Bomb Blast:

Jacques Fame Ndongo

Fame Ndongo shits on his tail again!

As though the scandal he caused at IRIC not long ago was not enough, the learned professor allowed Francophone candidates for this year’s entrance exam into ENS Bambili to sit the exam in French whereas the language of instruction at the institution is English!

By Douglas A. Achingale

The name Jacques Fame Ndongo calls to mind one exciting thing: extraordinary mastery of Molière’s language. Not a teacher of French though, he has the reputation of being one of the finest speakers of the language in Cameroon. His diction is quirkily uncommon as it is often spiced with gigantic lexical items, his syntax incredibly amazing and his grammar exceptional. While Francophones refer to him as a moving lexicon, Anglophones call him the Francophone Bate Besong.

                When the Higher Education minister was receiving the secretary-general of La Francophonie in amphitheatre 700 of the University of Yaounde I some months ago, he bemused attendees with an electrifying, ex cathedra presentation that left most of them – particularly university students – yelling in appreciation. That is what the power of his language can do each time he makes an address in public.   

                Unfortunately, that seems to be all what the learned Professor is good at. Administratively, his efforts are said to come to nought, especially when it has to do with giving Anglophones their due.

                An anomaly borne of Fame Ndongo’s excesses came to the fore just over a week ago during the sitting of the entrance examination into the National Higher Teachers’ Training College (ENS) Bambili of the University of Bamenda. For the first time, questions meant for Francophones seeking admission into that institution were translated into French and the candidates asked to answer them in French. It so occurred in spite of the fact that lectures at ENS Bambili are given exclusively in English!

If this is not folly par excellence, how else do you call it? What was in the minister’s mind when he allowed such chaos to occur? What on earth are Francophones going to do at ENS Bambili if they cannot speak and write English? Were they sitting the exam for sitting’s sake or will the successful ones really attend classes at the institution? Or indeed, are there plans to drop the Anglo-Saxon-ness of the school?

                By giving the go-ahead for such a thing to happen, Fame Ndongo has exhibited utter disdain for the Anglo-Saxon tradition and values in Cameroon. Without doubt, his act bespeaks a deliberate attempt by the Francophone barons of the roundtable to push everything Anglophone to the backwaters.

                It is this kind of “reform” that the intrepid Joyce Endeley resisted while she was director of the Higher Teachers’ Training College (HTTC) Kumba which is under the tutelage of the University of Buea. That the resistance cost Joyce her job was absolutely no surprise given that some self-seeking higher authorities were quick to denounce her – authorities who would go to any length to stay in the good books of Fame Ndongo and President Paul Biya.        

                The minister of Higher Education’s folly comes close on the heels of another scandal he orchestrated, this time at the International Relations Institute of Cameroon (IRIC). The publication not long ago of three different lists of successful candidates into that institution signed by Fame Ndongo is still fresh in our collective memory.

                Under normal circumstances, obnoxious acts of this nature could have been enough reason for the bloke to be shown the gateway in a cabinet shake-up like that of last Friday. But the fact that he was maintained speaks volumes. It may be an indication that the President of the Republic himself is not opposed to those acts. After all, as someone once put it, the marginalization of Anglophones is a collective agenda.

                Be it as it may, the public and posterity are watching and closely too. It is not because Fame Ndongo has not been brought to book that his infelicities would be transformed into beatitudes. Far from it. He has been shitting on his tail and he has shat anew. The smell of the shit will certainly follow him wherever he goes. As an intellectual he must not lose sight of the fact that his today’s hubris could be his tomorrow’s nemesis.