Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

In Memoriam: Jean-Marc Ela, Africa’s “Liberation Theologian” is Dead

By Dibussi Tande

“If Christianity seeks to be anything more than an effort to swindle a mass of mystified blacks, the churches of Africa must all join to come to terms with this question.”

"liberation of the oppressed must be the primary condition for any authentic inculturation of the Christian message.” Father Jean Marc Ela.

The death has been announced of Father Jean Marc Ela, one of Cameroon’s leading scholars, who has variously been described as “the nearest Africa has come to a liberation theologian in a Latin American sense “, the “Champion of a theology under the trees “, “Africa's first liberation theologian of note outside South Africa”, and as “one of the best known and most read African theologians not only in Africa but also elsewhere”. He died recently in Canada where he had been on exile since 1995.

Born in 1936 in Ebolowa, Cameroon, Jean-Marc Ela was ordained priest in 1964. He subsequently earned doctorate degrees in Theology from the University of Strasbourg, France (1969) and Sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris (1978).

Memory Lane (1964): Vice President of Cameroon Get's St. John's Doctorate

For those who have always wondered where and how Dr. John Ngu Foncha, the former Premier of the Southern Cameroons, earned his doctorate...

The New York Times, June 3, 1964.

Vice President John N. Foncha of Cameroon received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws yesterday from St. John's University at a special ceremony on the campus in Jamaica, Queens [New York].

The Very Rev. Edward J. Burke, president of the university, conferred the degree. He said that Mr. Foncha was " a distinguished statesman and diplomat who has shown rare qualities of leadership and dedication in helping to guide the young West African federal republic in the international community of states."

Mr. Foncha was educated in Nigeria and served several years as headmaster of the Catholic Mission School in Bamenda before entering politics in 1954.

Cameroonian-born Professor Receives US Homeland Security Grant for Food Security Study

Culled from ASU News

Dr. William Nganje receives a quarter of a million dollars from the US Department of Homeland Security for his landmark study on food security.

Many of us remember or may have been affected by a recent nationwide salmonella outbreak originally thought to be caused by tainted tomatoes that was then later determined to be caused by jalapeño and serrano peppers from Mexico. By the time the cause was determined, it ended up costing both industries millions, and causing many unsuspecting consumers much discomfort.

“Such incidents illustrate the potential vulnerability in the security of imported food products,” said William Nganje, associate professor in the Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness, “and the need to develop a better tracking system.”

Government Bribes in Cameroon Divert Funds From Food

By Alison Fitzgerald and Christopher Swann (Bloomberg.com)

Cameroon has budgeted $309 million for the military in 2009 and $105 million for the president’s office and services to the presidency, compared with $106 million for agriculture, which employs 70 percent of its people.

Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Mbanda Leo Ganglii, like any farmer in Cameroon, must contend with roads that turn to mud in the rainy season and fertilizer prices he can’t afford. And then there is government corruption.

A local agriculture official demanded a $572 kickback from a $1,850 government contract to provide plantain seedlings for other farmers, Ganglii said. After refusing, he said he was warned that the deal might not be renewed.

Cameroonians in the Diaspora React to Biya's Decentralization Decree

I just received this document written by a group of Cameroonians in the Diaspora who wish to remain anonymous.

"It is hard to figure out what’s next for Cameroon. Decentralization is certainly not in the works. Certainly not until provincial (regional) governors become accountable to citizens and the ballot box replaces the presidential decree as the means for determining who governs and to whom governors are accountable!"

The following letter is a reaction, by a group of professional Cameroons of various political persuasions living in the Diaspora, to the presidential decree on ‘decentralization’ published recently. It is a dispassionate and apolitical assessment in which we also express our considered opinion of the decentralization measure. We are not members of an association or political organization, but Cameroonians brought together by the love of our country to examine the merits of a milestone marker that has long been promised to the entire nation. To make sure that this letter is judged on its merits rather than on the names of the personalities behind it, we therefore opt to remain anonymous and allow our fellow citizens to join this debate in the same spirit.

(Book Review) "Under The Broken Scale of Justice" by Justice Nyo' Wakai

Justice Nyo' Wakai. Under The Broken Scale of Justice: The Law and My Times. Langaa Publishers, 2008. 204 pp.

This book explores the latent and sometimes overt undercurrents that have shaped the judicial history of Cameroon since the United Nations Trusteeship period. It is an insightful account by a critical observer privileged to serve as Director of Public Prosecutions and a judge in a post-independence context characterized by dual and often conflictual legal systems inspired by French and English colonialism.

Justice Nyo'Wakai demonstrates how the conflict of judicial concepts, procedures and usages have led to the Francophone judicial system trying to impose itself on the Anglophone judicial system in Cameroon.

 

How Africa Can Harness and Benefit from its Diaspora Talent

During a recent question-and-answer session in Parliament, Cameroon’s Prime Minister, Ephraim Inoni, addressed the brain drain phenomenon in Cameroon.

According to Cameroon Tribune, the Prime Minister “acknowledged that the government was aware of the exodus of Cameroonian intellectuals, technicians and medical officials to work in foreign countries” and reveled that the government  of Cameroon “was working towards organising a Day for the Diaspora to enable Cameroonians abroad effectively contribute to the development of the country”.