More than 200 Cameroonian teachers demanding back pay and allowances have been arrested and detained in police stations across the capital Yaoundé after attempting to hold street protests on Tuesday.

Their family members say they have not had any contact since.

The leader of group, Samuel Ekoto, told BBC Afrique that plans to resolve the pay dispute last year weren’t honoured, adding:

We demand the release of our colleagues. Some of us have been waiting one, two, three years [for a resolution over pay] but there’s a lack of commitment from the authorities.”

But some teachers disagree. A spokesman for another teacher’s body, Jacques Bessala Ngono, told BBC Afrique it believed progress was being made in talks with the authorities and so had cut ties with those who protested.

Culled from the BBC

Besieged by an unending campaign of terror by Boko Haram in the northeast, secessionist agitations in the southeast, and vicious attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen in north central states and elsewhere, Nigeria is a country in need of an urgent reprieve.

Unfortunately, that reprieve seems to be more of a mirage than an actuality.

The theatre commander of the Nigerian troops fighting insurgents in the northeast recently claimed victory against a sect that has proved many times that it can reinvent itself to withstand the heat from the Nigerian troops.

Much like Nigeria, again, Cameroon’s major problem is no longer the insurgents that have killed about 25,000 people in both countries, according to SBM Intelligence estimate, the push for independence by its Anglophone region is now casting a blanket of violence on the country.

The separatists, on October 1, 2017, declared the northwest and southwest regions as the self-proclaimed ‘Republic of Ambazonia’. There is no need to seek an expert view to know that President Paul Biya, a man who has ruled Cameroon for more than 34 years, will haunt the separatists.

However, for Nigeria, which has its own internally displaced people to cater to, the influx of Cameroonians escaping from the violence in their country is another headache to a troubled head. Nevertheless, the situation would be a lot better if it remains just that.

With both countries sharing a 1,975km-long border, either side of which are violent crises, the possibility of the proliferation of small weapons is high. Also scary is the presence of fighters, trained, semi-trained or untrained, ready to handle these weapons.

Added to that is the penchant for Cameroonian troops to violate the sanctity of the Nigerian border. In recent months, the Cameroonian military have entered into Nigeria, chasing Anglophone secessionists, without prior permission from the Nigerian authorities. This is in spite of Nigerian authorities handing over 47 leaders of the separatist movement who were arrested in Abuja in January, even though Nigeria does not have a standing extradition agreement with its neighbour.

Besides, the crackdown on the separatists by the country’s military is creating a set of radicalised, maybe untrained, army who have become willing to fill the ranks of the Ambazonian Defence Forces (ADF).

Already, they have been launching attacks from Nigerian territory in recent weeks, aided significantly by a porous border.

“The truth is that many militants are hiding among the refugees, and they just cross the border at will through the forest,” Lawrence Asuquo, head of immigration at Ikom, told AFP.

“They launch attacks on the Cameroonian army and they run back to Nigeria. It’s almost impossible to track them.”

Apart from the security problems that Nigeria faces, there is also an economic dimension to the crisis.

Figures from Cameroon’s Ministry of Commerce show that Nigeria is the country’s largest trade partner, with 22 per cent and 17.8 per cent of imports coming from Nigeria in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Currently, annual trade exchanges are approximated to be worth ₦217 billion, excluding “the robust informal trade linkages on both sides of the almost 2000km border shared by both countries.”

However, if the crisis festers and Cameroon continues to violate the integrity of the Nigerian border, there is the likelihood that the trade volume, formal or informal, between the two countries would reduce drastically.

Both Nigeria and Cameroon are still reeling from the effect of Boko Haram insurgency. An unending separatist agitation is the last thing they need at this time.

Source: The Guardian

One of the greatest calamities ever conceived and implemented by a creature walking on two limbs is this monstrosity called ENAM. The curriculum was designed in the nineteenth century by the French colonial masters. It wasn’t fit for purpose then and it isn’t fit for purpose now. But, the intellectual inactivity of the so-called academic authorities in French Cameroon have failed to grasp this simple fact. This nineteenth century model of education was intended by the colonial masters to educate the natives of the day on following their orders. It was accepted as true by the colonialists that the native was intellectually and physically inferior. This system of education was designed to purport such scandalous falsehood.

This absurdity, still sustained by this idiocy of a regime is designed for students to study magistracy and administration. Intakes are admitted after a fraudulent selection process. The old mantra of ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ is its motto. The place is full of the well-connected not the academically brilliant.

Even by its standards, this year’s intake was embarrassing. When you hear some people talking about this disaster of an establishment, you might be forgiven to think they are talking about Harvard Law School or London School of Economics. To accurately appreciate an educational organization, one would have to look at its graduates. If a great number of its graduates are making great contributions to their societies, the logical conclusion is that it’s a great institution. That can’t be said of ENAM

It’s pathetic that future graduates go in with the dream of coming out to join an ever expanding public service with one intention- join the bribery and corruption conveyor belt. Upon graduation, they get their ‘matricule numbers’ and are posted so they can start ripping the rewards of their labour. Thus we find ourselves with magistrates and administrators who don’t understand the law, people and are clueless about administration.

Now, the conundrum presents itself. The products of ENAM are running the country. They are faced with a crisis, the first real political difficulty to face the nation since 1961 and have no answers. They find themselves with nineteenth century schooling and directives in the twenty-first century. I suppose some of the lessons they take at ENAM are;

1. if someone opposes your policies and politics, offer them a huge bribe to buy their silence
2. if someone opposes you, ban them from entering the country of their birth.
3. if someone has a different point of view from you, hunt them down even if it means breaking international law.
4. citizens protest peacefully, shoot them.

In the twenty-first century, the political, legal and administrative gods of La Republique, who habitually products of ENAM collectively believe that it’s not abnormal to try citizens in a military tribunal. Kim Jong-un must be aghast at the legal system in La Republique.

Many in government haven’t grasped the enormity of the task facing the nation. The policies of the last 57 years have failed the people of British Southern Cameroons woefully. But with a degree of self-importance never before seen upon planet earth, the administration of La Republique led by products of ENAM are failing to see their apparent shortcomings.

Until and unless it’s accepted that these colonial policies and education model are not adequate to deal with twenty-first century problems, many in Cameroun are in for a massive shock. The shoot to kill policies of the past intended to quiet legitimate protests will not work. As Ambazonians, we refuse to accept outdated and imperialist institutions and instructions as they have no place in this century. Until these policies and abuse stop, we shall resist, resist and resist arrogance and occupation till the end.

 Sessekou  Asu Isong

A Cameroon Concord News Production