Breaking News Bilingue Latest Edition 04/22/2024

Get this frank testimony

I went to CPC, Bali, for 5 years; I went to CCAST, Bambili, for two years. I taught in PTTC, Batibo, after CCAST. I returned to CPC as a tutor from Sierra Leone.  After ENS Yde and 5 years in Mamfe, as earlier stated, I was transferred to GBSS Bamenda, where I taught for almost 18 years.

Throughout all that period, nobody gave me the least impression that I was not wanted there because I came from the Southwest.  On the contrary, I was voted into various roles like PTA President of three different schools, Head of Dept of English Language and Literature of GBHS Bamenda for more than 16 years, Chairman of Azire Cooperative Credit Union Supervisory Committee for 8 years, and above all, in 1989, when we formed the Teacher’s Association of Cameroon (TAC) I was voted from an assembly of more than 3000 teachers as it’s pioneer Secretary General. And what I did from the Northwest to bring about the creation of the GCE BOARD is an open secret to many who are still living today.

I have decided to state these facts here for one reason. We Southwesterners are docile people and are easily intimidated by the aggressive nature of the way the average Northwesterner does things.  It is us who are the problem. We accept subservient roles because we are not doers. We fear taking risks. And even discourage those who attempt to chop fire like our brothers of NW.

I remember when the fight for the GCE Board was ranging and we were exposed to the  possibility of losing our jobs or being hauled to jail, it was my own Manyu brothers and sisters who called me often, advising me to leave that Northwest thing alone before I am dismissed from the Public Service for fighting the Government. And truth be told! If the bulk of the then TAC Executive was located in Buea instead of Bamenda, that fight would have gone nowhere. That is a fact! And yet, when we got the board, we all left Bamenda to Buea on the 20th November 1993 to assist Mbella Mbappe in installing the Ist Chairman of the GCE Board. The principal fighters came from the Northwest. We would all along have insisted that the Board be installed in Bamenda. But no! Buea is the capital of Southern Cameroons. And that was where the Board belonged!

Right from childhood, even with my disability, nobody would intimidate me. If I want anything, I will fight for it until I get it. And Bamenda was just the right place for me to prove that. I was the lone Southwesterner in an Executive of 9. That did not minimise my role in that Exco. Instead, I was the engine that moved the machine!

We Southwesterner must stop these NW/SW myths. That would never advance our cause. It will take us nowhere. Together, we can achieve a lot for our people of the two regions by collaborating and working together, for we share a common destiny.

Pa Arrey Mbi

Jonathan Ngwa replies Pa Arrey Mbi

A REPLY TO PA AREY MBI

Pa Arrey Mbi in 1983, after several years of trying to assimilate our Anglo-Saxon heritage that set us apart as a different people from the French speaking Cameroonians, this GCE was jealously guarded by our people and so any move the Cameroon government tried to make was resisted by the people But things changed in 1983 when the government decided to transform our GCE into some kind of BACC in the English language.  To easily achieve this under the table and clandestine and demonic move instead of doing it with Presidential decree the government decided to use a ministerial Arrêté. But here is the diabolic reason government thought we English-speaking Cameroonians would not catch. If it had been done with a Presidential decree it would have taken a long time for the implementation to take effect – reason being that after any Presidential decree there is another publication being awaited called TEXTE D’APPLICATION which spells out what the decree is all about. And that might take many weeks. But that is not the same with Ministerial Arrêtés. A Ministerial Arrêté comes out and is applied almost immediately. So, in this case the English speaking population would not have had time to mobilize for people to come out and demonstrate against this devilish ploy by government. In fact, the Ministerial Arrete came out on a Thursday – in the English edition of the government owned CAMEROON TRIBUNE and also  strategically during when schools were on making it ‘impossible’ for students to organise any protest –  something which I think the government erroneously  disregarded as an impossibility. This Ministerial Arrete came out of a Thursday which gave any group of English-speaking Cameroonians only a few days to effectively mobilise students or citizens to rise up against the attempt in destroying that GCE. A few of us who got the news on that Thursday evening wasted no time to next morning to alert the entire English-speaking student body on Friday morning what the Cameroon government was up to. Never before had any news spread so fast in the entire country and especially in Ngoa-Ekelle university campus. An open meeting was hurriedly called to hold on Saturday in front of the Faculty of Letters  and before then just a few of us all from the NW took a clandestine decision that we must do everything to dissuade any NW students who would want to be part of any executive that might be created that Saturday. This decision was quickly implemented and luckily when it was even decided that no executive body should be created, that was unanimously accepted. After some few exchanges about three bold male students all from the SW, Agbor Nduku Eret, Raymond Tataw, and Mboke Godlive were selected to be the mouth pieces of the students in case the government decided to talk with us. None of these SW students ever suspected that it was a calculated clandestine move taken by some of us to beg some of our friends from the NW to decline accepting any leadership role in the upcoming strike by us. This clandestine option was decided upon because we suspected that if the strike Leadership was made up only by students from the SW, government would find it difficult to accuse us from the NW for masterminding the action. But most importantly we did not want to let SW students to know such an underground action had taken place because we felt that might instead backfire if they decided to do same to contradict us.  Luckily every student from the NW we contacted saw the reason behind the plan and agreed with us. I have made this long narration just to confirm what Pa Arrey Mbi said above about the usually timid attitude with which people from the SW approach government decisions that are usually malicious attempts to assimilate us. To cut a long story short, let me say here that on the following Tuesday when we had marched to the Ministry of National Education with a hurriedly prepared memorandum and returned to campus,  Then in the evening news from Radio Cameroon just as we expected the evening Nations news from Radio Cameroun, as usual, came out with a statement blaming the NW students encouraged by ‘failed’ politicians from the NW   to ‘deceive’ the ‘peace-loving’ people of the SW to join them in destabilizing National Unity. I wish they could have seen our faces as we laughed at them. Thank God the few English publications that came out the following day all questioned how that could be true when the entire leadership was made up of students from the SW.  Government ego was badly deflated and thanked God forever. even though they are struggling to revive it.  In fact this tactic is what is keeping our struggle alive today. With one so well calculated move we destroyed the divide-and-rule tactic created by Ahidjo and perfected by Mr Biya which was keeping the people of Ambazonia against one another. Seminars, had been organized Associations or organizations created, trying to get a solution for this so-called NW/SW dichotomy. But to no avail. But how could anybody find something that does not exist?

RECOGNITION OFAMBAZONIA

AMBAZONIA MUST BE FREE K.A

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