Cry the Beloved SOBA:

SASSE Old Boys Chased Away From D’la

Prof. Ephraim Ngwafor, out-going National President of SOBA, was forced to carry his scheduled Elective General Assembly, EGA, from Douala to Buea, after the DO of Douala 5 asked him to take the meeting out of his area of command, saying his administrative unit cannot be used as battle ground for disputes in faraway Fako division.  

By Boris Esono in Buea

Dr. Amos Ngongi Namanga

A planned EGA of Sasse Old Boys Association, SOBA, in Douala, on Saturday 10 March 2018, did not hold after all.

            The DO of Douala 5 ordered the President General of SOBA, Prof. Ephraim Ngwafor, to take his EGA out of his territory of command.

            The civil administrator urged Prof. Ngwafor to respect of an injunction of the Buea Judge barring all activities organized by the executive of SOBA. He warned that there shall be massive arrests if anyone attempts to defy the laws of the republic especially in these trying circumstances.

            Frustrated and confused, Prof. Ephraim Ngwafor was left with no other alternative than to carry the EGA expediently to the Bishop Rogan College, Soppo, Buea, The Median learned. But here again the DO of Buea also ordered that the meeting should not proceed. He too brandished a copy of the court injunction prohibiting the EGA.   

            The Median learnt that in their frustration, the few SOBANS who took the trouble to travel to Buea for the EGA rallied themselves somewhere within the BIROCOL campus, where they held a what has been described as a mock EGA during which the entire outgoing executive was re-elected and with some new faces co-opted into the executives.

Care-taker committee cries scandal

           

Prof. Ephraim Ngwafor

Meanwhile, the care-taker committee that was formed at an earlier Revival GA, RVGA, in Buea, on 4 March 2018, has declared the Ngwafor-led EGA illegal and its resolutions null and void.

            Members of the care-taker committee headed by Dr. Amos Ngongi Namanga, say they will bring a case in court against the signatories to the communiqué sanctioning the holding of the EGA in BIROCOL, Buea. The signatories include the outgoing SOBA SG, Ebot  Nfoataw, the Principal of Sasse college, Rev. Fr. Valentine Suum and the Catholic Education Secretary, Rev. Fr. Edwin Msing SEH. They will have to answer to charges of usurpation, illegal representation and contempt of court, we learned.

            The care-taker committee is also planning to apply for an order of Mandamus, from the court, compelling the outgoing SOBA President, Prof. Ephraim Ngwafor to hand all SOBA property in his keeping to the care-taker committee.

            Members of the care-taker committee wondered aloud why the resolutions of a supposed EGA should be signed not by the oldest SOBAN present in the assembly, but by the outgoing SG and some other outsiders. They said by virtue of the SOBA constitution an elective GA is supposed to be chaired by the eldest SOBAN in the hall.

            The care-taker committee members say also questioned among other things why the venue of the EGA had to be moved to Buea without prior consultation with other branches of SOBA.

            As we hurried to press yesterday, indications were that the dispute between the revivalists and the conservatives in SOBA in SOBA will not come to an end anytime soon. It may require the intervention of very senior and respectable SOBANS for the dispute to be settled and in the greatest interest of the unity and reputation of the otherwise enviable, respected and trail-blazing Sasse Old Boys Association.

NB: See story on the genesis of the SOBA disputes in The Median issue No 271 of Monday 19 February 2018