University Crisis and Student Protests in Africa: The 2005 -2006 University Students� Strike in Cameroon

Chapter 3 - The University of Yaoundé as Ground Zero for the 2005 Student Protests in Cameroon

49 Chapter 3 The University of Yaoundé as Ground Zero for the 2005 Student Protests in Cameroon Introduction Against the backdrop of rising shadow costs in the public university system in Cameroon, suspicion of impending fee hikes, and worsening living conditions on and off campus, the students of the University of Yaoundé I organised under the Cameroon Students’ Rights Association (ADDEC) went on strike in April 2005. Given its historical position as the mother university in Cameroon and given its overarching demands for the betterment of students’ conditions in Cameroonian higher education, this strike action, from the onset was bound to have national ramifications. Aware of the visibility which their position in the capital city endowed on their activities, ADDEC leaders opted for peaceful demonstrations as evidenced in their hunger strike on campus. Meanwhile, they were buoyed by fellow students who took to the streets with placards demanding that their problems be attended to. The press reports in both French and English within this chapter provide a linear presentation of the evolution of the crisis at the University of Yaoundé I, as well as attempts by the university and government authorities to nip the strike in the bud. Curiously though, law enforcement came at the fore of the process of contestation with the immediate presence of police and gendarmes on the university campus. Meanwhile attempts at understanding and addressing the issues raised by the students came in second place. Playing important roles in the dialogue with the students were – the Rector of the University of Yaounde I, Professor Sammy Beban Chumbow; the Minister of Higher Education, Jacques Fame Ndongo; and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Cameroon, Ephraim Inoni. Through newspaper reports, vivid insights also emerge on how the strike action snowballed to enrapture some professional higher education institutions in Yaoundé. However, the reports also evidence a lack of vision on the part of the university authorities who failed to appraise the full extent 50 of the demands made by ADDEC, as they sought to deal with the problem in Yaoundé without accounting for the potential volatility within the other six state universities. Friday 22nd April 2005: University of Yaoundé I Pulls the trigger Yaoundé Varsity Students Take to the Streets By Clovis Atah & Kini Nsom Hundreds of students of the University of Yaoundé I, Wednesday, April 20, took to the streets in the Ngoa Ekelle neighbourhood obstructing traffic for several hours. Students first marched around campus at about midday before taking to the streets. Striking University of Yaoundé I Students They carried placards with messages of their grievances related both to conditions at the University of Yaoundé I and the general higher education system in Cameroon. Students who spoke to The Post said they don’t have toilets and drinking water on campus. They said the university is charging all kinds of illegal fees, to add to the statutory registration fees of FCFA 50,000 that they want scrapped. They cited, for example, the FCFA 25 they are required to pay before getting access to the library, the FCFA 2000 they pay before attending tutorials and the money they must pay before having a transcript of their results. The striking students said the financial burden on them had become unbearable. 51 Some students also said they had reliable information that the government was planning to raise the registration fees from FCFA 50,000 to FCFA 75,000. This, they said, was unacceptable. They argued that the government’s excuse for suppressing bursaries and introducing fees was because of the empty coffers of the state at the time. Now that the government has been claiming a growth rate averaging about 5 per cent for close to a decade, it means its coffers are full. It would, therefore, be logical for the government to scrap the FCFA 50,000 registration fees, the students argued. At press time on Wednesday afternoon, police officers were trying to negotiate with students who had mounted a human barricade on the highway around Cité U. Students appeared very disciplined and orderly in their strike action, but the presence of police and gendarme officers caused some anxiety. In some cases, there were hot verbal exchanges between students and the forces of law and order. Meanwhile, students chanted Anne Marie Nzie’s popular music track, “Liberté” even as a police commissioner tried to persuade them to allow traffic to flow. “Enough is enough,” the students retorted...