"Building Capacity promotes the vision that the teaching of African languages can best achieve its aim of boosting the economic and cultural development of the Africans if they are made to work in synergy with a revamping of the course contents of international languages that will be taught within the frame of a development-oriented literacy curriculum. Great emphasis is put on the oral skills in the use of African languages as they are to serve as a link between the community and the school for the ultimate revitalization of the positive aspects of African cultures in a world beset by globalization. The book is supplemented with a sample of texts in the appendix that are meant to be a bridge between formal texts taught in classrooms and literacy texts that can raise the genuine interests of the local populations in that they address their immediate needs. Among the possible topics language teachers are encouraged to explore in their classes are those concerning economic development, but also such issues as health, education, the environment, food security, and conflict resolution. ""In the face of the growing interest in the use of African Languages by Africans as symbols of personal and cultural identity and as means of empowering the rural communities in the entreprise of national development,the need for a methodologically appropriate manual to guide the teaching and learning of African languages becomes urgent.This book is a timely response, predicated on a policy of the symbiotic use of African languages along with partner (foreign-official) languages, to attain a balanced level of economic and socio-cultural development.It is based on a compendium of well- thought-out principles geared towards a rapid acquisition of written and oral language skills that are congruent with and reflect the socio-cultural and economic concerns of the linguistic community."" Beban Sammy Chumbow, Professor of Linguistics, University of Yaounde I ""Among the numerous proposals in this book is the necessity for Africans, and I would add, for the communities of Asia and Latin America, to re-think the contents of their language courses and assign them an objective which aims at the integral development of their communities. It is indeed imperative that these courses reflect clear objectives of seeking social, cultural, and economic developments that harmonize with African, Asian, and Latin American values that are deep rooted in their respective various cultures."" Jean-Pierre Angenot Professor of Linguistics, Federal University of Rond?nia, Porto Velho, Brazil."

Bulozi under the Luyana Kings is a study of the Lozi Kingdom in Western Zambia in the pre-colonial period. The study traces the origins of the Luyana and the Lozi people; the founding of the Luyana Central Kingship and the invasion by the Makololo in the mid-nineteenth century; and ends with the study of the Lozi response to European intrusion at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Bulozi under the Luyana Kings was first published in 1973 by Longman, London. After wide consultations at home and abroad, the book is now republished in its original form.

Burnt Offering is Joan Metelerkamp's seventh colllection of poems. The title comes from a poem in a cycle that embodies the labours of the medieval alchemists - heating and burning, transformation of passionate intensity, the search for an enduring element. In the process malignant doubt is burnt off, and what takes its place is trust in the everyday: "take this day, here, take it all its clarity, all its gold" - Like all of Metelerkamp's work, these generous poems draw on and weave together, with her distinctive energy and passion, the details of family and rural life, dreams, landscapes and journeys.

The Cameroon Condition brings together three seminal essays by George Ngwane, one of the most renowned, committed and daring Anglophone Cameroon writers. ìThe Mungo Bridge,î is a stinging indictment of the tenuous relations between La Republique du Cameroun and the Southern Cameroons ñ a marriage gone sour right from the honeymoon. It raises hard questions on the failed union, and is uncompromisingly courageous in the solutions it proposes. This popular essay was first published at a time when it was risky to be open and critical, especially on what has come to be known as The Anglophone Problem. ìThe Anglophone Fileî discusses the narrow and barren politics of belonging that have exacerbated divisions and controversies among Anglophone elites, turning them into political fodder for the Francophone dominated state. The essay suggests ways out of the divisions and intrigue that have kept Anglophones permanently at daggers drawn against each other, and facilitated their exploitation, humiliation and marginalization. The third essay, ìFragments of Unity,î concerns the South West Region, whose leaders Ngwane criticizes of political opportunism and of a chronic lack of vision and fortitude with regard to the socio-economic development of the region. It calls for a leadership free of the docility, mediocrity and praisesingerliness. These are powerful essays that have attracted praise and criticism alike. They are essays to leave few indifferent. Their continued relevance to current debates makes of them a most read.

This book richly documents the battles fought by the Anglophone community in Cameroon to safeguard the General Certificate of Education (GCE), a symbol of their cherished colonial heritage from Britain, from attempts by agents of the Ministry of National Education to subvert it. These battles opposed a mobilised and determined Anglophone civil society against numerous machinations by successive Francophone-dominated governments to destroy their much prided educational system in the name of 'national integration'. When Southern Cameroonians re-united with La R?publique du Cameroun in 1961, they claimed that they were bringing into the union 'a fine education system' from which their Francophone compatriots could borrow. Instead, they found themselves battling for decades to save their way of life. Central to their concerns and survival as a community is an urgent need for cultural recognition and representation, of which an educational system free of corruption and trivialisation through politicisation is a key component.

This book brings and blends together a dozen scholarly articles published by the author since the 1970s. It sketches two different yet related stories: first, that of one of the most ancient and prestigious African civilizations, the antiquity and sophistication of which are becoming more and more prominent as field research unfolds their many facets. Second, the story of the researcher himself, who has had to alter and shift his approach to that civilization as he got to meet Grassfielders, colleagues, friends and scholars who changed his views about the Grassfields kingdoms and their people. This book bears witness to those many encounters. Historical and anthropological research is not only a question of relevant theories and methodologies. It is also a human endeavour made of networks and friendships.

The Cameroon Political Story is a long journey through the eyes and actions of the author himself. It is a mix between Mbileís memoirs, a bit of his biography and the Cameroon political story, heavily weighted in favour of that part of the Republic formerly identified as Southern Cameroons, later West Cameroon, now South West and North West Regions. The story is told in the interest of the Cameroonian youth and scholar who have often complained of the inadequate recording by political leaders of the life and deeds of their times. It is the story of an African boy of humble village beginnings who rose to participate in the making of a modern political community. It is hoped the book provides useful knowledge on the history, growth and constitutional evolution of Cameroon, a country which after more than a century of administrative metamorphosis settled to its present statehood in 1961, a Cameroon reborn.

This book deals with the important subject of governance and development. Even more significantly, the book has the merits of critically evaluating the concept of good governance in an African context, identifying the internal factors that impinge on good governance and development, and proposing solutions. It provides empirical evidence on the extent to which inappropriate governing strategies are the main internal obstacle to development in Cameroon. The authors discuss factors contributing to precarious and problematic governance from multidisciplinary perspectives, and demonstrate the extent to which such inadequacies impede positive social change. To promote effective development, the authors argue for the implementation of a good governance strategy that comprises, inter alia: adopting appropriate development strategies; decentralizing administration to make for popular participation and ensure accountability; taking the necessary steps to fight corruption; and ensuring the enforcement of property and cultural rights.

Initially considered something of a black sheep within the Anglophone Cameroon literary genres, the Anglophone novel has gradually grown to carve out a respectable niche for itself in the Anglophone Cameroon sub-system, imposing itself in a way that makes it impossible for critics to ignore it. Now a vibrant genre, it even threatens to overtake drama and poetry, both of which have enjoyed more critical attention. This book is a study of how Anglophone Cameroon has contributed in extending the possibilities of the novel as a literary form, and of some of the established conventions necessary for a fruitful evaluation of the growing body of the Cameroonian novel in English. In this eclectic and compelling book, Ambanasom sets out to achieve three primary objectives: to introduce the reader to the extensive body of Cameroonian novels in English, to re-examine the distorting and limiting criteria upon which the critical assessment of the Cameroonian novel in English has so far been based, and to bridge the widening chasm between literary theory and actual critical practice. To achieve these objectives, Ambanasom begins by elaborating an alternative and flexible theoretical framework which he christens the 'Socio-Artistic Approach' and which, according to him, is 'concerned with both a text's thematic, moral, cultural or ideological issues, on the one hand, and its central literary analysis, on the other.' He then proceeds to use this new critical framework to examine twenty-seven major Cameroonian novels in English. There are critical voices, already emerging within the Anglophone Cameroonian literary circles, calling for rigorous teaching and practice of theory in the interpretation of literary works, setting in motion a critical discourse. Such a call is salutary, and welcome. Those university lecturers whose responsibility it is to teach theoretical courses should take this call very seriously, moving from theory to hands-on practice. This book is Ambanasom's contribution to that critical debate.

At independence, Cameroon and Nigeria adhered to the OAU principle of UTI POSSEDETIS JURIS by inheriting the colonial administrative borders whose delineation in some parts was either imperfect or not demarcated or both. The two countries tried to correct these anomalies. But such efforts were later thwarted by incessant geostrategic reckoning, dilatory, and diversionary tactics in the seventies and eighties that persisted and resurfaced in the nineties with a more determined posture. On two occasions, the border conflict almost boiled over to a full-scale war. First, in May 1981 when there was the exchange of fire between Cameroonian and Nigerian coast guards and second, in February 1994 when Nigeria marched her troops into Cameroonís Bakassi Peninsula. Elsewhere in Africa, border incidents like these have often degenerated into war. But Cameroon and Nigeria together with the international community managed these protracted incidents from escalating into war. This book examines the part played by the disputing parties, Cameroon and Nigeria; the mediation, conciliatory and adjudicatory role of third parties; and the regional and international organisations, in the process of the resolution of the border dispute from 1981-2011. The study situates the nature and dynamics of the dispute historically, and comprehensively explores in detail its causes, settlement and resolution.