DISCOVER MT. FAKO

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Will Nigeria Overcome?

Nigerians in the Northern part are restless and always alert for attacks by the Military Islamist Group Boko Haram. What Nigerians think of every now and then is, where will the next attack be? How many lives are going to be taken? The Nigerian government is still reluctant to track down members of this sect who America declared a terrorist Group on November 13, 2013. As for the missing girls, there is no hope yet as government is still sluggish to react though they know where the girls are. President Goodluck Jonathan says he is cautious not to plunge the country into a civil war by giving the go ahead to the army to launch and attack and open fire. Cameroon, Nigeria's closest neighbour has strengthened its borders to ensure no Boko Haram infiltration in the Country. Recently 40 militants of the sect met their end at the hands of the Rapid Intervention Battalion ( BIR) in the outskirts of the Northern part of Cameroon. But who are these people who are posing a huge threat to the world? Even Iran is against this group of persons who stand firm that Western Education is forbidden. But it is believed that if the World team up against them, then they will be grounded..... Are We Together?

ITALIAN PRIESTS AND CANADIAN NUN FREED IN CAMEROON

Gianantonio Allegri, Giampaolo Marta and Gilberte Bussier.

Two Italian priests and a Canadian nun abducted in Cameroon, have been freed.
The three Catholics were kidnapped almost two months ago in the north of the country by suspected Boko Haram gunmen.The ex-hostages are said to have boarded a plane to the capital, Yaounde, on Sunday where they were warmly received by some Ministers.

The three were kidnapped by gunmen from the building where they were staying in the northern district of Maroua in the early hours of 5 April.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion has fallen on militant Nigerian group Boko Haram.
Boko Haram Islamists kidnapped another priest as well as seven members of a French family in northern Cameroon last year. Meanwhile, the ten Chinese tourists abducted by this same Group  are still in their custody. efforts are underway to secure their release.

Moral Decadence, Corruption: A real problem to the Society.

It is a common saying that the future of any nation lies in the potentials of her youths. But the  conclusion is that the quality of the youths and their manifestations depend largely on the strength of the foundation upon which they are nurtured.

If our “citadels of learning”, (which are among the important factors which guarantee the kind of foundation, principles, and value systems our youth will develop) have become monuments of corruption, diseased in curriculum and battered in morality, what else does tomorrow hold for our youth and  our nation if not failure and chaos? Due to the state of corrupt practices in our schools most of our graduates, though macho in physique and appealing in appearance are simply Lilliput at heart. Come to think of this, “can such young men and women compete in the market place of ideas?” can they fit in the world in which the war cry and the driving cliche is reform? Can such men and women be trusted with the destiny of our nation in a sanitized and complex world?”   To Be Continued…

Overcrowding in Lecture halls

Students fitting themselves into a Classroom

University of Buea, the place to be, with vast space harboring magnificent buildings is no doubt one of Cameroons State Universities that has a big compound with these structures occupying not up to half of the total area.

 With the numerous lecture halls that are in the University of Buea, accommodation is still a very big problem.  Overcrowding in lecture halls is an issue still to be addressed by the University of Buea Administration.

The question which arises therein is whether the University admits students taking into consideration the number of halls that exist or whether they are going to construct new lecture halls to accommodate the number gruesome number that they admit every year.

According to statistics from the admission and records office, the University of Buea admitted more than five thousand students for the academic year 2013|2014, added to some other thousands of students that exist.

 This increase in admission has over the years been a hard nut to crack as students are found standing up in lecture halls while lectures are on. Even in the largest Amphis, 750 and 600 Amphitheaters overcrowding and lack of seats is a reality.

 This has made students to resort to using benches and abandoned seats just to attend lectures. Students from attending one lecture will take to their heels to the next lecture hall just to secure seats, all because of the undersized nature of the classrooms.

 In some situations, students would come to class one hour or thirty minutes before the start time of the lecture of which they are not sometimes sure to attend the lecture because of the marathon. With disappointment, some will retire home and that will be the beginning of failure.

The reason for this limited seat is the deterioration of seats in the Amphis which can therefore not accommodate the number it is intended to. The seat are pending repairs and the School administration is beckoned to intervene either by cutting down the number of students admitted each year, building new lectures halls of higher capacity or repair the seats which are damaged.

                                                                                                              

Anglophones Keep Begging for Jobs in the French Speaking Cities

job seekers queuing in front of government offices

My  country Cameroon. They say we are bilingual , YES! that should  not be the only rationale to provide jobs to Cameroonians.  Every institution in the cities of Douala and Yaounde are french speaking. An anglophone who comes to seek for  a job has to go back and take french lessons before he/she is attended to. They are treated like pieces of trash in these cities because they know little when it comes to speaking the french language. To Be Continued…

The Cameroon Media Landscape: Comparing its operationlisation to Principles Governing the Practice of Journalism.

JOURNALISM’S FIRST OBLIGATION IS THE TRUTH
To an extent, the Cameroon media landscape respects the principle of truth in journalism practice by the fact that most of the private media organs publish or give out reliable information to the masses respecting figure and facts in a way to complement the state owned media. Programs like Town Crier on LTM gives out the real images and in-depth analysis of community or societal happenings.
The state owned media CRTV fulfills its obligation to report with exactitude the government activities like governmental projects ahead of vision 2035. Transparency is evident in their respective area of focus as audience can make their own assessment regarding media output

2 . IT MUST SERVE AS INDEPENDENT MONITOR OF POWER.
For the activities of journalism be fully effective or implemented, it has to stay clear of government dealings. The media is made to act as a Watch Dog in the society and not to be controlled by the society. The media is seen as the fourth estate independent of the state. This principle is widely accepted by many nations. In Cameroon, this is just formally presented on paper as there exist government owned and personal media organs. CRTV which is funded and controlled by the government, its content does not reflect that of a watch dog but rather propagating and consolidating government actions. Ocean City Radio in Kumba is into promoting his business as a herbalist doctor rather than being independent of control.
3. IT MUST PROVIDE A FORUM FOR PUBLIC CRITICISM AND COMPROMISE.
The media landscape in Cameroon to a greater extend provides forum for this point through programs both in the private and government owned media. These programs give room for public opinion on matters plaguing the country. Within these programs there is total freedom of speech as the opinions of audiences are sampled without fear of harassment. Programs like TELEOPINION on CRTV and of TOWN CRIER o LTM are all programs that give room for interaction and feedback.

4 . ITS PRACTITIONERS MUST BE ALLOWED TO EXERCISE THEIR PERSONAL CONSCIENCE.
Media ethics being the main drive in the profession demands accountability in rendering services to the public is not a virtue when it comes to the Cameroon media landscape. Very few of the media practitioners are skilled or are professionals thus leaving room for massive influx of quacks that do not follow basic rules of the profession. This is typical of the private media owners in Cameroon.
5.  ITS FIRST LOYALTY IS TO THE CITIZENS.
The Cameroon media landscape is very lacking in the domain of putting the interest of the citizen before any other matter as demands one of the principles of journalism practice. Both the private and the public media put money before service to the people. While CRTV construct news items to fit the interest of the government from which its fund is generated, the private media give priority to advertising which is one way to make money before service the people.

The Impact of the Re-introduction of Multi Party Politicc in Cameroon.

 Across Africa, there are signs that democratic gains of 1990 to 1994 have eroded. In a few countries, democratization has been reversed as military forces have overthrown elected governments, spelling an end to brief democratic experiments and a return to authoritarian rule. Elsewhere, new democracies survive, but elected rulers lapsed back into manipulating political rulers in order to consolidate their personal hold on power. In these states, big-man democracy is emerging in which the formal trappings of democracy coexist with neo -patrimonial political practice. African multi party systems have shortcomings which include weak opposition parties, intimidation of opposition supporters by incumbent governments, and an absence of leadership turnover.

After two decades, observers of Africa politics like Larry Diamond and Richard Joseph argued that the continent was o a cusp of its second Liberation (Diamond 1992, 1993). The rising popular demand for political reform across Africa, holding of multi –party elections, the alternation of power I several countries and negotiations for a new political framework led these scholars to conclude that the prospects for democracy were high. Today these same observers are not so sure. They describe the current democratization experience in terms of the electoral democracy.

Cameroon without any reasonable doubt has as political, economic ad to an extent media impacts as a result of the reintroduction of multi party politics.
 Starting by knowing what the term stands for, it is when voters enjoy guarantees of universal franchise and equality before the law that are largely enforceable , and a plurality of political parties free to contest elections that  are largely opened.  The advantages of such a definition is its easy operationalization, as multi party elections are discrete events that hold relatively little ambiguity even though judging freeness and fairness may in practice prove slippery. On the other hand, to reduce democracy to the holding of regular elections is to risk the “fallacy of electoralism” regular multi party elections offer meaningful choices to voters but that periodically legitimate hard-line rulers. Elections may easily coexist, for instance, with systematic abuses of human rights or the disenfranchisement of large segments of the population.

First things first, with a keen look into the economic domain, it would be discovered that the reintroduction of multi party politics in Cameroon really dealt with the country’s economy. Looking at the rise of more than 300 political parties, it is clear that when a party is approved to function and to take part in elections, it is funded by the government with huge chunks of money from the country’s coffers. This goes a long way to cripple the country’s economy. Company this to the one party system under Ahidjo around the 70s, there was less spending and as a result Cameroon had a flourishing economy. Cameroon therefore plunged into an economic crisis as a result of this high government spending on these many political parties.

Extrapolating from this, we may say that the depth persistence ad intractability of Africa’s economic crises has been an asset to the democratization. So has the conventional response to the crisis namely structural adjustment because the African varieties of SAP are so draconian that they tend to intensify poverty I the short-run ad to exacerbate social and political tensions. The covariance of economic crisis and the agitation for democratization has held for practically every country in Africa, including Ghana Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Nigeria, Cameroon and others.

The 1980s, a particular low point in the economic crisis for most countries produced a powerful surge of demands for political and economic incorporation which was a watershed in Africa’s quest for democratization. In Benin Republic, the economy had grown to a halt at this and fiscal crisis of the state was so deep that the government could no longer pay the wages of civil servants.

Another part of interest which is equally an impact to the reintroduction of multiparty politics in Cameroon as it is in multi party regimes is weak opposition parties. This again drives us into the economic aspect where money Is spent year in year out on resourcefulness political parties and as a result, political parties crop up every now and then, just to have a taste of the wealth bestowed on political parties. In Cameroon, out of more than 300 political parties, only the SDF is considered the only vibrant opposition party. Ahidjo, when he grounded multi party politics had as reasons to so because of careless government spending and saw it as a challenge which he did not want. Reintroduced in 1990, by Paul Biya, the impacts keep growing

As an impact to the reintroduction of multi party politics in Cameroon, we got to discover constant intimidation of opposition supporters in Cameroon. This is true as the word true itself as it was evident I the last September 30 twin elections where cases of clash between supporters of CPDM and SDF, if it were a one party system, then this would not be the case.

The lack of political will has made the government not to put in place the right structures for democratic governance. There has been a general demand for the government to create an independent electoral commission to guarantee political fairness, but the plea has always fallen on deaf ears because the government lacks the political will to establish such an organ. Cameroon has moved from the National Elections Observatory (NEO) to Elections Cameroon (ELECAM). The irony being that appointment into both organs is the prerogative of the Head of State and the person appointed cannot exercise justice and not favor the ruling party, thus making democracy in Cameroon to be far-fetched. The government established these bodies with the intention of legitimizing electoral consultations in Cameroon and making the international community believe that the democratic process in Cameroon is on the right track meanwhile the elections are always marred with fraud and irregularities. The inability to establish an independent electoral body in Cameroon has contributed tremendously in putting in place a pre-mature democratic system.

After the reintroduction of multiparty politics in Cameroon, the rulers have always put in place certain mechanisms to ensure victory such include selective or discriminative registration of voters, buying of voters (politics of the belly), intentional displacement of voters and outright intimidation. Research proofs that since multiparty politics in the 1990s, some Cameroonians have never taken part in the electoral process. This is due to the frustrations of getting a voters’ card or due to the type of institutions that are put in place to run elections. Since the different political parties have their stronghold in their various regions, it is easy to identify supporters of a particular party and victimize them. Voters’ cards are issued out selectively and one of the criteria used to determine those who belong to the opposition is by their name and areas of origin. For example, in the registration process leading to the municipal and parliamentary elections of 2007, many opposition supporters protested in different parts of the country because they never had voters’ card. This selective registration of voters affects opposition parties because their militants cannot vote.

The reintroduction of multiparty system paved the way to corruption and Cameroon has been noted for its corruption records. The corruption is not limited to embezzlement of state funds but extends to extortion and buying of voters. It is reported that the youths are the most concerned when it comes to this malpractice both in the rural and urban areas. The high rate of unemployment and joblessness push the youths to collect money and vote for the ruling party during elections. 

Villagers are easily bought with food items such as bags of rice, salt and other food items in exchange for their votes. It is easy for the ruling party to do so because they use state money throughout the process. Government Treasuries are usually empty during campaigns because a huge amount of state resources is directed to campaigns. As a result, the government uses the tax payers’ money to buy the tax payers’ votes. This mechanism makes it difficult for the opposition parties because of their limited financial resources and the ruling party uses state funds to ride their political opponents.

Nevertheless multiparty politics in Cameroon I suppose is the best for the country considering its diversity, though the system is accompanied by so many intricacies.

Economic Implications of Graduation in March.

The long awaited graduation ceremony of the 18^th batch of students in the University of Buea is finally here. Business men and women in the municipality have been keeping their fingers crossed, waiting to make profits in this “dry” period of the year.
Graduation ceremony in the University of Buea has always been one of the greatest events that have attracted a large crowd from all over the country to the Town of legendary Hospitality. Buea again is flooded with people from all over the country, who have come to witness the “send-off” of some students who before now were supposed to have graduated. No doubt, this celebration were to be in December 2013 as it should have been, but   the President’s visit to the South West to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Cameroon’s reunification and independence, which was considered a must celebrated event in commemoration to the reunification and independence of the two Cameroons in 1961, saw the renovation and construction of structures in Buea and UB in particular therefore made the graduation ceremony to be pushed till further notice.
 It would’ve been very difficult to have a large populace in Buea in December amidst all the preparations to the celebration of the 50^th anniversary of Cameroon’s reunification. It should be noted that this is not the first time graduation ceremony is taking place in a different month apart from the month of December. This graduation comes just at a time when most parents were not expecting its postponement to a further date, leaving them incapacitated to afford for the event. Speaking to Mr. Ndive Charles Njie, a parent to one of the potential graduates, says he had lost all hopes if graduation were still to take place and for that reason did not allocate or prepare anything for “Graduation”.
Speaking to Dr. Njapba of the Admissions and Records office in the University of Buea, he ascertains that this is a perfect month to schedule graduation reason being that, December as festive period comes with a lot of stress with Christmas, and New Year expenditures which coincided with the graduation ceremony thereby leaving some parents to spend more.
 Taking into consideration the abrupt nature of the graduation, most students having collecting their attestations have left the country while others who are yet to collect them decry the fact that there is no money to afford for celebrations and cocktails. It should however be noted that Graduation has never had a fixed date for the singular reason that it is only after the minister of higher education has approved the date for the ceremony that it is carried out.
 Okere Brandy, a Potential graduate in the Department of History complain that this Graduation in March do not meet their aspirations because it doesn’t represent the grandeur that use to accompany the event when it is done in December, and holds the view that parents like his, always prepare their budget for the celebrations but the time gap to the graduation is too short.
Businessmen in Buea will experience an economic augmentation this month. Canopies, chairs and halls will be rented, thereby augmenting their revenues. . Businessmen were disgruntled in December when they heard that graduation had been postponed to a further date because stocks that would have been sold for graduation like chickens did not give enough sales. Andouba Atali, a student and businessman says when students are around; sales are high especially during the period of graduation.
Some students argue that the only reason why they will take on this graduation is just to wear the robe like others have done in the yester years in order to fulfill the course of history.
According to Dr. Njapba, it would be better if subsequent graduation ceremonies are done in March in the sense that students, who still owe first semester courses, can take the courses during the first semester exams so that they can join their counterparts graduate in March.