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Some Top Anglophones
(AllAfrica.com English Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct 03, 2006 (The Post/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --Cardinal WiyghanTumi:The Nation's Morale Conscience
Christian Wiyghan Tumi is Cameroon's first and lone Cardinal. As Archbishop of Cameroon's effervescent and politically restive metropolis, Douala, he is known for his outspoken outbursts. On several occasions he has been eyeball to eyeball over political issues. His scathing comments are usually received with distaste by the regime. In a speech delivered in Milan, Italy, in September 2004 the Cardinal said Cameroon was ruled by "the law of the strongest" and that elections were continually marred by ballot rigging.
In his acerbic criticisms Cardinal Tumi maintains that it is the duty of the church "to denounce the dishonesty of some government officials" since "the church has a duty to educate people about honesty."
Come this October 15, the Cardinal will turn 76. Ordained a priest on April 17, 1966, he worked briefly as a parish priest before pursuing postgraduate studies at the University of Lyon, France, and the Catholic University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
After bagging a doctorate in philosophy, he returned home and served as the rector of the Bambui seminary from 1973 to 1979. Then began his meteoric rise: he was appointed Bishop of Yagoua in 1979.
Three years later, he became Coadjutor Archbishop of Garoua, the Muslim-dominated northern part of Cameroon and, then, Archbishop in 1984.
Writing about the succession to Pope John Paul II, the Catholic News Service, referring to Tumi as a papabile (potential Pope), stated: "If cardinals look to the continent where Catholicism is growing the fastest for the next pope, they might zero in on Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi of Douala, Cameroon.
When he was named Cameroon's first cardinal in 1988, some observers expressed surprise that Pope John Paul II had passed over the archbishops of Cameroon's capital city, Yaounde, and its largest city, Douala. But others said Cardinal Tumi, the youngest of the three Archbishops, was chosen because of his age and vigour.
Three years later, Cardinal Tumi was named archbishop of Douala. At 76, the Cardinal is on his way to retirement. Still robust - intellectually and physically - it would seem that Cardinal Tumi still hasn't said his last word yet.
Besong, Bate: The Writer As Anglophone Tiger
Dr. Bate Besong, or BB, as he is fondly and popularly known, is a literary firebrand. Iconoclastic in speech and style, Bate Besong has published numerous collections of poetry and plays, notably, Polyphemus Detainee and Other Skills (1980),
The Banquet (1994), The Grain of Bobe Ngom Jua (1985), Just Above Cameroon (1998), The Most Cruel Death of the Talkative Zombie (1987), Beasts of No Nation (1990), Obasinjom Warrior with Poems after Detention, (1991) Requiem for the Last Kaiser, (1991).
Concerned predominantly with the plight of Anglophones in postcolonial Cameroon, Besong's (fire) works focus on specific social problems such as injustice, corruption, social, political, and economic instability.
According to the Encyclopedia of African Literature, BB also dissects "the sharp inequalities plaguing the Cameroon nation resulting in human suffering. His works appear to be a platform geared towards the denunciation of oppression inflicted by one group on another and the resulting tensions, including violence and lack of social, economic, and political stability."
Bate Besong teaches Drama at the University of Buea and is a vitriolic social critic.
Victor Anomah Ngu:The Man of Medicine
Long before the advent of the ravaging HIV/AIDS pandemic, Anomah Ngu was already a household name in Cameroon and beyond. In fact, the Professor had received international acclaim with his research into cancer. His groundbreaking work won him the Lasker Prize for Cancer Research.
Recently, Prof. Anomah Ngu announced he had discovered a vaccine he named VANHIVAX, an antidote for the dreaded HIV/AIDS pandemic. Anomah Ngu's VANHIVAX has sparked controversies.
He also served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Yaounde, preserving his Chair as Professor of Surgery.Even when the eminent Professor became the Minister of Health, he insisted that he would continue to consult patients before performing his ministerial tasks.
Dr. Dorothy Limunga Njeuma:The Iron Lady of Anglophone Education
Under Ahidjo, Dr. Dorothy Limunga Njeuma served as a Vice Minister of National Education.Born in Buea on 26 June 1943 she did her secondary education at Queen's School, Enugu, Nigeria.
In August 1962, she competed for and won a scholarship under the African Scholarship Programme for American Universities (ASPAU); she was the only girl among 15 Cameroonians who won the scholarship that year.
This took her to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she read Biology. Thereafter, she studied Zoology at the University College, London, obtaining a Ph. D. in 1970.On her return to Cameroon, she taught at the Faculty of Science, University of Yaounde.
In June 1975, she was appointed Vice-Minister for National Education. At that time, the Ministry was responsible for educational matters from nursery to university level.
It was during her decade-long stay in this Ministry that the General Certificate of Education (GCE) examinations were introduced.
Before 1976 English-speaking students wrote these exams under the University of London Board.After leaving government, Dr. Njeuma spent a brief spell as Adviser to the Minister of Higher Education from 1986 to 1988.
In 1988, she was appointed Director-General of the Buea University Centre, which specialized in the training of translators and interpreters. When that institution was transformed into a full-fledged English-speaking University in 1993, she became its pioneer Vice-Chancellor.
At a time when the country was going through a period of serious financial difficulties, Dr Njeuma succeeded through stringent management to develop the University of Buea into an institution that has become the pride of the nation.
She is also a member of the African Peer Review Panel. In her spare time she plays tennis, a game in which she has won several trophies.
Francis Nyamnjoh:The Genuine Intellectual
Dr. Francis Nyamnjoh born in 1961 in Bum Northwest Province is a prolific and versatile writer, social and political commentator. After serving as a Professor at University of Buea and the University of Botswana, Nyamnjoh is currently Head of Publications and Dissemination at CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal.
He has written extensively on issues as diverse as democratization, ethnicity and regionalism in Africa, globalization, and the role and place of the media in Africa.
His most recent books include Negotiating an Anglophone Identity, Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa, Africa's Media, Democracy and the Politics of Belonging.
He has also published two novels, Mind Searching and The Disillusioned African and a play, The Convert (2003). The Cameroon GCE Crisis: A Test of Anglophone Solidarity, Regional Balance and National Integration in Cameroon: Lessons Learned and the Uncertain Future (edited in collaboration with Prof. Paul Nchoji Nkwi)
Humphrey Ekema Monono:Custodian Of Anglophone Secondary Education Standards
Monono started work with the Department of Examinations in Yaounde when Dr. (Mrs) Dorothy Limunga Njeuma was the Vice Minister of National Education.
Thereafter, he had a meteoric rise: after a brief stint as a Discipline Master and Vice Principal in the Government Bilingual High School in Molyko, he was appointed Principal of the Government High School Kumba before returning to Molyko in the same capacity.
When he was later transferred to Yaounde, Monono held the highly influential post of Director of Secondary Education before moving on, last year, as an Inspector General in charge of General Education.
His duties included controlling the overall administration of schools nationwide.
He comes to the GCE Board with a wealth of experience in educational management. All eyes are watching Monono to see how he handles the legacy handed down to him by his predecessors - Azong Wara and Omer Weyi Yembe.
Ntumfor Barrister Nico Halle:Messenger of Peace
Ntumfor Barrister Nico Halle is the messenger of the Fons of the Northwest Province. In this position, he has brokered many a peace deal between warring societies.
As a member of the National Election Observatory, NEO, he supervised elections in the volatile Northwest Province without registering any acts of violence. He insisted, for instance, that ballot boxes be removed from Fon's palaces.
Ntumfor Nico halle is Chairman of the All African Conference of Church's transitional team.Ntumfor recently earned another feather to his cap for reconciling the President of Northwest Fons' Union, Fon Chafah and Fon Fosi Yakumtaw.
Akere T. Muna:Anti-corruption Crusader
Akere T. Muna is founder and President of Transparency International Cameroon. A lawyer by training, he is Founder and former Chair of Transparency International of the Accreditation Committee of the Pan African Lawyers Union and former president of the Cameroon Bar Association.
Muna is a member of several national commissions on legal reforms and curbing corruption. He was a member of the National Ad-hoc Commission for the Fight against Corruption and has served as a Commonwealth Observer for Zanzibar's elections in 2000.
He was actively involved in the TI working group that helped to draft the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and has written a guide to the convention published by TI. He was elected to the TI Board at the 2004 Annual Meeting.
For about seven years, Transparency International's Veepee, Akere Muna, has waged a rugged against corruption in Cameroon. Somehow, his work for these years has prompted the recent arrests of senior government officials in the fight against corruption in the country, characterised by the arrests of former FEICOM boss and other top brass.
Akere Muna believes that the victims of corruption - the Cameroonian masses - should be compensated by the government who should ensure that looted wealth that is stashed in foreign financial havens should be repatriated to the country and invested in projects geared at catering for the general well-being.
Ni John Fru Ndi:Most Popular Anglophone Politician
The charismatic leader of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, continues to command attention and pull crowds 16 years after his daredevil launching of the party. In 2004, during the presidential campaigns, he showed that his popularity had anything but ebbed.
He was still lionised and idolised as was the case in 1992 when it was widely believed that he had won the presidential polls but that his "victory had been stolen." Pundits point out that one reason for his failure to win the bid was because he is Anglophone. Being an Anglophone seems to be a curse then.
Colin Ebako Mukete:An Innovative Audio-Visual Guru
The Kumba born of Chief Mukete, Paramount chief of the Bafaw is a guru in his own right. He stands out tall among the few innovators on Cameroon's audio-visual media and new Information Technology.
As Chief Executive Officer of the Spectrum Television, STV, the first TV station worth the salt, Spectrum Advertising and Marketing Agency; Spectrum Digital Satellite Television, DSTV, a media Distributing outfit with a sharp sense of high definition images and sound; Spectrum-SPAN. Ebako Mukete also doubles as Board Chairman of MTN Cameroon, a mobile telephone network that is really going places.
Prof. Cornelius Mbifung Lambi:Heads Anglophone Highest Institution Of Learning
The Vice-Chancellor, VC, of the lone Anglo-Saxon University in Cameroon is a fellow of both the Royal Geographic Society and the Geological Society of London.
He has published widely and has been author and co-author to several books and proceedings.
Lambi was Dean of the Faculty of Social & Management Sciences from 1997 to September 2005 before his appointment as VC of the University of Buea.He obtained a PhD in Geography from University of Salford, Lancashire in England in 1990.
On return to Cameroon, he served in the University of Yaounde before his transfer to UB, in 1993 where he served as Protem Head, Department of Geography.2000, he was promoted Associate Professor of Geography. 2003, he was promoted to the rank of Professor at the University of Buea.
Ephraim Inoni:Deciding Anglophone Political Fate
After 5 years in the Presidency of the Republic as Deputy Secretary General, Inoni once more shot to the limelight on December 8, 2004 when he was appointed by a Presidential Decree Prime Minister of Cameroon. Ephraim Inoni.
He did his primary education in Bota (Victoria) today, Limbe between 1954-1960 and secondary education from 1963 to 1967, obtaining the General Certificate of Education Ordinary and Advanced Level after successful completion of Teacher's training.
He eventually studied Administration in the National School of Administration and Magistracy, and later obtained a Masters Degree in Business and Public Administration from the South Eastern University in Washington in 1984.
He has held several positions of responsibility within the Civil Service including, the Director of Salaries and Secretary of State nA 1 at the Ministry of Finance.
Gorji Dinka:The Daredevil
When Fon Gorji Dinka took on La Republique du Cameroun in 1984, his focus was to save the Southern Cameroons from a dictatorship, not for a quest for power. No one dared do that then. Later, Fon Gorji Dinka and Professor Benard Fonlon coined a strategy of identity and both settled on Ambazonia.
Prof. Benard Fonlon was to be declared President of Ambazonia during the 1984 CNU Bamenda Congress. Prof. Fonlon backed down at last minute in support of Fon Gorji Dinka.
Gorji Dinka took the struggle forward alone for the people until the 1990s and 2000s that some other Southern Cameroonians or Ambazonians followed or joined in.
Gorji Dinka lives in exile but continues to drive the Ambazonia dream.
Prof. Ndiva Kofele Kale:The Legal Scholar Par Excellence
The Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science is also an international lawyer, visiting lecturer at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, Dallas, Texas, USA.
A fine academic, Kale has to his credit the following publications; Comparative Political Culture and Socialism, 1976, An African Experiment in Nation-Building: The Bilingual Cameroon Republic Since Reunification (Ed) 1980, Tribesmen and Patriots: Political Culture in a Polyethnic African State, 1981, The International Law of Responsibility for Economic Crimes 1995 & 2006 (Revised Edition), Legislative Power in Cameroon's Second Republic: Its Nature and Limits, 1998.
Kale holds two doctorate degrees; one in Comparative Politics/Political Economy, which he obtained in 1974 from North-Western University. A decade later, 1984, he bagged from same varsity (but this time from the school of law) a Doctor of Jurisprudence.
As a practising lawyer, Barrister Kale runs Motande Chambers in the Mokunda neigbourhood in Buea.
Henry Njalla Quan:(Rassembleur D'Hommes)
Henry Njalla Quan, 57, is the General Manager of CDC, one of the largest single corporations in the country and the second employer after the government. He obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sierra Leone and a Masters from the University of Paris.
Njalla Quan had been Director of Maintenance and Equipment at the Cameroon National Ports Authority, where he worked for some twenty years. He was the pioneer appointed Government Delegate to the Limbe Urban Council from 1997 to 98, before joining the CDC.
Being a prominent promoter of football, he was one time president of Victoria United Football Club fondly called OPOPO. He is presently the president and proprietor of the Njalla Quan Sports Academy, NQSA, and a second division side, ACADA Sports. Among his credits, he had been nominated sportsman of the year, 2004. He is also a member of several international professional organisations.
Copyright 2006 The Post. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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