By Ernest Sumelong
If you came to Molyko, where the University of Buea, UB, is situated, during the students uprising, you could have had the impression that you were in Afghanistan actually witnessing a Taliban kamikaze operation.
Since the UB students started a strike action recently, teargas, gunshots and grenades have become commonplace here and something the local inhabitants are stuck with. The police and gendarmes transformed the University campus into a military barracks, while the community had an overdose of the excesses of these men in uniform.
They rendered Molyko totally insecure and lawless. Many Molyko denizens have since abandoned their homes, waiting and hoping that some day, calm and security would return. Arbitrary arrests, incarceration, torture and rape is the order of the day and the Buea administration has kept sealed lips over the issue.
The number of girls that are raped nightly, call for concern, while some boys have sworn to abandon their girlfriends if they are victims of rape. To say the least, the forces are treating the denizens of the University catchment area as though they were captured enemies.
They vent their anger even on the innocent, openly claiming that they have caused them to abandon lucrative postings to come and guard an empty university. They also claim that they have been deprived of their wives and girlfriends, so they must take advantage of the fresh university girls they find in Molyko.
A UB lecturer, who went to a lecture hall in the hope of teaching, only found gendarme officers sleeping on mattresses. The security deployed to protect the campus and encourage students to resume classes, worked on the contrary as the heavily armed men's presence frightened those who had mustered the courage to go to class.
The passion with which the police brutalised those who came across their way seemed to suggest that the English the people spoke irritated them, who themselves can only manage approximate French.
Student leaders had declined signing a "Package Deal", which the university considered a working document for negotiations between the two. The student leaders had requested the release of their colleagues before any deal could be reached.
Efforts by the university authorities to get classes started failed because, it seemed, the power to release the detained students were neither with them nor with the Buea administration. However, they were released on Friday, December 8 and the population is prayerfully waiting when the men in uniform will say good-bye.
Both the university authorities and striking students have scored a point by having an increase in the number of students admitted in the final stage of the examination, even if the 25 additional names to the 60 is to compensate for the 26 that infiltrated the list. At least, the strike has given room for people to clamour for regional balance in other competitive examinations although little will be done.
The Consequence Of Error
There is no gainsaying the fact that Professor Cornelius Mbifung Lambi had fallen into an administrative claptrap and the consequences of his error were two dead and many others wounded. His apologies did not show weakness but strength in his humility. What must be most appreciated about Professor Lambi is his humility, as he took time to apologise severally to the entire nation.
The Pro-Chancellor of the university, Dr. Peter Agbor Tabi, had been very categorical that government's decision would be implemented with much energy and it came to pass, even at the cost of students' lives.
The action of the students seemed to have been mere futility in the face of government's fight to implement corruption. It is clear that a lot of water has passed under the bridge and everyone who could read between the lines has learnt the lessons of the UB Medical examination saga.
In a bid to firefight the flames of the burning house, UB VC, Professor Lambi, convened a meeting of Congress at the Amphi 750, involving every staff of the institution.
Fire Fighting
One person, who is both a political technocrat and an academic guru, Dr. George Dobgima Nyamndi, understood too well, the intricacies of the situation. In the meeting of Congress, he distinguished between the ideal and the real situation.
He pointed out that, Professor Lambi, being the Vice Chancellor of the Anglo-Saxon styled University of Buea, was right in signing the list, and being the Vice Chancellor of the State University of Cameroon, was right in apologising that he erred.
The learned politician and lecturer, who played more than an ordinary role in finding a solution in the UB crisis, noted that the list Professor Lambi signed was the ideal list, which the students were fighting for. According to him, the ideal list did not live long enough for the reality of the Cameroon situation to catch up with it.
The Negotiation
The University of Buea, in a Commonwealth tradition, called the striking students to carve out a negotiation roadmap. In a bid to restore calm and resume classes, UB authorities called the services of a pastor, priest, human rights activist and men with both moral integrity and intellectual authority to cajole, coerce, persuade and use every available tool to reach a compromise.
For nine hours, the cream of the University of Buea authority, listened to student leaders with apt attention and patience. Although the student leaders declined signing a 'Package Deal' with the university authorities, they, at least, accepted the proposals and recorded the humility of learned Doctors and Professors. The test of worth can best be judged in negotiation.
The Regional Secretary of the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms, Christopher Tiku Tambe, went a long way to bring the striking students to the negotiation table. The human rights activist had to sign an agreement with the Vice Chancellor to assure the security of the students.
In spite of humiliation from the Governor of the Province and the scant importance the administration gives to human rights, Tambe did not relent in bringing the striking students to the negotiation table for subsequent dialogue.
When the dust of the Medical examination palaver would have settled, one would only have realised that all the fuss had been for "that other list…" which, curiously, was so dear to the Higher Education Minister and his lieutenants.
Dr. George Dobgima Nyamndi claim that Lambi was right to sign the list in cognisance of the Anglo-Saxon values are right. Lambi did not have any reason to apologise to anybody as even the minister was supposed to endorse the students, he should have signed the list of succesful students before sending them to the minister. So to say, he was not wrong.
The lecturer who rushed to lecture and found the sleeping gerndarmes is a CPDM agent. He should be moderated by the striking students. That is how Lambi was behaving when he was a lecturer in the 90's. whenever there was a strike, he will be the first to go to class and organise a class quiz.
Posted by: rexon | Monday, 11 December 2006 at 03:51 PM
A TRUCE BETWEEN THE UNIVERSITY OF BUEA STUDENTS UNION(UBSU) AND THE UNIVERSITY OF BUEA ANDMINISTRATION.
Considering the fact that the university of Buea authorities under the able leadership of prof. Cornelius M. Lambi have publicly acknowledged the they erred in the publication of results of the written part of the competitive entrance examination into the department of medicine of the faculty of health science of the university of Buea, which provoked a student strike action leading to the gruesome murder of two students on the 29th Nov 2006, and wanton destruction of public and private property both on and off campus;
Mindful of the recent Ministerial Order N# 0028/05/12/06(Article 1 new) which officially increases the initial 60places to 85 as indicated in the final list of successful candidates published by the honourable minister of higher education;
Given the t additional names that made up the 153 list which is said to have been based on regional balance had already been endorsed; we find it difficult to blend the subject of regional balance with the conventional norms of meritocracy.
Considering also that there is the absence of a mechanism at our disposal to implement our opinion, we therefore call on the powers that be to set up a committee to kindly make clear the justification of regional balance.
Given that a mixed committee of both staff and students have been put in place to ensure the proper implementation of the points below;
Considering that the students of the University of Buea also had other problems, which were presented to the UB Administration in a memorandum of nine points, upon which the vice Chancellor verbally granted the following:
.Absolute and unconditional immunity to all the students of the University of Buea after the strike
.A complete evacuation of the forces of law and order from the campus of the university of Buea at the event of signing this truce.
. The provision of a comfortable working office for the university of Buea student Union(UBSU) at the event of signing this truce
. Payment of Olympic benefits ( During the University games of 2006) to UB participants.
.Equal payment of registration fee for undergraduate and masters programmes(50 000frs) as in other state universities.
.Free of charge initial transcripts for all students of the university of Buea.
. Cancellation of 10000frs penalty for the late payment of registration fee.
. A forwarded request by the authorities an the publication of findings for the students who were shot dead during the April-May 2005 strike action and the November-Decenber2006 Strike action.
. Payment of hospital bills for students injured by the forces of law and order.
Considering the healthy relationship that exists between the students and the UB Administration, which clearly reflects the "OPEN DOOR POLICY" of prof. Cornelius M.Lambi, Vice Chancellor of the University of BUEA;
We the students and administration of the University of Buea have appended our different signatures to this document as an amicable truce to suspend the two weeks of crisis that has hit the university of Buea.
DONE IN BUEA,THIS 12TH DAY OF DECEMBER 2006
FOR THE UB ADMINISTRATION
Prof. Cornelius M. Lambi
Vice Chancellor Universiy of Buea.
FOR THE STUDENTS
Abia David Amabo Marcel Donatus Asu WAN-OBI
UBSU PRSDNT - UBSU.SEC.GEN - CHAIRMAN UBSU PARL
Posted by: Kappo | Wednesday, 13 December 2006 at 05:30 AM