Unhappy with the reduction the Francophone government’s reduction of the marking fees from 60 francs last year to 33 CFA francs this year, Anglophone teachers in Yaoundé have said that they will not correct a single script of the Common Entrance Examination that held on Tuesday 16 May 2017.  The expression on the faces, and the angry tone of the conversations held with some of the teachers by our cream of reporters in Yaoundé, speaks volumes about the prevailing situation.

The 2017 session of the Common Entrance has just been completed by the primary school pupils and they are now waiting for the red ball pen users to get the correction job done. However, Cameroon Concord News has learnt from the Anglophone teaching community in Yaoundé that none of these teachers intend to enter the marking centers.

The Southern Cameroonians have refused to make the corrections and are also denouncing the drastic reduction of their expenses envisaged for this task. They had already done so last year, when the Biya Francophone government reduced the correction costs by half, from 120 CFA francs to 60 francs. The teachers were already in the marking centers yesterday Wednesday, May 17, 2017 preparing the marking scheme to start the corrections, when the CPDM Regional Delegate for the Center Region sent by the Minister of Basic Education announced another drastic reduction- a reduction according to which each teacher will receive only 33 CFA francs per corrected script.

This time around, the pill was impossible to swallow for these dedicated Anglophone teachers especially as reductions have become recurring in the cost of marking the Common Entrance Examination. Based on a Prime Minister Order that sets the fee for correction of the Common Entrance at 120 CFA francs, the angry teachers have made it clear that no copy will be marked under these conditions. It is now evident the Southern Cameroons crisis has spilled over into French Cameroun.

By Rita Akana

Cameroon Concord News

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has recorded another victory in the battle for Southern Cameroons as West Cameroon students have massively boycotted the 2017 session of the General Certificate of Education Examination which the Francophone government claimed that it all started well yesterday. Cameroon Concord News can now reveal that the whole process has been a complete and total disaster.

Nature also had a hand in the struggle as bees reportedly invaded the Government High School Buea campus leaving several candidates to escape for their lives. A hand full of students answered present in almost all centers despite measures put in place by the Francophone Minister of Secondary Education, Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe. Cameroon Info.Net recently quoted a journalist serving with Equinoxe, a popular radio station based in Douala who reported that only 10 out of the 31 students showed up for Computer Sciences in Government Bilingual High School, GBHS Tombel in the South West region. The situation was also true for GBHS Bayele in the North West region where only 200 answered present out of over a 1000 expected.

The GCE Board headed by a pro Biya comedian has said it is too early to advance figures but local media reports have all confirmed a massive boycott. Cameroon Concord News also gathered that shocked by the low turnout, the GCE Board attempted to merge some centers for the state television cameras. Some students from Our Lady of Mount Camel in Muea,Buea were left stranded as they discovered on campus that their center had been moved to GBHS Muea.

In the South West region,7 centers hosted 41 schools in Computer Sciences while 8 centers are hosting 48 schools in Food Sciences. In Limbe only two schools, GBHS and GHS Limbe hosted what is now being described as Francophone GCE. No boarding academic establishment was used for the 2017 GCE examinations.

By Rita Akana

Cameroon Concord News

The Francophone government has made it public that the practical part of the 2017 June session of the General Certificate of Education, GCE, will begin tomorrow Monday May 15, 2017 in all Centers across the country including students who did not register for the examination.

The decision to allow those who did not registered for the 2017 GCE session was taken by the Francophone Secondary Education Minister, Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe while on a tour of Southern Cameroons territory. The Minister revealed that new centers have been created and those who did not register will be separated from the eligible candidates.

Tight Security has been previewed for Monday in all the centers following assurance that came from Mr. Jean Ernest Massena. This year, the corrupt management of the GCE Board announced that some 129 000 students registered for the exams— 54 000 less than last year’s figures.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has warned parents to keep their children at home at all times and to also boycott the so-called National Day parades coming up on May the 20^th. The newly created military wing of the Southern Cameroons revolution known as the ‘black vipers’ have promised to ruthlessly crush any student whoever dares to go out to take part in this year’s GCE. The Francophone government has assured parents that nothing will happen to their children.

Several candidates who fled the troubled North West and South West regions will be writing in Douala, Bafoussam and Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana with files from Cameroon Info.Net

Secondary Education Minister yesterday instructed special measures to accommodate students who did not register for 2017 examinations. Messages to build hope towards the so-called hitch- free 2017 end-of-course examinations in the North West region was the subject of a frank exchange between the visiting Minister of Secondary Education, Jean Ernest Ngalle Messena Bibehe and CPDM experts in Bamenda on May 10, 2017. The stakes featured security concerns, preparedness of students in some confessional schools, movements of students to and from accommodation Centers and logistics for credible examinations schedule to begin on May 15 with practicals and June 12, 2017 for the written session.

In the region to asses and follow up the state of preparedness, Minister Jean Ernest Ngalle Massena Bibehe reassured all technical collaborators of government’s responsibility to ensure the proper organization and management of the examination in times like this when the social crisis that haunt the North West and South West Regions did not help matters for the 2016/2017 academic year. The visiting Minister, North West Governor, Adolphe Lele Lafrique, the Director of Examinations, GCE and BAC Board authorities took turns to abate worries which include appeals to reinforce security in accommodation schools and concerns about students who, either did not prepare or missed out on registration for the examinations.

It was against this backdrop that in a late hour move, the Minister instructed the Registrar of the GCE Board to give a listening ear with special measures to accommodate such students who show up for examinations. He stressed that all students ready for the examinations will be given a chance and that the government will help matters for movement concerns. Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique reassured that security will be stepped up and stressed the need for stakeholders to be part of special security measures and readily denounce any threats for action.

Minister Jean Ernest Ngalle Massena Bibehe challenged stakeholders to play their roles and revealed special communications measures to enhance vigilance and probity. The stakes are high and the Minister urged all to showcase a high sense of patriotism for the success of the examination in the supreme interest of children’s right to education. It also emerged from the working session which assembled heads of Accommodation Centers, Principals, Educational Secretaries of Confessional and Lay private education sectors , trade union leaders, that some 40,573 candidates registered for the GCE in the North West, 1,651 for BAC and some 12,277 for technical education.

Source: Cameroon Tribune

More than 45 press releases have so far been made public ever since Biya announced that he will provide laptop computers to all university students in Cameroon.  The nation has seen updates on the laptop program coming from various ministerial departments including rectors and divisional officers. Recently, it was the anti Anglophone Minister of Higher Education, Fame Ndongo who addressed the public on the situation of the 500 thousand laptops promised to students of the eight state universities and private higher institutions by the President of the Republic.

In a release signed on Wednesday the 12^th of April 2017, Fame Ndongo stated that to be eligible for the offer, students have to meet a certain criteria. The communiqué did not reveal the special barometer.  Fame Ndongo pointed out that nine computer network centers shall be created and interconnected. According to the Francophone Beti Ewondo Minister, this will facilitate the production of a biometric list of students including those in all the 215 recognized private higher institutions in the country.

It is more than a year since Biya spoke of the laptops and thousands of students have already graduated and left the country. Fame Ndongo is now saying that to be eligible, students must be registered for the 2016/2017 academic year.  He also added that a biometric list including students’ ID cards shall be presented at the Ministry of Higher Education for appropriate verification by a competent authority at the ministry.

Jacque Fame Ndongo, (to use his three names) assured students that distribution of the laptops will begin four months after the conditions have been fulfilled. It seems the Biya Laptop Scheme requires a different matriculation day in all the universities in Cameroon. President Paul Biya, it should be recalled, promised five hundred thousand computers to students in his 2016 Youth Day address to the nation. The consignment has been estimated at FCFA 75 billion. Cameroon Concord News is aware Biya and his Francophone regime does not have the money.

By Sonne Peter

Joseph Antoine BELL, the former Francophone footballer maintains that Southern Cameroonians are not marginalized in Cameroon. He recently opined that people from the North West and South West are not under-represented in everything that is done in Cameroon.

Bell said in French that “Quand on dit que les Anglophones sont marginalisés il faudrait qu’on nous dise en quoi” When we say that Anglophones are marginalized, we should be told in what way.

 In this April edition of the AGBAW-EBAI DEBATE, we are asking our readers to react to what the legendary footballer made of the Southern Cameroon crisis.

The first act of revolutionary violence, that comes easily to mind, is the destruction of the God-thought- sinful-world with a 40 day down pour of a killer rain. That is if we can neatly by-pass all individual acts of punishment from the curse of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the water destruction of the world. Noah in this case, like it would be through-out God’s interaction with man, was the chosen one asked to build an ark of specific dimensions, where he would secure what existed before the flood for posterity. This in effect became the genesis of mass-destruction of what God himself has created. The appearance of the rainbow in the sky remains a living testimony of this act, although its promises of “never again”, would stand inconsequential at the moment for the purpose of the present analysis. The act was committed and destruction through violence, to march human disobedience and immorality against God was recorded.

Biblical Examples

During the period of Jewish bondage in the land of Pharaoh, a time came when God wanted his chosen children of Israel out of Egypt. The choice this time fell on Moses, a man whose childhood had been secured under very mysterious circumstances and who was at the time on exile for a violent act he committed that was by all means, but in words, condemned by God. Moses was to negotiate first peacefully the exit of the children of Israel and when he expressed his skepticism on this, God promised to teach Pharaoh a lesson should he prove headstrong to peaceful negotiations. When peaceful dialogue and consultations didn’t work, God resolved to the use of violence and force. The methods ranged from epidemics to outright killings.

During the 40 years in the wilderness, God used violence to get the liberated Jews to obey Him. The old hands including Moses, perished before they could get to the Promised Land. Getting to the promise land, they had to use violence prescribed by God. Violently through the hands of God, Sodom and Gomorrah were wiped off the surface of the earth for their sins and pervasions. Not even Abraham’s mediation could save them. All along the old testament of the bible, we come across instances of violence by God to solve one problem or another. Moses crowned it all when he prescribed an eye for an eye and teeth for tat. Holy wars were fought violently with the direct participation of God to free his so-called chosen race (or was it tribe) from bondage or impurity.

A new social order with greater spiritual inclination was promised and given. Then entered Jesus Christ, a spiritually molded child who would have cost his virgin mother her marriage to her carpenter lover and her life according to the Jewish culture. This is typical with God: to violate the norms of some societies in order to get His point across, that salvation is only through absolute obedience to Him but in such examples as the virgin birth, little consideration is given to possibilities of human initiations or skepticism of such divine acts that only go further to widen the spiritual gap between humanity and God. According to the doctrine of the new social order, this child of the virgin birth was to carry all alone on his head the burden of all the sins of humanity. To this he was to pay with his life. Before death could occur, Jesus had used both violent and non-violent approaches in his spiritual revolutionary mission. Instances of his non-violent approach can be mainly noted in his vast differences of application of the scriptures with the scribes and Pharisees, his teachings to the multitudes eg the Beatitudes, sermon on the mount, the 70x 7 forgiveness principles, the turning of the other check etc. But it must be noted that it was not in every situation that Jesus Christ practiced non-violence. For example: Jesus violently destroyed a herd of innocent pigs when he was angry with the demons he had cast from a possessed person. Jesus violently beat people out of the temple when they were doing their commerce in the house of God. Jesus violently turned his friends into pigs when their mother lied to him. The killing of Ananias and Saphira over the sale of their land was another instant of Christ-like violence. Not only did Jesus use physical violence, he also used psychological violence; like his answer when he was told his mother and brothers were looking for him. Even his death brought a lot of violence. As soon as he gave up the ghost, the grave were the dead were buried, opened and there was a terrifying storm all over. There is no instant in the bible where Jesus, not God for that matter, advised the soldiers to leave or not to join the army because they use violent methods in solving problems. The supposed Biblical condemnation of the use of violence in seeking liberation and justice, needs a serious reviewing by those who have out rightly condemned the approach thus far on the basis of scriptural interpretations.

The modern acceptable approach to revolutionary struggles and the seeking of justice has been non-violence. The question we must ask here is, non-violence acceptable by whom and to what end? The bitter fact is, it is not the church nor any genuine moral organization that accepts and preaches the non-violent approach because the church and these bodies if true to themselves, should be in the frontline of these struggles. It is sadly the perpetrators of violence and injustice that accept and promote their non-violent struggles are not threats to these political demagogues and moral lepers who know in themselves that the way they have structured things, they would find themselves presenting a balance sheet to whoever confronts them non-violently.

THE EXAMPLES OF GHANDI, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR AND MANDELA

We can quickly name some of the world’s recognized great names of the doctrine of non-violence. Gandhi comes to mind, the one from whom Martin Luther King Jr. gathered his much needed inspiration. Gandhi believed so much in nonviolence that he always had to physically risk his own life through periods of wet and dry hunger strikes when there was apparent violence. But Gandhi’s case should be viewed with care because even though the Indians had internal religious problems and that of the untouchables, they had a common problem of independence from the British who were arrogantly flying their union jack with impunity over local Indian territory. Of course, the undisputable happened in Indian immediately independence was achieved. The center that nonviolence pretended to hold together gave way to what was more realistic and natural. The man of nonviolence was violently taken out of the scene. Practically things took the place of theoretical things.

Martin Luther King Jr. who was brought to the scene through an invitation to address a black rally, also benefited from the deplorable American racial problems of his time. Martin was successful in rallying the blacks but he was not successful in controlling violence on both sides. In all earnest, if people like King recorded degrees of recognition, credit must be given to controversial black leaders like Malcolm X, who neither preached violence nor denounced it but stated the rights of the blacks to defend themselves against aggressions and attacks from the whites. The existence of people like Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey etc. placed the white racists in the unfortunate position of choosing between two evils and their choice fell on Martin, whose approach was less of a threat to them. Of course and again, violence took them out into immortality.

Mandela can preach nonviolence today but what had given him and the A.N.C. much impact is his more than two decades refusal to sell his birthright by renouncing violence to the devil Botha. If Mandela is today Mandela and ANC, it is thanks to the violent struggle Oliver Tambo put up in exile while Nelson was in jail. Even Gandhi would accept that whatever approach is adopted for any struggle for liberation and justice would depend to a large extend on the moral structure of its society and the state of it governance. Nonviolent approach must not be viewed as the lone universally approach and violence should not be seen as a shun option that must be universally unacceptable. Just as it has always been the case, all disciples of nonviolence have always ended up victims of violence.

Tracing the supporters of nonviolence gives the clear picture of human hypocrisy. The Americans and their western friends would tell you of their support for nonviolence. This is as far as their interest is not threatened. If the camp of nonviolence is a camp that would morally disturb their imperialist exploitation of the area, they would arm the violent side to destroy the nonviolent crusaders. If a violent approach is used to disturb their interests, the pretentious nonviolent supporters would match violence with violence. So the moral custodians of nonviolence, as long as their interests are at stake, would use violence against nonviolence and violence against violence. To these guys, the African crusaders for justice and total independence must limit their means of success by appeasing the dubious western capitalists with an ill supported doctrine of nonviolence. Bhutulezi, the leader of the Zulu Inkatha was always hailed by the white racists minority government of South Africa and the capitalist racist western world for his socalled nonviolent constructive engagement in solving the long degrading racist problem country, while at the same time the racist white world armed him to brutally murder militants of other black anti-racist movements.

These same apostles of nonviolence, finance and arm brutal dictators in Africa and third world countries to ruthlessly massacre innocent armless citizens and turn around to tell African revolutionaries to use endless dialogue and consultations to be permitted to bury even their dead, victims of cold blooded violence from the flag bearers of nonviolence.

By Christmas Atem Ebini

The Francophone Minister for Secondary Education, Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe has again extended registration deadline for the General Certificate of Education Examinations, GCE to April 15, 2017. This is the fourth time the Biya member of government is authorizing an extension.

Minister Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe known in Southern Cameroons as “the Clown,” made public his decision on Thursday March 30, 2017in Yaoundé. The minister added that the extension shall benefit only students in Buea and Bamenda centers who have not registered.

The Ministerial order comes some 10 days after the 3rd deadline expired on March 20, 2017. Ngale Bibehe also gave a two weeks period of grace for the GCE examination. Correspondingly, the examination will hold two week after the initial date.

Confirming that he was indeed a clown, the Francophone minister stated in his press release that Anglophone students should take advantage of this two weeks Easter holiday break and enroll in holiday classes to catch up with time lost.  A leading figure of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has rubbished the extension stating that schools and universities in Southern Cameroons will remained closed till both French and West Cameroon will open dialogue in the presence of a third party.

By Sama Ernest with files from CIN

The Buea University campus is still completely dead after calls from the National Union of Higher Education Teachers demanding students to return to school. A certain Dr. Abangma who had moonlighted with the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium made the appeal after a senior aide to President Biya promised him the post of Rector of the university.

In a scantily attended press conference at Chariot Hotel in Buea, the leadership of the University Teachers Trade Union stated that they had moved for the respect of decisions reached at the ad hoc committee which included the release of teachers arrested.

The National Union of Higher Education Teachers issued an empty political statement that those detained in connection with the Anglophone crisis that began in November 2016 should be also be released and noted that internet connection should be restored to the North West and South West. Also, the Union revealed that there would be some major adjustments on the academic calendar to allow students to catch up with the courses.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has maintained its position that there shall be no dialogue with the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime until all those arrested since 2016 including were released. The Consortium has also made it abundantly clear that those that have been killed must be accounted for and the troops behind the action brought to justice. The Consortium has also sounded a note of caution that there will be severe consequences if anyone dares to counter the Southern Cameroons revolution. Schools and all higher education establishments in Southern Cameroons will remained closed.

By Sama Ernest