GEF's Outlook

What Can We Do About Africa's Electrical Power Problems?

The neighbor’s generator had just stopped rumbling. My lights blipped and the darkness I was engulfed in turned into light. I decided to turn –on the TV to watch news from Cameroon. Guess what? I stumbled on a report on CRTV about the Chief Executive Officer of AES Corporation being received by President Paul Biya. This CEO had announced to President Biya that they were creating an African power company with headquarters in Douala, Cameroon.

Football, Ethnic Identity and Nationhood:Beti against Bamileke Violence After A Cameroon Cup Game

Only last June, I posted an article on this blog (Man from Somewhere in-between) in which I suggested that the black South African on Black African violence that rocked South Africa in in April and May 2008, was merely hate generated by who we define ourselves to be and it had happened elsewhere and could happen anywhere.

 

Well, it happened on 15, 16, 17 and 18 July in my dear Cameroon. The “indigenous” inhabitants of Akonolinga (a small town situated 180 Km from the capital Yaounde), attacked the homes and businesses of “strangers” mainly ethnic Bamiléké living in “their town”, leading to the death of at least one person and the displacement of many “Bami” strangers. The spark that generated the outburst happens to be football, supposedly the rallying force of Cameroonians.

A Letter to Charly Ndi Chia: President of the Cameroon Union of Journalists

By George Esunge Fominyen

Dear Uncle Charly,

I gather congratulations are in order! On 12 July 2008 you became the president of the Cameroon Union of Journalists (CUJ)! Accept, dear Uncle, my hearty albeit belated wishes of success. I am sure you would remember that we whiffed over this possibility the last time we met face-to-face. Based on the ideas you espoused, my friends from overseas had felt you could be the man for the job. I shall do well to inform them that you finally docked your reservations and took the plunge into this boiling water.

Poetry: All because Gwangwa’a is dead ?

By George Esunge Fominyen

Because Gwangwa’a is dead,

So English-speaking cultural programmes are dead?

Because Gwangwa’a is dead,

So no more English-speaking drama on TV?

Because Gwangwa’a is dead?

So no more English language poetry on TV?

Because Gwangwa’a is dead,

So Focus on Art will remain dead?

Because Gwangwa’a is dead,

So City Masks is dead?

Because Gwangwa’a is dead?

So Creative English-language television on CRTV is dead? 

Because Gwangwa’a is dead?

So Anglophone television is dead!

All because Gwangwa’a is dead?

No, is it because this anglo-franco union is dead?

Cameroon: Implications of the Rise in the Price of Newspapers

By George Esunge Fominyen

Regular buyers of daily newspapers in Cameroon noticed on 1 July 2008 that they had to spend an extra 100 FCFA at the newsstands for their favourite paper. Instead of 300 FCFA a copy of Mutations, Messager or Le Jour now sells at 400 FCFA.

This decision by newspaper publishers is supposed to help them measure up to the costs of production.  In fact, since the 2007 finance law that cut the little existing exonerations on imports for material for media production, newspaper owners had consistently threatened to increase the price of their product. The current morose world economic situation and the steep rise in the cost of production surely got them to match words with action.

African Water and Sanitation Needs Remain Despite AU Summit on that Theme

By George Esunge Fominyen

African leaders met on 30 June to 3 July at Sharm El Schiek in Egypt for the eleventh Ordinary Session of the African Union ostensibly to discuss ways of Meeting the Millennium Development Goals on Water and Sanitation. Apart from a paragraph in the speech of Jean Ping, the chairman of the AU Commission, there was little more that was heard about the main team.

In the meantime, poor Africans in rural and urban areas continue to go without potable water and face health risks from drinking contaminated water or living in slums without pipe-borne water facilities. With the effects of a changing climate already hitting some countries, rivers are drying up and water sources are becoming even scarcer. In the Far North of Cameroon, people have to dig 50 metres now to find water for a well, where they used to dig for 20 metres.

Reviving Traditional Wrestling in Cameroon

By George Esunge Fominyen

Traditional African wrestlers have been girding their loins for weeks, each having the ambition of emerging champion at the African Traditional Wrestling Championships hosted on 2 to 10 July 2008 by Senegal. A review of press articles on the event reveals that Senegal are the hot favourites with Niger, Mali, Togo, Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso , Nigeria and Mauritania as the other participants. Painfully, Cameroon is absent from the list although there is a tradition of wrestling especially amongs the coastal ethnic groups and the Bakweris in particular.

Wesua or Traditional Wrestling in Bakweri land (2) Watch out for the Girls!

A film by George Esunge Fominyen

Wesua or Traditional Wrestling in Bakweri land (1)

A film by George Esunge Fominyen