GEF's Outlook

Cameroon in Trouble?

By George Esunge Fominyen

  I often remember one of my lecturers at the department of journalism and mass communication  of the University of Buea  saying, if ever we heard that CNN's Christiane Amanpour (Chief International Correspondent) was in Cameroon with a crew of reporters, we should consider that the country had collapsed. The class was about major news organisations and conflict/war reporting.

It was a humorous bit of learning but the message stuck.

That is why I suspect there is big trouble in the offing when news organisations like France 24 and BBC World Service start having top headlines on Cameroon. Especially if it is not about a plane crash but about "rebels" taking persons hostage and threatening to kill them if the government does not react within a three days.

A Very Long Layover - Nightmare at the Douala International Airport

In my last post, I was ranting about the follies of African Airlines. I thought I had seen too much. Lies! The following ordeal experienced by passengers on transit in the busiest airport in Cameroon (my country) and narrated by Alexis Grant blogging at Inkslinging in Africa beats everything I have encountered.

Douala airport officials are known for demanding bribes from foreigners trying to leave the country.But two South African men I met in the airport while waiting for my flight told me a story that trumps all the rest.

Do African Countries Need to Run Airlines

I am stuck at the Airport again.

 
Another sad encounter with what passes for African airliners. Do we really need to run such businesses?

CAMEROON-NIGERIA: Bakassi’s displaced in flux, peninsula vulnerable

ABUJA, 24 October 2008 (IRIN) - A 18 October rebel attack on the Bakassi peninsula exposes the region’s continued vulnerability to “insurgency, piracy and unruliness,” according to a UN senior officer who coordinates the Cameroon Nigeria Mixed Commission that oversaw the handover of the peninsula from Nigerian to Cameroonian authorities on 14 August.

My Reading of Fritz Ilongo's: Lost Heritage

By George Esunge Fominyen

Recently, an Eden newspaper report that "about 300 inhabitants of Esele in the Limbe III subdivision have been asked to quit their village and cede land for the construction of a military barrack" stirred virulent reactions among members of the Fako (South West, Cameroon) diaspora. They mostly worried about how vulnerable their kinsmen had become in terms of losing their ancestral lands. As I followed the heated debates on the issue, I reflected on my interpretation of "The Lost Heritage", a story by Cameroonian writer, Fritz Ilongo.   

This is a short story. True. With a very catchy theme - if (like Fritz Ilongo) you hail from the land that spans the slopes of great Fako Mountain to the "Mwaanja" (ocean). It is a depiction of an intense reality that has political and social ramifications which may supersede comprehension.Bakweris have a problem about their ancestral land. Sold privately or at a state level (i.e CDC)...

 

Power Cuts, football Defeats and Riots in Dakar

By George Esunge Fominyen

The week of 6-12 October 2008 was tough in Dakar, the capital of the West African country of Senegal. City dwellers took to the streets on 9 October to protest against the frequent and long power outages. They were at it again on Saturday, 11 October when the national football (soccer) team was knocked out of the race to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup tournaments. They drew 1-1 with neighbours Gambia when they needed to win. The players were pelted with rocks, cars were burnt and some offices destroyed by disgusted youths.

Senegal crisis.mp3 - Gefs Outlook Podcast

I learnt of the first protests while on duty in Bamako, Mali. I could have lived the second riots had I not been abandoned in the Malian capital by a sorry airline called Air Senegal International. This podcast (in French) was produced as a cab driver briefed me on the week's events. Like a good number of Senegalese, he believes Saturday's violence was more than just an expression of disgust against the Teranga Lions.

China in Africa: Invasion or the New Face of Globalisation?Part 2

By George Esunge Fominyen

I have written here about the relations between China and Africa. But two things pushed me into posting a sequel. Firstly, I read the troubles of a British volunteer in Cameroon who realised that Bamenda, (Cameroon, Africa?) was "where the products that China makes, and the West doesn’t want, end up". Secondly, I met one of the authors of the growing library of books on China-Africa relations. I could not help interviewing Michel Beuret, the foreign news editor of the Swiss news magazine "l'Hebdo" born journalist who recently published a book entitled "La ChineAfrique". The following podcast has interesting insights into the reasons behind this book, tit-bits on the book and this China-Africa relationship.

China africa relations itw - GEF

Eto'o Surprised the French Want Domenech Out

By George Esunge Fominyen

Teachers and Poverty in Cameroon

George Esunge Fominyen

Today 5th October is World Teachers' Day. In Cameroon, it is a day of celebration. Usually there is a special loin for teachers, there are parades all around the country, teachers' unions make statements, government officials make promises and the media buzzes with stories about teachers'. I am currently in Bamako the capital of Mali. This morning I walked the streets to see if the atmosphere would be same. Not quite - is the least I could say. Consequently, I spent the rest of the time reminiscing the struggles in the daily lives of teachers (in Cameroon) that I witnessed in my years of covering education news. Some of them could be seen in the comment I wrote for the radio news magazine - Cameroon Calling on the occasion of World Teachers' Day in 2003. The theme that year was: "Teachers and the Fight Against Poverty". I wonder whether the situation of teachers in Cameroon has improved since then...

Bright Spots in Cameroonian Higher Education

George Esunge Fominyen

The other day I learnt that the University of Buea had won a multi-million grant on tuberculosis research offered by the NEPAD. That was really good news from Cameroon where you would usually have items on corruption, arrests, and robberies. This success story reminded me of a smaller scale success obtained by that same university four years ago at the the Inter-University Brain Trust Contest (IUBTC). The students representing the University of Buea won in the emerging diseases category after proposing a project on the management of tuberculosis in Fako division.

The Inter-University Brain Trust Contest (Universiades Academique in French) is the intellectual equivalent of the annual university games organised by the Ministry of Higher Education. It  seeks to promote the ability of Cameroonian university students to present concrete and marketable solutions to existing problems. I dug down my archive of programmes produced in the days when I was Education News Correspondent (Editor) for the CRTV National Station and re-edited the following piece on the IUBTC (2004) which demonstrates the usefulness of that unsung contest and UB's good performance in TB research. Needless to say the programme Education Switchboard died after I quit CRTV! The position I used to hold was also scrapped. Good listening though.

University Contest podcast - GEF (