Postwatch (Cameroon)

Issa Bakary Tchiroma and the Talibanization of Government Communication

                                                             By Ntemfac Ofege.

Basic. The prime duty of government is to provide services. Whenever government fails to provide services, the citizenry resorts to all manner of ways including criticisms on radio and in newspapers, uprisings and coup d’états to abrogated predatory and failed governments.

Basic. The gramophone. Described as a willful artifact capable of producing sound of often dubious quality. A trademark of the gramophone: His Master’s voice. Whenever the pin of the gramophone got stuck, the instrument produced plenty of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The production of plenty of sound and fury is called noise. Cameroon’s current Minister of Communications, the esteemed Issa Tchiroma Bakary sounds like the final gramophone.

 

Ntemfac A. N Ofege's New Book: Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits)

Ntemfac A.N. Ofege. Namondo. Child of the Water Spirits. Bamenda, Langaa publishers. November 2007. Available from Michigan State University Press and Amazon.com

The river gods dispatch Namondo, a liengu-la-mwanja or water spirit, to the land.  Mission : waste a deadly cult. The twin uses her magic ring to accomplish her task, but tragedy strikes at the last minute. The fearsome ring of the river must return to her son.

Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits) is a refreshingly different take of the perpetual battle between the good, the bad and the ugly.

Namondo’s story races, twists, turns and jumps from one emotion to another until the chilling conflagration on a bewitched train. This is mythology so vivid that it hums with life: powerfully descriptive, awesome, frightening, compelling, delightful, imaginative, penetrating and lingering.

The magic about Ntemfac A.N. Ofege’s impressive narration is this confident ability to weave such a sprightly tale, one combining yesterday and today; the dead and the living; tradition and modernity; scoundrel and righteous deities. Throughout the story, the reader will taste that uproarious extravaganza of Africa- vicious serpents and elephant-doubles.  Namond0 (Child of the Water Spirits) is simply a beautiful story well told.

Move over Things Fall Apart. Here comes the next generation of African writing.

Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits) can be ordered online.

The Tsar (Buffoon) of Ntarikon: Heading for the African Court in Banjul By Tazaocha Asonganyi

Some people are smart, successful and gifted; these can get to any station in life, in any capacity.
Others are driven by their ego, by egomaniacal impulses; such are dangerous for any station where the daily life of many depends on their will. One may put up with an excellent doctor that is good at treating exotic ailments, without wishing to see the doctor at the helm of a large hospital. Better for the specialist to stay in his specialty and allow steadier hands to manage the large hospital

The fundamentalism of Difference: Reaction to the July 22 Rigged Elections in Cameroun

By Ntemfac A. N. Ofege

Sankofa (Kalu, 2006:1)   is the bird that turns its head to look backwards in the direction from where it came because a person who is not conscious about where a journey started may not know where he/she is going. The symbols urge people to “go back and take it,” or look back and reclaim their historical and cultural heritage. Sankofa, a Twi word, is one of the symbols used to promote unity based on the recovery of Ghanaian cultural heritage.
“Quebec, je me souviens,” is the foundation upon which the minority French Canadians want out of the Canadian federation. Africans and Africa countries that dug into historical, traditional and cultural values in search of unity have discovered more than unity. The foundation is of steel when it is anchored on the communality of shared values.
Ntemfac A. N. Ofege unveils the parallel between the enduring Southern Cameroons determinism and the antics of the Sankofa. The fundamentalism of difference.

Bamenda: ABEL NDEH ON RAMPAGE: RAVAGES TELEPHONE KIOSKS BAMENDA STREETS

During the last five weeks, (2004)inhabitants of Bamenda have on two occasions, re-lived the kind of drama that took place in Bonamoussadi some months back, when the Government Delegate to the Yaounde Urban Council swooped on make-shift business structures and bulldozed them to the ground. On both occasions, the Bamenda Government Delegate, accompanied by grim-faced police officers armed to the teeth, wreaked havoc on what he claimed were clandestine telephone kiosks, razing all of them to the ground. Apparently, Mr. Abel Ndeh had given all those operating such telephone kiosks a deadline for the payment of their council dues, and the date had come and gone without them obliging. This consequently provoked him to carry out the commando-style operation.

Bamenda: Taximen Versus Robbers

The storm that raged in Bamenda, the showdown between the Bamenda Urban Council (BUC) Delegate and the taxi drivers, kind of abated. However, its ripples linger on. Yes, they do because with benefit of hindsight, many observers are still commenting on the Goliath-David proportions of this confrontation, which Mr. Delegate derisively dismissed from the onset as a little affair. It brought home some of those many lessons that old life reiterates to its countless ‘livers’ EVERY BLESSED DAY. Prominent amongst these lessons is the fact that POMPOSITY and PUNINESS are two sides of one same coin, that pompous grandeur is also vulnerable. Bamenda’s omnipotent Government Delegate learnt this lesson most disagreeably, his undoing coming from the least expected quarters.

CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY By Reverend Father Clemens Ndze

In 1961 two former trustees of the U.N.O; French Cameroon and British Southern Cameroons decided to be united into a federation. After sometime, foundation leaders of one of the parties expressed anxiety about how things were being run and indicated a desire to pull out. Today, the organisation, SCNC, which they instituted, has taken up the affair with religious zeal and it wants a review of the process of unification to help put things straight so that there should not be any simulacrum at all. Activities towards this have been given, wrongly or rightly, various names. Whatever the nomenclature, English-speaking people believe there is a problem which calls for attention. There is an atmosphere of malaise. When you attempt to go deeper you meet a quote homines tot sententiate - as many explanations as there are individuals.

Bakassi: What Nigeria Stands to Lose. By Prof. Boniface Egboka

The recent judgement for Nigeria and the [La Republique du] Cameroun by the International Court of Justice at The Hague over the Bakassi Peninsula is a great tragedy of unimaginable magnitude and dimension not only to the two countries but also to the entire humanity. The ill-fated, godless and unjust judgement at the Hague is so humiliating and demoralizing to every reasonable Nigerian. The judgement is uncalled-for, most despicable, shameless, bizarre and immoral. Many Nigerians and foreigners have condemned the judgement.

More Perspective By Valentine Tamen

YOUTH, PEACE AND PATRIOTISM: WHAT ELSE?

(Published in the Enquirer Newspaper of April 2003.)

The theme of this year’s youth day was “Youth and the culture of Peace”. And true to type, President Biya’s address to the youths called on them to live for peace and to help in building the nation which he and his collaborators are devastating because it is a legacy which be bequeathed to them come tomorrow. The whole nation listened and applauded. Indeed, peace is a value which all must sacrifice much to maintain. However, a few issues need to be raised here, if we pretend to be one bit sincere.

When one looks at our national emblems, our motto, our anthem etc. one notices that much is said about peace, patriotism, work, fatherland, honour, glory, holy shrine etc. These are mentioned as virtues, which Cameroonians must espouse and uphold. Yet the overall impression one is left with is the feeling that our fathers, most of who now repose, insidiously crafted those emblems only for the masses, not for the leaders. Else what explains the fact that absolutes like “justice”, “truth”, “honesty”, “goodness”, “equality” “dynamism” were carefully left out?

Requiem for an Ignominious Roving Ambassador

By Bate Besong

This is not a matter of grave irreverence to the dead. This is just calling a spade a spade. Herewith another Bate Besong Grand entry into: The Barrel of A Pen.