I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon

Tribute To Professor Gabriel Obenson

9 Tribute To Professor Gabriel Obenson T uesday, December 1st 1992. The man died. Suddenly, unexpectedly. He died in a “motor accident” fifty kilometres to Yaounde on the Douala-Yaounde highway. A few hours before, he had telephoned someone at INTELCAM, Yaounde, to announce his imminent arrival. He never arrived. A few days before, precisely on 19th November, he had delivered a powerful lecture on the theme: “The Foundations of a Modern Cameroon Nation” at the American Cultural Centre, Yaounde. The son of Gobata was among the audience that listened to him and other speakers that day. I even managed to secure a typed copy of his lecture at the end of the occasion. The occasion was organized by the Bernard Fonlon Society (B.F.S.) under what it termed “The 5th Bernard Fonlon Annual Lecture.” The occasion was so popular that even CENER agents attended. Four days after Obenson, on Saturday 5th December, the Vice President of the Bernard Fonlon Society also died. Suddenly, unexpectedly. Of a “heart attack.” It is only then that we started asking if Obenson’s accident was really accidental. But he had already been collected and buried without any suspicion. So the answer to our belated question will continue blowing in the wind. At his 19th November Fonlon Lecture, I was meeting Professor Gabriel Obenson personally for the second time. The very first time was only two weeks earlier although I had been hearing about him for nearly two decades and had 10 Godfrey B. Tangwa (Rotcod Gobata) in fact devoted an entire edition of NO TRIFLING MATTER to him in 1991. In Anglophone circles, he is well known, respected and talked about as an aerial surveyor and expert geophysicist. For over 15 years, he was Professor of Soil Science in one of Africa’s most prestigious Universities, the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He had considerable experience in University administration. That is why, after my first face-to-face meeting with him, scarcely a month before his death, I had made a mental note that, if the University of Buea ever came to be, he would be my own choice for the post of Executive Head and Vice Chancellor. By the way, West Cameroonians must decide for themselves the “to be or not to be” of the Buea University and proceed to create and develop it from their own resources. I am tired of repeating in this column that the Biya regime has no intention of creating a University at Buea or anywhere else, for that matter. Back to Professor Obenson. When I met him for the first time, it was in the company of some University lecturers. I didn’t have the chance to let him know that I was the Gobata who had written about him in the CAMEROON POST of November 20-27, 1991. But I did ask if he was the writer of some poems I had usually read on the literary page of CAMPOST. In his highly humorous manner which I had remarked from his writing in my 1991 piece, he answered that the author of the poems was a brother of his but that he himself was seriously considering writing some poetry so that he could earn the title “writer.” We all laughed and he explained that even though he had written several scientific books, no one has ever called him a writer whereas anyone with a single literary work can be called a writer. He then informed us, amidst ohs and ahs and ehs, that the late Tataw Obenson of Ako-Aya fame was his senior brother and that literary talent seemed to have a genetic foundation in the family. 11 I Spit on their Graves: Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle What first attracted my critical attention about Professor Obenson was a short article of his on Lake Nyos, published in CAMEROON POST of October 24-31, 1991. Tinged with subtle humour, this article accurately laid its finger on what I considered to be “the trouble with Cameroon,” namely, the enthronement and worship of mediocrity. Although he was a rare expert in the field, it did not occur to the Cameroon government to include Prof. Obenson in the team investigating the Lake Nyos disaster. Ironically, one of the foreign agencies interested in the disaster hired him as its consultant. The government has further shown a suspicious lack of interest in the results of the...