Prof. Anomah Ngu: If I Were a Younger Man, I Won't be in Cameroon Today

Culled from an Interview from L'Effort Camerounais

I thank God from the bottom of my heart that he has allowed me to spend these 80 years working on sick people. I have been a doctor for over 53 years and during this time I have done many things, including surgery, cancer work in Nigeria and Cameroon. Some have been failures, some have been successes. I thank God for those successes and hope that I will still be able to get more patients treated of cancer, especially.

This government is taxing people so heavily. That doesn't help people to grow. Instead, it makes them want to close up and go away.

Life is very difficult now. You are taxed from left to right. You are taxed twice as much for the land, fuel, and taxed for looking after sick people.

One gets the impression that many of these government officials are rogues who only want to steal everything at once and kill the business. It's just as if they want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. It is for this reason that most trained Cameroonian medics are today abroad. If I were a younger man, I won't be in Cameroon today.

... the government should stop being corrupt. The proceeds from corrupt money from this country are enough to pay our debts three to five times over. If they brought all that money, they will not need to tax us as they are doing now.

Secondly, they should be more efficient in the way they do things. Some members of government are most inefficient. They are crooks. This country is a very rich one. If it wasn't rich, there would have been a civil war. People have enough to eat. When they eat, they go to sleep.

Look at how they take state money and store in European banks. When they die, all this money is lost because nobody can bring it back; not even their wives. It is very bad. If I had the authority, I would put all those crooks on the wall and shoot them down as an example for the country.

...I think we get a government that we deserve. Cameroonians are very docile and nothing upsets them. They will answer you: "on va faire comment?", meaning “what can one do?”, implying that they are willing to lick the people’s boots to get by. We don't behave like people who can stand up and face situations. We prefer not to.   

Prof. Ngu at a Glance
Born: 1926, Buea, Republic of Cameroon

Education: Secondary schooling in Sasse, Cameroon, and Ibadan, Nigeria; University of Ibadan (1948 – 1950); St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, University of London (1951–1954).

Career: Professor of Surgery, University of Ibadan (1965-1971); Professor of Surgery, Université de Yaoundé (1971-1974); Vice Chancellor, Université de Yaoundé (1974-1982); President of the Association of African Universities (1981-1982); Minister of Public Health, Government of Cameroon (1984-1988); Director of the Cancer Research Laboratory, Université de Yaoundé (1984); Founder - Hope Clinic Cameroon (1991).

Awards: Grand Commandant de l’Ordre de la Valeur, Cameroun; Albert Lasker Medical Research Award in Clinical Cancer Chemotherapy (1972); Dr. Samuel Lawrence Adesuyi Award and Medal by the West African Health Community (1989); Leon H. Sullivan Achievement Award, U.S.A. (2003).

Source: WIPO Magazine, No. 4; July - August 2005, p. 11.

Click here for a complete profile of Professor Anomah Ngu

Comments

[Israel]

Here comes a Don. Thank you Proff for all your endeavours in saving the face of humanity.
It is rather saddening to see all these effort stiffled by this uncouth system of administration of ours.
The government has and will never learn from her mistakes. Tell me really why most of the men and women of value will want to remain in this rotten situation.
As echoed in your interview, '...it is too late....' I differ with you for we all should not dispair. Lets move on and we'll come to realise that one fine morning, I mean one fine morning, the tables will turn. From then we shall come to a point where reseach is encouraged than killed; where taxes will fervour growth than stiffle it; where the riches of the people will be for the people and not for a clique; where merit will be our watchward not 'connaissance'as enshrined at all levels of the administration.
Proff, may God guide youand your projects and give you more days.

[SJ]

In 1926 Buea is listed as being in, or of "Republic of Cameroon"! Wonders shall never end.

[Linda]

I have always thought the Professor was from Cameroon, and the interviews and profile seem =to indicate as much. Also, isn't Buea in the English part of Cameroon?

Or is there a Cameroonian joke tucked in SJ's comments that I completely missed? If so, please forgive me:-)

[Boni]

I think SJ is referring to the fact that VA Ngu was actually born in Buea, Southern Cameroons in 1926. Republic of Cameroon did not exist. His baptismal card will show that. Historical amnesia is a sore point with many Southern Cameroonians who hold that their identity is being deliberately erased.

Writers can be politically correct by using the generic "Cameroon" without qualifiers. In my experience that is the best way to avoid acrimony. In this very blog is an article that discusses the controversy of "Republique du Cameroun" a name change that was ill advised. If a married woman reverts to her maiden name, it is either a divorce or a very strong statement of change of attitude.

Was Biya trying to annex Southern Cameroons or did he make a grave constitutional mistake? That is still a subject of debate, and what better place to further that debate than on this page?

Linda, if the subject of "English part of Cameroon" intrigues you, there is some interesting legal and historical material at www.southerncameroonsig.org.

[Adolph Ekwe]

Lighten up people!!!. It is clearly stated in the posting that the profile of Prof. Anomah Ngu was culled from WIPO magazine, a non-political/technical magazine published in the Switzerland. By using the term "Republic of Cameroon", the magazine is doing the right thing by trying to situate the Professor's birth place to its international readership. In that context, the magazine is on target; WIPO has no business trying to rectify or address issues "historical amnesia" in Southern Cameroons" which don't even fall within its area of focus.

Finally, I don't think it would have been appropriate for Dibussi to doctor the profile excerpt just to satisfy either his idelogical leaning or that of [some of] his readers.

[Lifambe]

I read the scribbles now and again and find most of its content interesting. I have always tried to hold back my comments but now and again, an article comes up that one say, I must be heard.
Prof. Ngu with all his profile should try and encourage medics to stay and help find ways of improving the health care system and livelihood of doctors. If a man like Prof makes such statments, it does nothing but harm the majoirity. He has lived a very happy and fulfilling life. Maybe he should have had his thinking cap on whilst minister of health.

[Mbako]

I think the last comment is unfair. Prof has not commended departure from the home land. He has justifiably pointed to some of those difficulties that encourage people to leave home for other destinations. The prof himself came back to Cameroon at the height of his carreer and therefore may not have had to apply for a job. That is no reason to refuse to see the difficulties of the present generation of Cameroonian experts. Prof clearly laments the fact that wealth that would have served to make employment available for qualified Cameroonians is being misapropriated and taken to foreign countries by our currupt officials and that nothing is done to stop this. You should have rather joined the chorus with the prof to condemn such behaviour. Maybe you forget that while Prof was Minister of Health he punished several Doctors for corrupt behaviour, which was very rarely heard of.

[ngum]

Lifambe
Let an old man speak his truth. We benefit when they do. Fact is that doctors are human beings. They do not live on good intentions alone. So long as doctrs who spend so many years training make less than a police man with secondary school level education, you need to check that society. It is a major insult, Mr Lifambe. You want your doctor to be monk? At least church takes care of monks needs. Who takes care of doctors? Far as I am concerned, doctors should stay out of the place until things change.

[ngum]

Prof Ngu says:
"This government is taxing people so heavily. That doesn't help people to grow. Instead, it makes them want to close up and go away."

Professor, tell your friends in government to study economics 101, but what use is it when the monetary policy is controlled from France for the benefit of France. It is impossible to guide an economy when those levers are in the hands of contrary interests.

"...I think we get a government that we deserve. Cameroonians are very docile and nothing upsets them. They will answer you: "on va faire comment?", meaning “what can one do?”, implying that they are willing to lick the people’s boots to get by. We don't behave like people who can stand up and face situations. We prefer not to."

--Professor, you are becoming a radical in your old age. I think what you are saying here does not describe the people who are in the Southern Cameroons struggle. The anglophones have many courageous people and if they do not give up, they will cause significant changes.

[Ndobele Albert]

Professor VA NGU's profile can be seen at the URL
http://www.vangulabs.com/profile.asp .
His website address is: http://www.vangulabs.com
In my humble opinion, Prof. NGU is a great man. Let's face it. To what extent has he benefited from Biya's support? The HIV/AIDS is claiming lives, and the old Prof. seems to be fighting the plague with little or no support from Cameroon, its diaspora and the world at large. Shame to humanity. Let's get less passionate when we attempt any assessment of the Prof. Ngu's activity in government. He served for a short time. He was an exemplary servant. While Minister, he did not stay awy from the operation theatres. Rumours say he asked to be relieved of his ministerial cap because he never felt comfortable wearing it. How many Cameronians would behave this way? As a retired Medic, he set up a clinic employing some five medical doctors and many nurses and lab technicians trained in Nigeria and Europe. Very few of us who use the Web to paint people dark cannot do what this old man is doing now. Let's give him a break. Why not praise him and encourage him in his battle against AIDS!