frivolous claims;

Considering that divine providence has this time again, reserved the University of Buea to be headed by an indigene of Fako Division in the face of complex sociological sensibilities of this institution;

Convinced that these misguided students are acting under the remote influence of some known over-zealous lecturers mainly from an indentified region;

Considering that some of these over-zealous lecturers had earlier been transferred to some newly created state universities but categorically refused to move in a bid to stir chaos by perpetrating their sinister and Machiavellian plans in the University of Buea;

Aware that such acts present a picture of what could be logically termed and considered as a “fog of war”, on our soil;

Considering that strike actions have never been a panacea to conflict resolutions in our state universities and the University of Buea is not an exception;

We the traditional rulers of Fako Division do vehemently condemn in very unequivocal terms, the recent unrest at the University of Buea on the 6th of February 2013;

Do, call on the powers that be to open investigations that would unmask those persons manipulating and maneuvering innocent students to be involved in acts of terrorism;

Do, pray for an enabling environment for all those that have been called upon to occupy positions of authority at the University of Buea;

And finally, do resolve  and make bold the claim that such acts of intimidation, brutality, destruction, hostage taking, etc., perpetrated in an ominously peaceful educational institution and on innocent authorities, especially those of this land, shall no longer be tolerated as they shall face the wrath of the people of Fako both by orthodox and unorthodox means.
Signed:
President Muyuka Chiefs: HRH Chief Mokoto Njie
President Buea Chiefs: HRH Chief Linonge F. Kinge
President Limbe Chiefs: HRH Chief Alani Ekane of Bokindi
President Tiko Chiefs
South West Chief’s Conference Representative
Secretary General Fako Chief’s Conference: HRH Chief Joke Johnson
President Fako Chiefs: HRH Chief Samuel Ekum of Bimbia

Medical doctors have confirmed TRIDESOL is one of the best medicines for cancer: Dr.Richard Fru

Dr.Richard Fru, Winner of multiple awards for research in traditional medicine and the Director of Buea-based Dr.Fru’s Garden of Eden International Healing and Research Foundation, has boosted that his new medicine for cancer (TRIDESOL) has also been confirmed by many medical doctors in Cameroon as very effective. He spoke to The Recorder Newspaper. Read on.

Dr. Fru: Researcher ,Traditional Medicine

Dr.Fru how is research in traditional medicine carried out?

You know traditional medicine is defined as knowledge being handed down to us from generation to generation. And we have our way to carry out research which is very special and different from the way research is done for conventional medicine. In conventional medicine, when they discover that something can work, they have to take it to the laboratory to do their testing.

In traditional medicine we research by getting plants which have already been proven to fight against a certain diseases, and then we work on- combining two or more plants to see how more effective they can be to other illnesses. We also ensure they don’t have any negative side effects on individuals. The way we carry out the research is special and our medicines safe to be consumed or used by humans

There are reports that your foundation has discovered a new cure or should I say treatment for cancer. But before you tell our readers about the new cure or drug, what is cancer?

Cancer is something evil that grows in the body. It results from the distortion of the book of life in the human being. This has to do with the distortion of the coding of DNA. And it brings about abnormal growth, which is the distortion in the book of life in the human cell. Cancer is different from normal tumors which are non-malignant.

I know many people will ask,” “what is the book of life of human?” Every human has a code that determines who they are; how their system is made up; their destiny and every thing is buried in it. This is found in the DNA and inside the DNA, you find genes which have codings.Once the re is a change in the DNA, the cell programming is distorted and it starts dividing and multiplying rapidly. And when it grows as such, it extends and kills the surrounding cells .Then so many things come in and it leads to the deterioration of the individual and he subsequently dies

Now tell us about your new drug for cancer

Thank you. We have been curing cancers over the years. We have one medicine that we can be proud of .This medicine is one of the best that cancer patients can ever find. There are so many doctors in hospitals who have confirmed that our medicine is one of the best for the treatment of cancer. This new drug is the modification of the old medicine we have been using. We have researched and improved its contents. This medicine is known as TRIDESOL (Try-Dis-One), which is now helping to cure of all types of cancers-be it liver cancer, prostate cancer, Intestinal cancer, cancer of the colon, cervical cancer, breast cancer, cancer of the uterus etc.

It is a compoundment of several curative plants-barks of trees, spices, seeds that are antioxidant that go to revitalize the system ,detoxify it and give vigor to the system and supply radiation to the system .The medicine does not go to kill cancer cells directly. You know by right, cancer is not supposed to grow in the human system. It is only when we introduce the breeding ground s for it, by distorting the book of life that cancer grows. There are certain conditions that when you subject the system to, cancer cannot longer grow. It ends up dying. So our medicine detoxifies the system, cleans it, does some work there to rectify the book of life that has been distorted by what we are taking such as toxins .Then it supplies energy to the system and the system revitalizes itself and starves cancer cells to death.

There are different kinds of cancer. Would you say cancer is curable or treatable?

When you say treatable it means you are attempting to cure. You can treat but you don’t cure. Cure means you are making better. I say our medicine is bringing healing to individuals. But it does not mean that everybody who takes it will get healed. So many things surround cancer, There are cancer cases which we need to, first of all, give certain medicines, do some work on the patients before treatment.

Many patients have come to us and we discovered that their cancers are caused by viruses; some by bacteria; some caused by fungi. Others are caused by what they eat-the wrong food-eg sugary products. Some are caused by consuming foods that were planted with fertilizers and all sorts of chemicals, pesticides used to spray crops. Some are caused by wearing clothes that absorb negative radiation from the sun and send into the body…

Others are caused by witchcraft. Witches and wizards alter the book of life through spiritual manipulation of the body. There are so many causative agents of cancer. That is why TRIDESOL has been produced to act in a holistic manner.TRIDESOL actually has more than 70 medicinal plants. Out of the 70, not all the plants fight against cancer. There are some plants there just to check so that the medicine does not have negative effects on the body. Some of the plants there bring healing and deliverance to the system -in case there are spiritual factors involved .Some are ant- fungi, anti-bacterial, and anti-parasite, and so on. There are some just to supply energy to the system.TRIDESOL look s so simple in the package but it is a holistic 

How do you get your cancer patients?

Most of the patients, who come to us, use us as the last resort in the cities. It is only in the villages that when people get sick they easily rush to traditional healers. But in the towns and cities, most people who are exposed to Western civilization, will first go to the hospitals where they believe the miracles are. And when they become frustrated and their cases become chronic that is when they rush to us, crying for help.. But thank God, most of them who come end up  being healed.

So when they come to us, they bring along their diagnosis, and their x-rays and other tests they have done to show they have cancer. When they come, we photocopy their hospital documents and keep and after curing them, we send them back to the hospitals where they conducted the various tests for verification. At the end of the day, they return to us happy that they have been healed.No longer any trace of cancer in their systems

For patients who have never known they have cancers, when we consult them and suspect, we send them to go for scanning and others tests. If they are diagnosed cancerous, or not we still treat them.

Would you really say cancer is preventative?

Yes, it is. The best medicine is prevention. Prevention, you must have heard is better than cure.

That is why we have preventive medicines. But unfortunately today some preventive medicines are instead what intoxicate the body-causing more diseases in the system. There are many sick people who come to me and say they are just from this or that preventive health centers. I tell them that those centers are for people who are not sick. I ask them that you are already sick and what is your business with preventive health centers?

Preventive medicine is our psychology. You need to educate the people because the first medicine education. Educate the people on what to eat and what not. The second medicine begins in the kitchen-our food. Most of the diseases we have are as the result of the bad food we eat. We eat wrong, eat at wrong time. That is where our health problems are coming from.

Indeed, cancers are preventable if we know what to do and when.

With your discovery of this cancer medicine, do you have any appeal to public?

I am calling on the whole world to go in for traditional medicine. Traditional medicine is highly recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).It is a better decision to settle for traditional medicine.

First published in The Recorder Newspaper,Cameroon,of February 15,2013

After quelling Strike, VC tells menacing UBSU:Law & Order Must Reign on University of Buea Campus!

By Christopher Ambe 

Buea- A press conference organized on  February 12 by the University of Buea Administration on campus after it quelled a violent student demonstration, allegedly master-minded by a few    students using the cover of the institution’s student union, UBSU, provided an occasion for Vice-chancellor (VC) Dr. Nalova Lyonga, and her immediate collaborators to present to the general public, through the media, how law-breaking and dangerous the current leaders of the union have become to the smooth functioning of the varsity.

Vice-Chancellor Dr.Nalova  Lyonga at  press conference

 But, the VC, looking determined, while addressing the press conference, insisted that, because the varsity is governed by rules and regulations, LAW and ORDER must reign on the campus of the University of Buea.  

While the press conference was going on, police arrested at least three students around the campus said to be some of the instigators of the strike  

An angry Dr. Nalova Lyonga even revealed that UBSU constitution has never been accepted and endorsed by the UB Administration, noting that the student union has been operating due to administrative tolerance

It all started on February 6 the day, the VC had planned an important meeting, to look into some student union election concern raised. UBSU executives had agreed to attend it. But surprisingly, UBSU foiled the meeting, which was convened by the UB Administration for all elected executives of the Faculties and instead instigated what they said was to be a peaceful demonstration. The demonstration later turned violent, resulting to the disruption of classes and destruction of property and the VC was held hostage in her car for three hours.

UBSU reportedly claimed that they were a central body that must control all other executives. “To do that, they want to hold their own exclusive elections, without the other executives”, Dr. Lyonga explained, describing their claim as undemocratic

But UBSU had said the strike was intended to force the UB administration address some problems negatively affecting students’ welfare. The students’ demands included the reestablishment of on -campus businesses such as photocopiers said to have been suspended; improved online registration, dialogue with students, payment of a certain amount as youth day march past dues, speedy issuance of transcripts, extension of reading time on campus, and quality food in the restaurant.  

The VC said the UB Administration only learned of the students’ alleged grievances on tracts circulated by UBSU.

According to UB administration, “UBSU is violent; they come to school with clubs and knives to terrorize students and teachers out of class. It is a dangerous group, consisting of undergraduates, ex-students, non-students - all persons susceptible to being used by extremists of all sorts who want political gains and self-aggrandizement”

 The Vice Chancellor was at a loss to understand how UBSU, which is not properly constituted, would want to dictate to the UB administration and rule over 17,000 students.

“People have to have morals and values. You can not have a university where a handful of students want to govern over 17000 student population,”Dr Nalova Lyonga said, insisting that “Our doors are open for dialogue. Our doors for dialogue are very open”

The Vice- Chancellor was assisted in throwing light on the current state of affairs at the varsity by her aides: Professor Victor Julius Ngoh (DVC’/c of Research, Cooperation and Relations with the Business World), Professor Joyce Endeley (DVC i/c of Teaching, Information Communication Technology), and Chief Professor Sampson N. Abangma( Registrar) as well as Professor Mbua Efange(Director of Development)

 Buttressing the Dr. Nalova Lyonga, UB Registrar Chief Professor Sampson Abangma, regretted that UBSU refused to submit to the authority of the VC. 

“It is only in Buea (UB) that two or three students declare a strike, and because the strike is not accepted by the majority of students, they go in to class rooms and start beating others ready to laern and chasing them out”, the Registrar said.

Taking the cue, Professor Victor Julius Ngoh, said businesses on campus were  not  banned as alleged by UBSU.He said because of the chaotic way the businesses were being carried, owners were given up to December 2012 to stop operating and  apply for the renewal of their  authorizations, which he said  were still  under review.

He regretted that UBSU was giving authorization to people to come and establish their businesses on campus.  Prof Ngoh wondered: “How can a group of student lease out University of Buea property?” He showed receipts from owners of businesses on campus said to have been issued to them by UBSU.  He cited the case of a businessman from whom UBSU collected FCFA 1.6 million and issued him a so-called authorization for him to run his business on campus until 2019.

It emerged from the press conference that some 102 photocopiers had been operating on campus, and some owners did faulty connection of the photocopiers to electrical outlets, which caused two fire incidents on campus.

 So frank were UB administration that they even told journalists that some staff especially lecturers were strongly behind the disturbances on campus.

 “We want UBSU to exist according to regulations in force…We can’t succeed without the cooperation of the Government, parents, students and other stakeholders”, Prof Abangma noted.

In her closing remark, the VC called for collective responsibility and respect of regulations, noting that it is very difficult to build but very easy to destroy.

By the time of going to press calm had returned to UB especially as students will soon begin their end-of semester exams.

It should be noted even as the disturbances were going on, a determined Dr. Nalova Lyonga, still braved the odds and successfully laid, last week, the foundation stone for the building of a 2,500 bed-capacity hostel to house students on campus, a long-term plan for modern accommodation and a business center

First Published in The Recorder Newspaper, Cameroon, of February 15, 2013

Terrorism at the University of Buea

UBSU – Cameroon’s Homegrown Boko Haram? 

  By Ernest L. Molua, PhD

 If a terrorist is a radical who employs terror as a weapon, or an individual who uses violence, terror, and intimidation to achieve a result, then the University of Buea in the Southwest region of Cameroon is the bastion of terrorists, requiring the immediate intervention of the supreme counter-terrorism unit of the land to reign the excesses and orgy of violence and intimidation that disguises for student unionism. 

Whilst student groups in different countries of the word have had a major role in broader political events, student activism have largely impacted  environmental, economic, or social change, and student activism has often focused on making changes in schools, such as increasing student influence over curriculum or improving educational funding. Unfortunately, student activism at the University of Buea has been for self-aggrandizement, and the urge has been to intimidate, blackmail and terrorize campus life to achieve diabolic ends.  The strategies and methods have been sheer terrorism.

 Holding of a Vice-Chancellor hostage for five hours, destroying public and private property, looting and ransacking university property, inflicting bodily harm on lecturers and students are hallmarks of terrorism perpetuated by identifiable members of the University of Buea Student Union (UBSU). The term "terrorism" comes from French terrorisme, from Latin: 'terror', "great fear", "dread", related to the Latin verb terrere, "to frighten". The terror cimbricus was a panic and state of emergency in Rome in response to the approach of warriors of the Cimbri tribe in 105BC. Maximilien Robespierre, a leader in the French revolution proclaimed in 1794 that "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible." The Committee of Public Safety agents that enforced the policies of "The Terror" were referred to as "Terrorists". The word "terrorism" was first recorded in English-language dictionaries in 1798 as meaning "systematic use of terror as a policy". The history of terrorism goes back to Sicarii Zealots — Jewish extremist group active in Iudaea Province at the beginning of the 1st century AD.

 Various academic definitions of terrorism conclude that terrorism is a fundamental motive to make societal changes; the use of violence or illegal force; and attacks on civilian targets by "nonstate"/"Subnational actors". Three components of terrorism could are identified: (a) acts or threats of violence; (b) the communication of fear to an audience, and; (c) political, economic, or religious aims by the perpetrator(s).” These are the traits of Boko Haram. 

The aims of UBSU have largely been economic and self-aggrandizement of few men and women with genetic disposition for anarchy and orgy for violence, grafted on terrorist methods similar to the Sahelian Boko Haram.

Bruce Hoffman, the Director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, USA and a specialist in the study of terrorism and counter-insurgency, distinguishes in his 2006 treatise (Inside terrorism, 2ed., Columbia University Press, p. 41.), terrorists from other types of criminals and terrorism from other forms of crime, by appreciating that terrorism is violent - or, equally important, threatens violence; designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target; and conducted by an organization with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure (whose members wear no uniform or identifying insignia). 

 UBSU, an unregistered non-licensed assemblage of students, ex-students and non-students, has over the last seven years received direct and indirect support from well-known members of the teaching and administrative staff of the university. In fact, terrorists usually receive funding and support from diverse sources, by persons of similar ideological intercourse. This band of pornographic supporters includes individuals or groups, small and secretive cells, highly motivated to serve a diabolic cause. 

This cabal benefits from the free flow of information and efficient telecommunications given that they are integral part of the administration and teaching corps, but with pretentious disposition to feign innocence. A 2007 study by economist Alan B. Krueger found that terrorists are more likely to have at least a high-school education, and over 60% had gone beyond high school. And to avoid detection, a terrorist will look, dress, and behave normally until executing the assigned mission. Any one providing covert or overt support to terrorists is also a terrorist, and must be dealt with. The counter terrorism unit in Cameroon’s ministries of internal security, defense, presidency of the republic and legal department must pounce on these individuals and bring the full force of the state to bear on these anarchists. 

 UBSU and its bed-partners of influencers are an abuse to student unionism. Universally the purpose of students' union or student government is to represent fellow students both within the institution and externally, including on local and national issues. Students' unions are also responsible for providing a variety of services to students. Depending on the organization's makeup, students can get involved in the union by becoming active in a committee, by attending councils and general meetings, or by becoming an elected officer. Some students' unions often serve as a training ground for aspiring politicians. The combination of the youthful enthusiasm of the various members, has been the nursery of future leadership. 

 The founders of UB styled the institution on “anglo-saxon traditions.’’ The United Kingdom has a long history of student unionism at a local and national level. The oldest students' union in Britain is St Andrews University, founded in 1864. In the UK, in addition to lobbying, campaigning, debating and carrying out other representative activities, most students' unions facilitate "student activities" (societies, volunteering opportunities, and sport) peer led support (through advice centres, helplines, job shops and more), and social venues to bring their members together. Most unions receive some funding through an annual allocation, also called the block grant, from their educational institution. Many unions supplement this income from commercial sales from their venues, shops, and marketing revenue. But this must be regulated and must conform to the laws of the land, not some jungle assertions. In the UK, the Law relating to students' unions is enshrined in the Education Act of 1994 which requires that Unions have a written constitution and that elections to major union offices are held by a secret ballot of the membership. The Act states that if a petition signed by a minimum number of students (5%) is lodged then a referendum must be held by the entire student body on whether or not to pursue further actions such as a sit-down strike.

Radicalism or the abuse of student unionism in UB is not unrelated to the culture of poverty and fear of poverty. UB being a state institution and subsidized by the state of Cameroon, with enticing emoluments for senior office-holders to the envy of others, the battle for the soul of the university is perennially fierce as the jealous-competing interests have employed students as puns for proxy-wars and battles to gain access to the treasury and purse of the university. One would expect that life in the university milieu would be an intercourse of scholarship and competing intellectual dogmas. This is the not the case in UB and low productivity has been the harvest of a crooked scorched-earth policy of men of menopausal scholarship wishing to ascend to power and authority, even if the community is starved of their inability to be erudite and professorial. 

 Dr. Dorothy L. Njeuma, the pioneer Vice-Chancellor of the University knew this too well, and incessantly bellowed on the machinations that were tearing the fabric of the university. The thoughtless doomsters relying on bogus claims sent their Jacobins to the streets, notwithstanding, had their way albeit with blood on their hands following the loss of lives of students. Since then, their modus operandi has been the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence, in the pursuit of their agenda. Their strategy is to unleash far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim(s) or object of their attack. The goal is to instill fear within the University, and thereby intimidate, a wider `target audience' in Buea subdivision that might include a rival ethnic group or region. And media outlets too are recruited. Through the publicity generated by their violence, these hell-hounds seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to effect any change. 

However, as Sergey Zagraevsky notes in his ‘365 reflections on a human and humanity’, terrorism is "the dirtiest weapon of the weak against the strong". The current state of affairs is a turning point which must be exploited, and the sledge-harmer in the hands of the incumbent Vice-Chancellor Professor Nalova Lyonga is a tool to bury once-and-for-all this tetrahedron menace that strangulates scholarship and reputation of Cameroon’s most prestigious university.

First published in The Recorder Newspaper,Cameroon,of February  15,2013