The Buea University strike last week presented a great cast of characters - students, a sprinkling of university administrators, a handful of anti-riot police and red-bereted gendarmes, the Southwest Governor, the SDO, the Southwest Provincial Delegate of National Security, on-lookers who were eager to see some swift action and a clandestine gang of stragglers who would later join in the fray and add speed and heat to the strike.

Until about 11.00 am on Wednesday, April 27, the lid of the pressure cooker of the crime, terror and the black madness that would overtake Molyko was still screwed on. Then a couple of anxious cops grabbed some students, whipped them.

A terrible darkness fell upon Molyko the moment the agents of law and order advanced upon students. Fleeing and hiding, the two parties, cheered on by the locals, played hide and seek till the late hours of the afternoon.

The following day, students throwing stones at armed anti-riot troops imported from Douala filled the day with action. Stone barriers blocked the main roads, while a battered water canon lorry patrolled, scattering the students.

The University grounds were declared out of bounds. A few students who felt book-bound received truncheon blows from angry policemen. Before darkness fell upon the neighbourhood of Molyko, reports had reached The Post news desk that two students had fallen to police bullets.

They were dead as stone. But earlier in the afternoon, the police had removed their humane masks and replaced them with warriors' masks.

Embers of Disaffection

They had been glowing in the hearth - Faculty association fees of some FCFA 2000 per student head, yet the provision for this doesn't seem to be in the text governing UB, lack of proper food and toilets for the over 8.000 students.

The students complained that, "UB is the most expensive state-owned university in Cameroon." They said they wanted the FCFA 50,000 registration fees scrapped. They said also that too much bureaucracy hindered the smooth running of students' affairs, and a host of other complaints.

In fact, it will be recalled that in the absence of the Vice Chancellor, VC, Dr. Dorothy Njeuma, nobody else could make any reasonable decision. However, speculations that the SDF party and the SCNC might have had their hands in the strike collapsed as Fru Ndi, SDF Chairman, was deep in an emotional disaster mourning his late wife, and couldn't have had the time nor the will to indulge in such an event.

Meanwhile, the SCNC is crawling low for the moment.The void that exists between the University administration and the student body appeared to have contributed quite a lot in the breakdown of dialogue before and during the strike.

Some of the students also added spice to the strike by teaming up with a few Molyko-based consumers of marijuana.

Some Like It Hot

The police had a field day or two. It seems they were eager to beat and loot, for fierce-looking combat ready troops suddenly switched from chasing students to searching houses and mini-cites. Doors went flying under the impact of heavy boots.

Anybody who was in sight regardless of whether they were students or not, was flogged to the fullest, their watches, cellulars, money and almost their sex, were wrenched from them. Toilet seats, windowpanes, cutlery and utensils, books and stationery, and beddings and clothing would later be found floating in water or lying in heaps of rubble.

Then the students were ferreted out of their rooms, beaten and trucked to police cells. Of course, the police didn't quite get away untouched. Some of them ran into fierce students that clobbered them for the price of their uniforms.

Ill-clad, hungry, thirsty, smokeless, tired of running up and down instead of collecting FCFA 500 on the roadsides, the police looked disgusted enough to beat and loot.

Down With The Elite

People have said things about the University of Buea; its staff, its students, parents and just about any ordinary man on the street. Only the University authorities never seem to take notice. The students' complaints about too much power in the hands of a single person seemed to incense them more than anything else.

They shouted quite a lot about one Dr. Victor Julius Ngoh's accumulation of offices. By all appearances, Ngoh is harmless, but he occupies three high class and extremely demanding positions at the University of Buea - he is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Head of History Department, University of Buea, and he is also the star-studded Associate Professor of History in the same Department - formidable tasks indeed.

Added to these, he is also the chair of Intensive English at UB, designed specially for Francophone students who gain admission into the University of Buea and he, too, represents the VC on the GCE Board, Board.

Now this seems to be a rather tight cobweb the intellectual has woven about himself and, by simple arithmetic, the sum total is that whenever Ngoh interacts with some of the 'people' that hold the above posts, he is practically interacting with himself.

That is to say, whenever he communicates, verbally or in writing, with, say, the Head of Department of History, or the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Arts, or the Associate Professor of History at UB, he is communicating with himself.

That means he can mar and make as he wishes. This apparent arbitrary and rather oppressive character of the UB administrator's roles most likely increased the prospect of sparking off last week's violence.

To both ordinary Cameroonians and the University's intelligentsia, it symbolises the rapaciousness of the University administration of denying other qualified and experienced Cameroonians such posts as Ngoh might have.

UB is terrifically organised. While some placards said one thing about Njeuma and election of university administrative officials, many others screamed, "Ngoh Must Go! Ngoh Must Go!"

Although the students did not accuse Ngoh of committing any crimes, financial or otherwise, there was something odoriferous about his case. There seems to be a thriving cult of greed and power at the University of Buea in which some people are overtaken by accelerated individualism in their drive to join the mainstream of power.

Ngoh's 'chieftaincy' at the University of Buea seems to be muddled by an imbroglio with 'skirts.' Unsubstantiated rumours have been rife about illicit sex - Sexually Transmitted Marks, STMs, at the Faculty of Arts. But none of these seem ever to have been investigated by the University authority.

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