Since late 2016, the Republic of Cameroon has been going through a devastating armed conflict that has worsened what was already a fledgling economy.  Historically, this civil strife can be traced to constitutional crisis in the governance process of the entire nation (Konings & Nyamnjoh1997). The blatant disregard for the culture, traditions and customs of the Anglophones were fundamental threats to the rule of law that heightened tensions leading to the current socio-political impasse.  A Transparency International report identified Cameroon’s judiciary system as the most corrupt in Africa. In the larger study of seven countries within the continent, one out of five persons interviewed admitted they had offered gifts to judges or related judicial matters. In Cameroon 80% of those interviewed perceived the judicial system is rather very corrupt (Koschel,2007). 

Moreover, the dictatorship style of leadership and the unchecked power of the executive branch of government that undermines major cooperation and inclusion of the various regions have been counterproductive economically. According to Douglas North, social and legal norms and rules are foundations for the basis of institutions that underlie economic activities (North,1990). 

This memo seeks to examine how institutional change can revive Cameroon’s economy. Institutional economics is defined as a study in economic history which focuses on the costs of human coordination and cooperation through time, which is essential in bringing about change in the society (North,1990). We will achieve this objective by looking at some principles of governance that can positively influence economic activities for growth and development. Among other things, this memo will consider the rule of law and economic growth, abuse of power, and social cohesion as essential elements in economic activities.

What is at stake?

 In consideration of the fact that effective institutions promote economic growth by reducing transaction costs of operating in the economy, whereas ineffective institutions dis-incentivize market participants and lead to economic decline (North, 1990), how can Cameroon revive its institutions in order to foster economic growth?

Evaluation of Findings and Conclusions

 The rule of law is essential for the regulation of markets, property rights, checks and balances of the executive branch of government, all of which are foundational to economic growth. In this regard, North indicates that formal constraints such as laws and a constitution are necessary in the harmonious functioning of every institution. In addition to these formal constraints, culture and ideologies make up informal constraints of the institutions. The absence of the rule of law often leads to anarchy and this is true of most countries that are going through civil wars. It has been established that civil war tends to reduce growth by around 2.3% per year; with civil wars (in his dataset) averaging seven years in duration, the typical war leaves a country 15% poorer than it otherwise would have been (Collier, 2005).

Collier’s findings further buttress the position that the ongoing civil war in Cameroon has led the nation to financially disastrous condition.  In fact, “many countries in Africa without any system of good governance in place show an association between conflicts and poor law enforcement in protecting the natural resource base and in observing human rights” (as cited in Yiew et al., 2016. Pg. 3744).

According to a UN report, corruption, illicit trade and money laundering contribute to State weakness, impede economic growth and undermine democracy. These activities eventually create a permissive environment for civil conflict.” (UN Report,2004).

The absence of the rule of law has far reaching effects on the efficiency and effectiveness of institutions. Lessig (2013) explains that “institutional corruption is manifest when there is a systemic and strategic influence that undermines the institution’s effectiveness by weakening its ability to achieve its purpose, including to the extent relevant to its purpose, weakening either the public’s trust in that institution or the institution’s inherent trustworthiness.”(Lessig, 2013 p. 553).

The downward slope regarding the rule of law is closely related to abuse of power.  Prior to the ongoing conflict in Anglophone Cameroon, even to this day, the executive branch has abused power with impunity. Throughout our nation’s history, presidents have targeted their political opponents as we see it unfold in the ongoing conflict (Tumi, 2006). This is detrimental to the nation’s economy because abuse of power is a guaranteed source of dissension and frustration; some of the ruling elites must be aware of impending political instability from a culmination of these negative feelings (North, 1990).

Moreover, political scientists and legal scholars attest that institutional checks on executive discretion, including through independent judiciaries, are integral to the very concept of the rule of law. Such checks and balances are economically important because of the classic time-inconsistency problem (Kydland & Prescott, 1977). In the same vein, Haggard & Tiede maintain that “the rule of law, property rights, and contract enforcement cannot be credible unless there are effective limits on executive discretion” (Haggard & Tiede, 2011. p.674).

In consideration of the heavy toll of corruption in Cameroon, evident not only in the judiciary, but in the widespread of bribery in contracts, taxation of imports, and the embezzlement of state funds, the economy cannot thrive because: “A predatory government acting on its self-interest is prone to squander the wealth of the country and exploit the business community through unjust taxes and misappropriation of resources and profits. In the long run, these self-preservation strategies can eventually lead the ruling dynasty to its destruction.” (North, 1997, p. 154). The World Governance Indicators, specifically the indicator on control of corruption, placed Cameroon in the lowest 10 percentile, while also ranking it low (25 percentile or lower) for the remaining indicators (Broadman & Recanatini, 2001).

 On the other hand, social cohesion and the prevalence of justice provide a favorable environment for businesses and investors. The inevitable result is security of life and property which in turn encourages integrity, hard work, entrepreneurship and technological progress, while its absence defeats economic motivation. In line with institutional economics, transaction costs of doing business escalates with the prevalence of injustices. And, in the end, more complex contracts and the alliance between business and politics become the norm, causing the economy to suffer (Khalid, 2015). Khalid further argues that the “crowding out” of investments is bound to emerge and tax collections will decline as enterprises reassess their risks and returns from operating in that economy (Khalid, 2015).

In reality, social cohesion does not only attract investors, but it equally provides a flourishing socio-political environment that boosts both investors’ and consumers’ confidence. It is within such environments that institutions and markets thrive. As Khalid (2015) points out, social cohesion and institutional efficiency consistently have an equal and important effect as does resources endowment in bringing about economic development and higher civilization.  

Recommendations

In order to restore some credibility to institutions, there is urgent need to revisit the training of administrators and legal experts. It is well known that admissions into the National School of Administration and Magistracy (ENAM) is fraught with political machinations, and for this reason, the performance of the graduates who run most of our institutions is mediocre.  In this regard, Lasswell & McDougal (1943) insist on the vital role of training those who provide legal service in a democratic society because of the enormous influence on attitudes toward the law.  

Transparency and accountability are foundational to economic activities. How can a nation regain the trust and confidence of its people who are distraught due to a lack of transparency and accountability? For years Cameroonians have been constantly disgruntled with parliamentarians and other community representatives who singlehandedly execute projects after having embezzled substantial sums of money. This lack of accountability and transparency hampers cooperation and coordination, both of which are essential in the chain of production and the wellbeing of all.  

In conclusion, having been endowed with rich human and natural resources like other African countries, such as Rwanda, that have walked down the path of civil war, Cameroon has a potential for an economic future. However, our country cannot realize its full potential if the ruling government does not chart a new path marked by patriotism, the rule of law, and the common good. Such an aspiration can only succeed to the extent that government officials learn from history and rise beyond the inordinate desire for personal aggrandizement. It is important, in this regard, for all branches of government to be in sync with unwavering determination to implement changes that are most needed to restore the ethics and nobility of our nation’s institutions.  There is no better way than relying on the tested and proved findings that have been clearly outlined in this memo.    

Culled from Pan African visions

Schools and universities in Cameroon have opened Monday with hundreds of thousands going to class, despite the number of COVID-19 infections continuing to increase. Cameroon so far has 6,380 confirmed cases of the virus with 273 deaths.  But officials say the increasing number of recoveries from the virus and health measures taken at schools makes them confident that they can handle the pandemic. 

Speaking on Cameroon state media CRTV on Sunday, Cameroon prime minister Joseph Dion Ngute said president Paul Biya ordered schools that he closed last March 17 as part of measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus to reopen on June 1st because 3, 630 of the 6, 380 COVID-19 patients in the central African state have recovered from the killer disease indicating that the strategy put in place by the government to protect its citizens from the coronavirus is yielding posotive results. 

The prime minister said a majority of the 2, 300 active COVID-19 patients were responding to treatment and that enough measures have been taken to reduce the risk of contamination at school. 

“Let us not give into panic,” he said. “The ministers concerned have been instructed to ensure that protective masks are worn and that social distancing is respected. They should also make available the required sanitary kits such as hand sanitizers and hand washing buckets in each establishment.” 

Ngute said all schools will be disinfected at least three times a week and that schools that lack water will be provided with the liquid daily by the government. Ngute said not more than 24 children will be admitted in classrooms and that only one will sit on a bench instead of four or five as has been the practice. 
 
But 19-year-old Velma Soli says the government did not respect its promises and she decided to return home. 

“I went to school and I discovered that the face masks and hand sanitizers were not available as the government said so I decided to come back to the house and wait. When the hand sanitizers and face masks are ready, I will go back to school,” she said.

Teachers and university lecturers complained that some classes and lecture halls were congested and there was lack of water and soap to wash hands in some establishments.  

Naloca Lyonga, Cameroon minister of secondary education says while the government is struggling to provide what is needed to protect children and teachers at school, parents should also make an effort to provide their kids with what is needed to reduce COVID-19 spread and make sure children have their rights to be educated in spite of coronavirus threats. 

“Do we want to stay at home for ever because there is a virus? No. So this is the time when we should support the leadership of Cameroon,” said Lyonga. “We have made sure that everybody who is involved is going to be covered as far as masks are concerned, as far as the water in the schools are concerned.” 

Lyonga said after Monday’s return of high school students who will be writing their General Certificate of Education and those of primary school age who will sit the First School Leaving Certificate Examination, the government will for three days observe if the students and teachers are behaving well to stop COVID-19 spread before allowing their peers of other classes to start school on Thursday. 
 
The government said although schools and universities reopened effectively in spite of the coronavirus spread, hundreds of parents especially in the towns of Yaounde, Douala and Bafoussam, that have recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Cameroon, did not send their children to school. 

The French Embassy in Yaounde asked its citizens not to allow their children to go to school because, according to them, Cameroon’s capacity to take care of COVID-19 cases continue to reduce as the number of positive cases increase.  

Source: VOA

The names of my classmates in the photograph, from left to right, are:  John Nsoyenika Obanus Vega, who later became a Surveyor; Thomas Mbua Ndoko, who later became a Civil Administrator;  Stephen Mokosso Ndeley, who later became Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly; Daniel Agbor Tiku, who later became an Agriculturist;  My humble self, who later became a Chartered Accountant, but now a Politician; Godfrey Layu, who later became a Barrister-at-Law; Jacob Achidi Kisob who later became Cameroon’s  Ambassador to the United Kingdom; Michael Njamfa, who later became an Agriculturist;  Stephen Nyenti, who later became Chief Nyenti, a Traditional Ruler and Politician.

 I must inform you that my classmates have all ascended into Heaven, and I am the only slow survivor, repeating a class because of unfinished homework which, when completed, I too will get promoted to Paradise!     Oma nanu  Mola

The dismissal of a university law lecturer and human rights defender who set an examination question considered by the Cameroon government to be ‘seditious’ has been widely criticised by a number of the country’s academics.

Dr Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla, formerly a lecturer in the faculty of law at the University of Buea, an English-speaking university in a predominantly French-speaking region, was suspended by his university following a complaint by the Minister of Higher Education Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo to the university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Ngomo Horace Manga, about a question he set in a law paper.

The examination question causing the offence was: “The Anglophone Crisis since 2016 was caused by the lawyers’ and teachers’ strike. Assess the validity of this statement.”

Agbor Balla, who is also head of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, was given 24 hours to appear before a university panel on 5 May to explain why disciplinary action should not be taken against him for including such a question in the paper and breaching the university’s code of ethics.

Agbor Balla told the university he was ready to appear before the panel despite the short notice on condition he first appeared before a preliminary sub-committee – in accordance with the laws of the university. However, that request was rejected and he was summarily dismissed the following day for ‘insubordination’.

According to Human Rights Watch, Agbor Balla was arrested in January 2017 for leading peaceful protests in Buea along with other Anglophone activists. Charged by a military court under the anti-terrorism law, he was released in August 2017 and the charges were dropped.

Double standards?

In an exclusive interview with University World News, Agbor Balla said he was determined to make use of legal options to obtain redress for what he called the illegal termination of his appointment.

University World News can report that a question similar to that posed by Agbor Balla was set by a professor of law at the University of Yaoundé II – a Francophone university – in an examination conducted by the faculty of laws and political science in January. A copy of the paper has been seen by University World News. The question was: “The Anglophone problem in its new development since 2016: Is it nationalism or ethnicity? Discuss.”

Despite the similarity of the questions, no action was taken against the Yaoundé II lecturer, leading many university teachers and observers of university affairs to claim a case of double standards on the part of the minister of higher education who was himself once a lecturer in a Cameroonian university.

According to commentator John Menkefor, based in Bamenda, the incident has “all the hallmarks of the Anglophone-Francophone divide in Cameroon”.

In an interview on Zenger, Menkefor said the minister’s failure to take action in similar cases suggests that “the two parts are held to two different standards, defined by unspecified political considerations. These considerations can be partly conceived and used as instruments of political control of Anglophones.”

According to a Human Rights Watch report, a Ministry of Higher Education representative told Radio France Internationale that Agbor Balla had “turned a classroom into a political space”.

Interviewed by Zenger, Registrar of the University of Buea Professor Ernest Lytia Molua is reported to have said that Agbor Balla’s “invitation” to a disciplinary panel “was a privilege Buea University accorded him on humanitarian grounds, since he had run out of contract”.

“The University of Buea extended to him a verbal gentlemanly collaboration, which he has finally abused by intoxicating 17- and 18-year-old students on his political showmanship,” Molua is reported to have said.

Marginalisation

In an exclusive interview with University World News, Willy Nze Ngwa, a professor in the Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Yaoundé I, said the incident exposed the “hidden hand of political intimidation, another manifestation of Anglophone marginalisation in Cameroon”.

He said there was nothing offensive in the set question. “The topic set by Agbor Balla is topical and should be encouraged to open debates aimed at rolling back the conflict. If the question is offensive, then all those other lecturers should be sanctioned,” he said.

On the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the current conflict in Anglophone Cameroon, he said: “Peace is an empty slogan if not weaved around social justice. Peace is the consequence of concrete actions aimed at rolling back conflict. The Anglophone Crisis could be resolved by publicly acknowledging the existence of marginalisation and by tackling the root causes of the crisis, engaging in frank dialogue, free from emotions and obsessions… [It requires the country] to genuinely correct future marginalisation through legislative dispositions and, of course, conduct a referendum to determine what the people really want.”

The dismissal of Agbor Balla has drawn widespread criticism. By 15 May, 65 national, regional and international civil society organisations had reportedly added their names to a petition to have him reinstated.

Criticisms

And even Francophone intellectuals have come out to openly condemn the actions of the minister and the university.

In a widely circulated open letter titled “Affaire Agbor Balla”, addressed to the minister, Professor Ambroise Kom, internationally renowned post-independence literary critic and former teacher of African literature at the University of Yaoundé I, accused the minister, once a university colleague, of not doing enough to protect the country’s university system from external interference in the domestic affairs of tertiary institutions.

Kom, also a co-founder of a private Francophone university, Universite des Montagnes, reminded the minister of what he described as his unjustified harassment by security agencies when his examination questions were sent by university authorities for scrutiny to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

He recalled that Dr Issidor Noumba, a member of the economics department at the University of Yaoundé I, had also been dismissed from the university because one of the examination questions he set was interpreted as a question which could threaten the peace and security of Cameroon.

“Thus the dismissal of Dr Agbor Balla is an integral part of a tradition of academic repression undertaken by the government via university authorities,” he wrote.

In another open letter to the minister, Dr Ludovic Lado, a former senior lecturer in the faculty of social sciences and management at the Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé, criticised the method used to terminate the appointment of Agbor Balla.

“You did not allow due process to follow its full course before forcing the hands of the vice-chancellor to get rid of him,” he wrote.

Ludovic Lado took issue with the reasons given by the vice-chancellor in an interview with a local tabloid, The Sun, in which he accused Agbor Balla of setting an examination question which was biased and partisan in nature.

Reminding the minister and the vice-chancellor to allow for the full implementation of academic freedom, Ludovic Lado urged the university authorities to reinstate Agbor Balla to his post.

Culled from University World News

A group of trade unions in Cameroon’s education sector has opposed the government’s plan to reopen schools on June 1 for students of examination classes.

The unions said opening schools exposes students and teachers to the Covid-19 coronavirus.

According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the Central African country had recorded 4,890 positive cases, 165 deaths and 1,865 recoveries by Monday.

The country reported its first case of the coronavirus on March 6.

In a petition to the Prime Minister and head of government, Mr Joseph Dion Ngute, some 19 trade unions, including the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union (CATTU) and Teachers’ Association of Cameroon (TAC), urged the government to suspend the opening of schools and only evaluate students on work already covered.

Should the government want to still reopen schools, it should provide protective equipment for stakeholders for their safety.

“The distribution of [free] face masks and alcohol-based hand sanitisers is the only means to ensure equal protection of all actors in the face of the coronavirus pandemic,” the petition written in French reads.

The petitioners said students unable to acquire face masks might not be accepted on school campuses because of the directive to wear face masks, hence the government should provide them.

They added that the government should then limit the number of students to 24 per class.

Cameroon closed schools and suspended international passenger flights in mid-March as part of the measures to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Authorities also ordered the compulsory wearing of face masks in public, prohibited gatherings of more than 50 people, and closed bars, restaurants and leisure spots from 6pm. The government also placed restrictions on urban and inter-urban travel and regulated the flow of consumers in markets and shopping centres.

However, last month, the government relaxed the restrictive measures.

Prime Minister Ngute said the restrictions had helped mitigate the spread of the virus, but had also created economic and social hardship.

He said President Paul Biya had also decided to reopen schools, universities, vocational training centres and professional schools from June 1.

Source: The East African

Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute on Friday issued technical guidelines for schools nationwide to reopen in an orderly manner, depending on the situation of the coronavirus pandemic in the Central African country.

Only examination classes in primary and secondary schools will resume classes on June 1, Ngute said in a statement, adding the students will be “properly distributed” among classrooms to observe social distancing rules.

Sanitary kits with hand sanitizers, thermoflashes, and hand-washing basins will be available at the entrance of the schools, according to the guidelines.

It is compulsory for students and teachers to wear protective masks, Ngute said, stressing “prevention is and remains the main weapon available to each and every one of us.”

Cameroon closed schools on March 18 after detecting its first COVID-19 case on March 6. More than 3,000 cases have been reported in the country since then.

Source: Xinhuanet

With parents and policymakers agonising over when to reopen schools as lockdowns ease, scientists are still struggling to find out how the new coronavirus affects children.

While youngsters can become infected with the new coronavirus, very few have died or contracted serious symptoms. But could they still spread contagion?

Here is what we know so far.

– Are children at risk? –

This is one of the few questions where there is broad agreement. Only a tiny proportion of children appear to have become seriously ill with COVID-19.

“There are three key questions: How much do children get COVID-19; how badly does it affect them; and do they spread it to others?” said Russell Viner, President of Britain’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

“We only have good data about the second of these.”

Specialists writing for the British pediatric website Don’t Forget The Bubbles (DFTB) said in a recent roundup of international research that only around one percent of critical cases involved children, while “deaths remain extremely rare”.

– Do they get infected? –

The short answer is yes.

“Research indicates that children and adolescents are just as likely to become infected as any other age group and can spread the disease,” says the World Health Organization.

But this is not reflected in global official data about the virus, with many countries largely focusing their COVID-19 testing on those who have gone to hospital with severe symptoms.

France’s health agency, which has amalgamated data from a host of international studies, said pediatric cases represent between one and five percent of all officially-documented global infections.

It said this is because children catch the virus, but generally exhibit only “mild” symptoms — or no symptoms at all — meaning they go uncounted.

But other experts believe that children, especially those under the age of 10, might not be getting infected as much in the first place.

“It appears fairly convincing that children are less likely to acquire the infection than adults, by a significant amount,” said specialists Alasdair Munro and Damian Roland of DFTB.

Their conclusions were based on several international contact tracing studies that looked at how the disease spread and to whom.

They also assessed data from places that have carried out mass community-wide testing — South Korea, Iceland and the Italian principality of Vo — all of which found that the proportion of infected children was far smaller than adults.

– But are they silent vectors? –

This is the area of greatest uncertainty.

Initially researchers believed they could be spreading the disease, drawing comparisons with other viruses like the flu where children help accelerate infections.

But recent studies on the new coronavirus suggest that they are less likely to transmit the virus.

In one incident, a nine-year-old was among 12 people infected in a super-spreading event at a chalet in the Haute-Savoie region of France, after a British man returned from Singapore and went on a ski holiday.

A study of the incident — one of the first major clusters of infection in France — showed that the child, who only displayed mild symptoms, came into contact with 172 people while sick.

None of them contracted COVID-19, not even the youngster’s two siblings. But the child did transmit other winter viruses, including the flu.

Children could be less infectious because they do not have as many symptoms and do not cough, French expert Arnaud Fontanet told a parliamentary hearing last week.

But a German study last month led by virologist Christian Drosten, an adviser to Angela Merkel, concluded that children had a viral load comparable to that of adults.

They “could be as contagious”, it added.

Other scientists, including Munro, have disputed both the methodology of that study and its conclusion. Re-analysing the data they said it might even be possible to draw the opposite conclusion — that age and viral load are correlated.

Even so, we cannot say for sure that a higher viral load makes a person more infectious.

– A new threat? –

In recent weeks, a spate of cases of children affected by an inflammatory illness resembling a rare condition called Kawasaki disease has caused alarm.

Symptoms are high fever, abdominal pain, rash and swollen glands. If untreated, patients can suffer heart failure, but those who are given medical care respond well.

A few dozen cases have been reported in New York, France, Britain, Italy and Spain and while no link has been formally established to the new coronavirus, scientists believe it could be connected.

In an article published this week in the medical journal The Lancet, British doctors describing eight cases observed in London said it could be “a new phenomenon” affecting previously-asymptomatic children with the coronavirus “manifesting as a hyperinflammatory syndrome”.

Reports of the illness came just as several countries in Europe were mulling reopening schools, kindling fears among parents. But experts say the cases are too rare to affect policy decisions.

– Should the schools open? –

On this there is much disagreement.

Authorities in Italy, which has the oldest teachers of OECD nations with almost 60 percent aged over 50, have expressed concern that reopening schools would risk infecting staff and reigniting the epidemic.

But many other countries, including Germany, Denmark and France, have prioritised reopening schools as they unwind lockdown measures.

In France, scientific estimates that it would be better to keep schools shut until September were outweighed by concerns about other social issues, particularly those facing children from troubled families.

“School can be a haven of peace,” explained Jean-Francois Delfraissy, who leads the scientific committee advising the government.

Other experts argue that the benefits of continuing education far outweigh the risks.

In a column published this week in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, Munro and British infectious disease specialist Saul Faust called on governments to allow children to resume lessons, regardless of underlying health conditions, and conduct detailed surveillance to monitor safety.

“Children are not COVID-19 super-spreaders: time to go back to school,” they said.

Source: AFP

Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor alias Agbor Balla, Instructor at the English Law Department, Faculty of Laws and Political Science of the University of Buea has been summoned by authorities to justify why he set an examination question on the Anglophone Crisis.

The Disciplinary Hearing opens at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at the Board Room of the Central Administrative Block, said Prof. Atangcho Nji Akonumbo, Dean of the Faculty of Laws and Political Science.

The rights activist is said to have breached professional obligations when he set an exam question on the Anglophone Crisis in a first semester level one course titled “Political and Constitutional History of Cameroon”. The question read: “The Anglophone crisis since 2016 was caused by lawyers’ and teachers’ strikes. Assess the validity of this statement. (40 marks).”

An “Invitation Letter to a Disciplinary Hearing” dated April 29, 2020 was only delivered to Agbor Balla’s office at the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) at 12:08 p.m. Tuesday, May 5, 2020, Cameroon-Info.Net has learnt. Although Agbor Balla was not on seat, the invite was received on his behalf by one of his collaborators at CHRDA where he is founder/president.

In the invitation letter, Prof. Atangcho writes: “On the instruction of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buea, and in keeping with article 16 of decree No. 93/036 of 29th January 1993, you are being invited to appear before a constituted Disciplinary Panel of the University to hear allegations against you for non-compliance of professional obligations for a question you set on LAW243: Political and Constitutional History of Cameroon, during the 2019/2020 first semester examination.”

The Minister of State  for Higher Education and Chancellor of Academic Orders,  Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo had on April 20 instructed the Vice-Chancellor of  the University of Buea ,Professor Horace Ngomo Manga  to put a definite end to all  on-campus activities of  Agbor Balla which breach the “ethics and deontology”  of the University.

Cameroon-Info.Net recalls that when the crisis in the North West and South West regions started in October 2016 with the Lawyers’ and later Teachers’ strike, Agbor Balla was President of the Fako Lawyer’s Association (FAKLA) as well as President of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, CACSC.

When pressure came to bear on government, the CACSC was banned on January 17, 2017 and Agbor Balla arrested same day along with Dr. Fontem Neba who served as Secretary General of the Consortium.

Brought before the Yaoundé military court for promoting terrorism among other charges that carry the maximum sentence, Agbor Balla was freed when President Biya ordered the discontinuance of proceedings against him and others on August 30, 2017.

Human Rights Lawyer Agbor Balla’s trouble at the University of Buea may not be unconnected to his indictment of government for the February 14, 2020 killings in Ngarbuh.

Culled from Cameroon Info.Net

The suspension of a university professor’s classes in Cameroon has raised fears that the government wants to silence those who dare raise the subject of the country’s Anglophone crisis.

Since late 2016, Anglophone regions of Cameroon have been gripped in violence between government forces and armed groups seeking a separate state. The crisis has claimed thousands of lives.

The government has repeatedly denied that its security forces have committed abuses during the crisis, but now it seems to be taking matters even further.

On April 20, the minister of higher education sent a letter to Buea University alleging that law professor Felix Agbor Nkongho, also known as Agbor-Balla, breached “the university’s code of ethics and conduct” and called on the head of the university to take measures. Agbor-Balla’s classes were then suspended.

Agbor-Balla told Human Rights Watch that he believes the suspension of his classes was because of an assignment in which he asked students to explore the reasons behind the Anglophone crisis. He added that it was only meant to get the law students to think critically and put the crisis into a legal context.

“I don’t discuss politics in the classroom,” he said.

A Ministry of Higher Education representative told Radio France International that Agbor-Balla had “turned a classroom into a political space.”

It is not the first time teachers got into trouble for discussing current events in Cameroon. On September 13, 2019, a teacher at the high school in Avebe-Esse, a village in the South region, was arrested after mentioning in class that the government was considering allowing jailed opposition leader Maurice Kamto to participate in a national dialogue. The teacher was released five days later.

Agbor-Balla had been arrested in January 2017 for leading peaceful protests in Buea along with other Anglophone activists. Charged by a military court under the anti-terrorism law, he was eventually released in August 2017 and all charges were dropped.

Since then, he has advocated for upholding human rights during the crisis, denouncing abuses by both the military and the armed separatists.

University students should be encouraged to debate the most pressing issues of the day. The suspension of Agbor-Balla’s courses shows the government wants to stifle that debate.

Culled from Human Rights Watch