Elechi Amadi is no more. According to Thisday newspaper, he died on June 29, 2016 in hospital in Port Harcourt, Rivers State of Nigeria, of an undisclosed ailment at the age of 82. Reacting to the news, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, said Amadi was “a consummate patriot, a great literary icon, a soldier’s soldier and development enthusiast.”

Eldred Jones, in “African Literature 1966-1967,” described the novelist as “a Nigerian author of plays and novels that are generally about African village life, customs, beliefs and religious practices, as they were before contact with the Western world.” Amadi is best remembered for his 1966 novel, “The Concubine,” which was described “an outstanding work of pure fiction.” His other works included “The Great Ponds,” “Isiburu,” “Sunset in Biafra,” “Dance of Johannesburg,” “Pepper Soup,” “The Road to Ibadan,” “The Slave,” “Estrangement,” “Les Grand Etangs,” and “The Woman of Calabar.”

Born in 1934 in Aluu, Rivers State, Amadi attended Government College, Umuahia, Survey School, Oyo and the University of Ibadan, where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1959. He was a land surveyor and later teacher in several schools, including the Nigerian Military School, Zaria from 1963–66. Amadi served in the Nigerian Army and remained there during the Nigerian Civil War, retiring as a Captain.

He also served in the Rivers State government as Permanent Secretary, Commissioner for Education and Commissioner for Lands and Housing. Elechi Amadi was a writer-in-residence and lecturer with the Rivers State College of Education (now Ignatius Ajuru University of Education), where he was Dean of Arts, Head of the Literature Department and Director of General Studies.

CAMTRIBUNE

The Registrar of the Cameroon GCE Board has left Buea this morning for Bamenda, the chief city in the North West region as the marking session of the 2016 session of the General Certificate Examination enters Day II. Sir Humphrey Ekema Monono is expected to arrive Bamenda in just under 3 hours.

In a telephone conversation he had with Cameroon Concord News earlier today, Sir Monono revealed that the board operates marking centers in Bamenda and Buea. The astute manager added that 9 marking centers are in BUEA and 7 in Bamenda .

The GCE Board Registrar also noted that an exhaustive marking guide have been made available to all examiners. Humphrey Monono hinted that the board staged a mechanism for effective marking which was aimed at evaluating the state of preparedness of the examiners.

EWANG John, one of the GCE assessors who confirmed that the mechanism for effective marking had indeed been carried out said it was to discover the strength and weaknesses of the examiners so as to adjust them. More than 6000 examiners are expected to mark at least 200 scripts each within 9 and 10 days respectively.

 By Besong Esther Agbor

The Intensive Vocational Training College Buea has graduated its joined 35th, 36th, and 37th batches of trainees amidst high unemployment rate in Cameroon. The graduation ceremony took place on Friday June 24, 2016 in Buea, Fako division of the South West Region. The over 400 graduates were trainees of the 2013, 2014 and 2015 academic years pending graduation from the vocational training center.

In an effort to promote the training of bilingual secretary ship as a major tool to emergence, the government of Cameroon through the Employment and Vocational Training Ministry created six (6) public vocational training centers nationwide. The Intensive Vocational Training Centre, IVTC, Buea is the lone English center in Cameroon with five others spread across the country. The director of the center Becky Effoe Limunga revealed that vocational training promotes positive work ethics and enhance economic growth which is a prerequisite to gainful employment, asserting that, it was a golden opportunity for the public and employers to make material use of the facilities and training programs offered.

The South West Regional delegate for Employment and Vocational Training urged the students to meet up with contemporary challenges of the professional. The students were schooled on computerized accountancy, bilingual secretary ship and other lucrative courses. It is a one year training program upon which the trainee is issued an academic diploma.

Cham Victor Bama (Cameroon Concord News)

As part of activities marking Queen Elizabeth II of England’s 90^th birthday, a Cameroonian has been selected to receive the Queen’s Young Leaders’ Award on Thursday, June 23, 2016, at Buckingham Palace, London. David Morfaw, 22, was selected “for taking the lead in transforming the lives of others and making a lasting difference in their communities,” says the release from the British High Commission in Cameroon.

As Queen’s Young Leader, Morfaw will join other winners from 45 Commonwealth countries in London for five days of high-level engagements designed to enable them further their life-changing work. Prior to receiving the award, winners will visit Number 10 Downing Street and the UK headquarters of global social networking company, Twitter, as well as meet senior executives at the BBC World Service. They will also meet Patricia Scotland, the Commonwealth Secretary General and visit projects for the vulnerable in the UK, amongst others.

This year’s Queen’s Young Leaders’ Award recipients are working on variety of issues such as education, climate change, gender equality, mental health and improving the lives of people with disabilities. Meanwhile, the application process to be among the 2017 Queen’s Young Leaders’ Award winners opens on Friday, June 24, 2016. The contest is intended for young people between 18 and 29, dedicated to creating positive changes in the lives of Cameroonians. Application details are available at www.queensyoungleaders.com.

Cameroon Tribune

The Board of Directors of the National School for Penitentiary Administration (ENAP), Buea, has resolved to enter into partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education to foster quality training for those in charge of reforming prisons. The Board equally frowned at indiscipline in ENAP and cautioned the school management to be more vigilant against unruliness, especially as a new intake is currently undergoing entrance requirements.

The Board met in Buea on 10 June 2016 in its 27^th ordinary session and considered cases of indiscipline. As a former colonial Prison Warder School transformed into ENAP in 1992, the worry about indiscipline in the 24-year-old school followed the recent dismissal of four students for gross indiscipline by the Minister of State, Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals. The Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice in charge of the Penitentiary Administration, Doh Jerome Penbaga, sat in for the titular Minister at the meeting.

The salient points on the agenda included the day-to-day running of the school, improvement of the school curriculum, the general well-being of students and staff, ENAP’s budget and its projected new site at Lysoka, Buea. Penbaga expressed satisfaction with ENAP staff and Director, Fonkem Immaculate, for working tirelessly in spite of insufficient resources. He underscored that the architectural work was on course to move ENAP to its new site at Lysoka, Buea.

Board members evaluated activities and appraised the level of implementation of recommendations from the preceding 26th Ordinary Session of the Board. The Board further resolved to sign an agreement in the days ahead with the Ministry of Higher Education to foster quality training of penitentiary personnel. This falls in line with the new vision of the State regarding penitentiary reforms. The National School for Penitentiary Administration has as main mission the training and retraining of penitentiary personnel, with the Board of Directors as the highest administrative organ. It has a current enrolment of 585 students and 74 staff.

Cameroon Tribune

The Cameroon Radio Television CRTV has started training some newly recruited journalists and reporters to work for the News and Information Channel.  Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the 38 beneficiaries will be trained for nine weeks on news coverage, treatment, editing, and broadcasting at the CRTV Audiovisual Centre in Ekounou- Yaounde.

In a typical CPDM pattern, the Minister of Communication Issa Tchiroma Bakary together with CRTV’s General Manager Amadou Vamoulke, have urged the new comers to be diligent as the corporation awaits them with excellent results.

The News and Information Channel is one among the six new channels of CRTV created purposely to provide news and information from home and abroad. It will effectively go operational in 2017.

CRTV

Two thousand Youths of the Penka Michel Subdivision of the West Region have received their National Identity Cards free of charge. The donation was made by an economic operator native of the Subdivision Guillaume Mbakam. While handing the official certificates, Guillaume Mbakam urged the youths to be responsible citizens as they use the documents for official purposes and others.

The natives including beneficiaries lauded the great initiatives saying that it has come a long way to ease their travelling and participation in official examinations and other civic responsibilities. The ID cards were produced alongside voters’ registration cards for youths ranging from 20 to 25 years. The donor and his entourage visited the identification and electoral offices which will thereafter host the campaign indoors.

CRTV

Ever since the consortium of CPDM crime syndicates took over the running of political affairs in Cameroon, the textbook market has been immersed in a veritable mafia system where education authorities, publishers including school officials come together to enrich themselves at the detriment of parents each school year.  Books in the school curriculum are increasing and regularly change and the prices too are exorbitant. This disastrous situation was recently brought to the attention of the Prime Minister and Head of Government by MPs. Correspondingly; Prime Minister Philemon Yang on the 10^th of June 2016 unveiled an action plan in response to concerns regarding textbooks.

Philemon Yang announced an unprecedented free distribution of Mathematics books to the Basic Education sector students.  Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the Government has already implemented a number of measures including the creation of school libraries, the construction of multimedia centers and installing digital documents. The operation for the next school year will cost Cameroon, two billion 260 million FCFA.

Ebong Kingsley