Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development

4. Governance in the University System and Students’ Crises in Cameroon

Chapter Four Governance in the University System and Students’ Crises in Cameroon James Arrey Abangma Introduction The Students’ crises that wrecked the University of Buea in 2006 and 2007 academic years caught the authorities of the university and those of the Higher Education Ministry off guards and for the first time these authorities were found groping for solutions. The consequences were great as there were major shake-ups in terms of replacement and appointment of top university officials; the destruction of property, the loss of lives, and threats to the existence of the university community, its neighbourhood, and the country as a nation. The university administration and the government were found wanting in an attempt to provide an immediate diagnosis, appropriate causes, and solutions. Consequently, targets were struck (whether rightly or wrongly), and some citizens of this community either bore the brunt or reaped from the misfortunes of others. The behaviour of the irate and zealous police and punitive officials, all express feelings of animosity and jealousy towards the university as sanctuary for certain privileged activities. The present situation calls for a change in relations and management style involving the introduction of good governance policies to ensure that the university community and the society are accommodating to students, if we hope to meet the expectations of the clientele. The Management of Students’ Rebellion in the Age of Governance We are undergoing a cultural revolution whereby the old moralising admonitions give way to therapeutic doctrines “amounting to permission for each man to live an experimental life.” This phenomenon is part of the widespread ferment as people seek to exist in the modern world with the accelerating potential 76 Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development for comfort and for devastation. Within this framework of raped cultural changes the family and society are called upon to provide a pleasing yet individualising climate for its members. Parents are wooed to be less arbitrary, while children are helped to have more self-confidence as both participate in the search for a new equilibrium in their relationship to each other and to the demands of the new society. Some of the significant problems associated with this change can be inferred from a causal observation of the current scene. What seems to stand out is the need for changes in methods of conflict resolution through a more careful examination of the situation. Some of the problems of emancipation striving in society are discussed in terms of the loosening of infantile object ties, of orienting the self towards one’s future potential, of undergoing identity formulation, of internalising standards of morality, and of acquiring ultimately a capacity for social and sexual role assumption. An observation of the give and take process in family life and the society in general suggests this Going through a record of activities of students, one would realise that the crises are neither of social revolutions, nor academic, or calculated nihilism. The students have various objectives, but ultimately their commitment is to each other and to the necessary solidarity for their common effort to end the oppression imposed by academic institutions and the society in general (Johnson, Jane, 1972: 19). Some of them may be anarchists who have turned their attention to tactics of creating the greatest disturbance with the fewest men rather than having a programme or objectives. Certainly the great majority of youths are not rebels in the actual sense of the word, although they may not be exactly happy with their world. Yet in between the more or less contented majority and the very few genuinely devoted to chaos stands a considerable congregation of disaffected youths who, in a sense, do have a programme. Neither they nor their elders have described it a programme, since it is neither political, nor economic, or an academic plan of action. It is not something that can be plotted or campaigned for. It is a new order, but not one that can be achieved by legislation or coup. It is a web of social customs, attitudes, habits, preferences, convictions, a culture that has spread with revolutionary speed from community 77 Abangma: Governance in the University System and Students’ Crises in Cameroon to community until the most conservative communities shelter at least a piece of it. The mores and values of this culture are remarkably consistent across the borders. Confrontation, a willingness to be violent if pushed, is a part of...