The Cameroon GCE Board must be shielded from political warfare
Many people may not realize it, but the driving force behind the recent exam leaks isn’t about money. I have a strong conviction that these leaks are the collateral damage of an intense internal and external power struggle currently tearing at the Cameroon GCE Board.
The roots of this crisis trace back to the passing of the former Registrar, the late Dang Akuh Dominic. Following his demise, senior management member Bernadette Ndi Frinwi Ntemna was brought in to head a “Transition Management Team”, and that is exactly where the trouble started.
This move raises an important question: if the politicians in YaoundΓ© intended to appoint a new Registrar anyway, why go through the trouble of creating an interim transition team?
Is it really possible that across the entire North West and South West regions, not a single person was deemed competent enough for a permanent appointment?
This situation is a clear sign that the Board’s authority is being systematically weakened by outside political forces, dragging a sacred Anglo-Saxon educational institution through the mud.
By design, the CGCE Board is meant to be an independent body, led by officials elected by senior board members and representatives from both internal and external educational services. This unfortunately is not being done in Cameroon.
Madam Bernadette Ndi has therefore remained stuck in her ‘acting’ capacity, opening a power vacuum.
Ambitious rivals are now using strategic leaks as weapons. The intense pressure and sabotage directed at Interim Registrar Madam Ndi Bernadette where sensitive information is leaked not for financial profit, but to tarnish her reputation, is a textbook symptom of an institution tethered to political appointments. We have seen this movie already somewhere like the Ministry of Mines.
Potential contenders are pulling strings from the shadows, transforming a respected academic body into a political battleground. As long as the Board lacks structural autonomy, leadership transitions will always be vulnerable to proxy wars and character assassination.
True independence would empower a governing council of educators to appoint leaders based strictly on merit and fixed tenures. This would eliminate the incentive for internal saboteurs to trigger a manufactured crisis just to force a leadership shuffle.
Again, financial and operational autonomy would grant the Board the agility to overhaul its own security protocols and safeguard exam integrity, entirely free from bureaucratic red tape and interference.
To restore international trust in the Anglo-Saxon subsystem of education, the GCE Board must be shielded from political warfare, ensuring that the hard work and futures of students are never used as collateral damage in a bureaucratic war of attrition.
Beyond this fight is also a tribal war, which is a subject for another day.
By Prince Nfor Nchanji
The Cameroon GCE Board must be shielded from political warfare
