Matters Arising:

Buea DO Chides Prof. Ephraim Ngwafor Over “Illegal” SOBA Meeting

The DO has in a release, declared the SOBA EGA on 10 March 2018 in Buea ‘illegal’ and ‘suspicious’, saying any furtherance of its outcome will be considered a threat to public peace and security and treated as such.

By Ojong Steven Ayukogem with reports from Buea

Some Sasse Old Boys in Group Photo After Their EGA at BIROCOL Soppo-Buea,
with Prof. Ngwafor on Front Row, 1st From Right

The DO of Buea, Kouam Wokam Paul, has fired a stinging rebuke at the president of Sasse Old Boys Association, SOBA, Prof Ephraim Ngwafor, condemning some members of the otherwise highly respected alumni association for ‘forcefully holding an undeclared meeting’ of SOBA at the campus of the Bishop Rogan’s College, BIROCOL, Small Soppo-Buea, on Saturday 10 March 2018.

            The Buea DO says his vexation is grounded on the fact that SOBA had on 2 March 2018 received an authorization from the DO of Douala 5, to hold an Elective General Assembly EGA within his administrative unit on Saturday, 10 March 2018, but that the same DO withdrew his authorization on the basis of a court judgment (No HCF/037/M/2018 of March 8) from the High Court of Fako in Buea, which court judgment was served the Principal of Sasse College, and which the very learned and respected law Professor, Ephraim Ngwafor, also confirmed receipt of a copy in Douala.

            In his strongly-worded rebuke to Prof Ngwafor dated 13 March 2018 and with the SW Governor, the Fako SDO, the Bishop of Buea, the Principal of Sasse and the Chairman of the care-taker Committee of SOBA copied, the DO noted that “the administration of Buea was very vexed and disillusioned in the fact that very responsible persons from the prestigious Sasse College should engage in disrespecting legal jurisdictions as well as violating court judgments”.

            “I write to you expressing my regrets with respect to the attitude of some members of the prestigious association of alumni of the most revered St. Joseph’s College Sasse-Buea, on the campus of BIROCOL Soppo-Buea whereby you forcefully attempted to hold an undeclared meeting of the association,” noted the DO, who also wondered why SOBANS could not notify the administration of their intention to hold their EGA in Buea, after they were driven out of Douala, and in spite of the fact that Buea is understood to be the natural venue for all SOBA EGAs.

            “This misguided and ill-advised act of coming to carry out a clandestine meeting in Buea void of all administrative procedures renders such a meeting suspicious, its outcome a nullity and a security threat,” noted Wokam Paul, who at once notified Prof. Ngwafor that he (the DO) has informed his hierarchy of “this embarrassing happening”.

            DO Wokam warned that “any furtherance of the outcome of the SOBA EGA will be treated as obstruction of public peace, contempt of court and administrative instructions, as well as an insult to efforts carried out by the state to make Buea a peaceful sub-division.”

            He expressed surprise that SOBANs should be the ones trying to thwart efforts made by the state and other education stakeholders towards getting pupils and students to go back to school in Buea. He noted that by attempting to carry to Douala a meeting that by law was supposed to hold in Buea, SOBANs were insinuating that Buea is insecure for such a meeting and this only helps to further compromise the back to school efforts by government.

            A source close to the DO’s Office in Buea confided to The Median that the DO’s suspicion of the motive behind the SOBA meeting was partly because he had been informed of the “hero’s reception” to which SOBANs treated the president of the now outlawed Consortium, Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla, himself a SOBAN, in Yaounde, after the latter regained his freedom from incarceration in Kondengui Prison. The source said the DO’s suspicion was further fuelled when some attendees of the Buea EGA paid a special courtesy visit to Agbor Balla at his Buea Federal Quarters residence, after their meeting.

The DO in his release cautioned SOBANs to avoid further embarrassments from the administration by showing proof of their commitment to promoting peace and living together through seeking pacific ways of solving their internal disputes, in strict respect of the laws and state institutions.

            Meanwhile, in a release issued recently, the president of the care-taker committee of SOBA that was put in place during a Revival General Assembly RVGA of the association holding in Buea on 4 March 2018, Dr. Amos Namanga Ngongi, revisited the circumstances leading to the convening of the RVGA and how all efforts to get Prof. Ngwafor to call off the Douala EGA if only to save SOBANs the embarrassment from the Douala administration were futile.

            Ngongi questioned why the organizers of the EGA should flout a court injunction as to think that they could proceed with the planned EGA in Douala. He noted that it was full-hardy and preposterous for the organizers of the EGA to enter Buea incognito and secretly hold the EGA despite the court injunction and without prior notification of the administration.

            That was perhaps why Ngongi concluded that the Buea EGA was a wasted effort whose outcome can only be of no consequence to SOBA.

            It is however left to be seen whether Prof. Ngwafor and his supporters will further the outcome of the EGA or they will throw in the towel, especially after the vexatious rebuke by the Buea DO.

            Yet, it behooves this newspaper to suggest to the belligerent parties to resort to the dialogue table as a means towards resolving the internal differences of SOBA, this, if only to protect and uphold the long-standing and time-tested reputation of the alumni association of Cameroon’s oldest secondary school.