University Crisis and Student Protests in Africa

Yaya Fonye Odette

Description

Faced with a deepening crisis in their universities, African students have demonstrated a growing activism and militancy. They have been engaged in numerous, often violent, strikes for improvements in their deteriorating living and study conditions and the introduction of a democratic culture in the universities and society as a whole, including the right to express their views, organise in student unions and participate in university management.
This book focuses on a recent violent strike action in Cameroon’s state universities, with special attention to the University of Buea – the only English-speaking university in the country between 1993 and 2011. Such a detailed study on student strikes is still rare in African studies, and maybe even more important, this book pays special attention to certain elements that have been of great significance to the strike but are often overlooked in narratives of other student actions in Africa, namely the use of cell phones, differences in gender roles of student activists, the religious dimensions of the strike, the central role of some public spaces like bars and cafés for the planning and execution of student strikes, and the power of the photocopier.
The book goes far beyond simply documenting the various protest actions of students against the state and university authorities. It also provides ample room for comments from journalists and other civil-society members and groups on various aspects of the strike.

Sujets

• History

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 13 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789956728961
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

UNIVERSITY CRISIS AND STUDENT PROTESTS IN AFRICA T HE 2005 -2006 U NIVERSITY S TUDENTS ’ S TRIKEIN C AMEROON

Edited by FRANCIS B. NYAMNJOH, WALTER GAM NKWI AND PIET KONINGS

University Crisis and Student Protest in Africa : The 2005-2006 University Students’ Strike in Cameroon Edited By Francis B. Nyamnjoh Walter Gam Nkwi & Piet Konings

Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaa-rpcig.net Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookcollective.com ISBN: 9956-727-07-5 ©Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Walter Gam Nkwi & Piet Konings 2012

DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

Table of Contents Acnkowledgements……………………………………………………... v Chapter 1: Irrepressible Dissent: The University as the Bedrock for Political Transformation in Cameroon……………………………………………1 Chapter 2: Scholarship Production in Cameroon: Interrogating a Recession Nantang B. Jua and Francis B. Nyamnjoh…………………………………...23 Chapter 3: The University of Yaoundé as Ground Zero for the 2005 Student Protests in Cameroon……………………………………………………49 Chapter 4: Protest on the Second Front: The University of Buea Joins the Fray……………………………………………………………………... 73 Chapter 5: The Hurricane of Student Strike Action Sweeps into Douala and Dschang…………………………………………………………………101 Chapter 6: Use of Force and Loss of Life and Property at the University of Buea…………………………………………………………………... 123 Chapter 7: Reaching Accord: Negotiating Resolution at the University of Yaoundé…………………………………………………………………165 Chapter 8: A Bumpy Road to an Untenable Resolution in Buea………… 183 Chapter 9: Civil Society Actors Weigh in on the University Strike……… 257 Chapter 10: Epilogue to a Strike…………………………………………297 References……………………………………………………………….327

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Acknowledgements

According to Achebe (1987:122), ‘the cock that crows in the morning belongs to one household but his voice is the property of the neighbourhood’. Similarly, in many Cameroonian communities, one person’s child is only in the womb. In other words although we might have written this work, many people and other sources contributed directly or indirectly to its realisation. It is our pleasure to acknowledge them. The most valuable and directly instrumental source of material for this book has been newspapers. Without these newspapers the writing of this book would have been as ‘effective as a storm in a tea cup’. We therefore thank all the journalists and those whose articles in one way or the other were found useful in these newspapers and have been elaborately cited here. Newspapers and journalists, chroniclers of everyday life in Cameroon, form the bedrock of this book. It is thanks to them, even as we cannot thank them enough, that future generations shall know the struggles by students and staffs of Cameroon’s universities to institute and consolidate excellence in teaching, research, publishing and community service or social responsiveness as cardinal values in the higher education system. In addition to the newspapers, we would like to express our gratitude to the critical insights of colleagues, fellow academics and peer reviewers. Their readings and corrections have given this book its present shape. Finally we remain grateful to those whose works have been cited here. References to all works are listed in the reference section of the book. all errors of fact or interpretation, we alone are For responsible.

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Chapter 1 Irrepressible Dissent: The University as the Bedrock for Political Transformation in Cameroon Introduction This chapter provides an overview of the continental and national contexts of the crisis of higher education in Cameroonian State Universities, highlighting some of the critical factors that have served as impetus to student strikes. It is somewhat surprising that there are still relatively few detailed studies on the role of students during economic and political liberalisation on the continent. The first section of this chapter clearly demonstrates the radicalising role of students during this era, manifest in their various protest actions against their deteriorating living and working conditions in higher education and against the authoritarian regimes in the universities and state. It focuses in particular on the University of Buea, Cameroon’s only English- speaking university, where a striking number of students’ strikes have taken place since its establishment in 1993. The second section explores a number of factors that have been almost completely ignored in the existing studies on student actions in Africa, including the increasing use of cell phones, the differences in gender roles, the religious dimensions of students’ strikes and the importance of public spaces like bars and cafés for the planning and implantation of strike actions. It will be shown that these factors have actually played a significant role in student strikes in Cameroon The third section provides a brief presentation of the research methodology as well as of the overall content and structure of the book. African Universities at the Dawn of a new millennium African universities are in deep crisis (see Lebeau & Ogunsanya 2000; Nyamnjoh & Jua 2002; Zeilig 2007). Academic standards have been falling rapidly because these universities lack the basic infrastructure needed to cope with the massive growth in the student population (Lebeau 1997; Konings 2002). The severe economic crisis and the implementation of structural

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adjustment programmes (SAPs) are further aggravating the situation. The increasing withdrawal of state support for universities, university students and graduates can be seen in the drastic cuts in university budgets, the imposition of tuition fees and additional levies on the student population, and a virtual halt in the recruitment of new graduates in already over-sized state bureaucracies (Caffentzis 2000). Many graduates are finding themselves obliged to defer their entry into adulthood indefinitely as they are unable to achieve economic independence, marry and start a family of their own. They are also being forced to abandon their aspirations for elite status. And, last but not least, despite the current political liberalisation process, most African universities are continuing to operate under authoritarian management structures and political control that pose a severe threat to academic freedom and autonomy and impede lecturers and students from organising in defence of their interests and participating in university management. Faced with this deepening crisis in their universities, students have started fighting for improvements in their living and study conditions and the introduction of a democratic culture in the universities and society as a whole, including the right to express their views, organise in student unions and participate in university management (Amutabi 2002; Konings 2002). While in the past, with a few exceptions, African student protest was sporadic, today it has become endemic in many countries, continuing year after year in spite of freuent university closures in what appears to have become protracted warfare. Federici and Caffentzis (2000: 115-50) have published a chronology of African university student struggles between 1985 and 1998 and this provides an impressive list of the violent confrontations between students and the forces of law and order in African states. As a result of increasing student activism, African governments have become inclined to treat students as if they were their countries’ major enemies, turning campuses into war zones. Police intervention and the occupation of campuses by the security forces are now routine in many places and so is the presence of intelligence officers and police informants in class rooms (Federici 2000). This book relates the spread in 1995 of a students’ strike from the University of Yaoundé to the other state universities. However, it also focuses on the students’ strike in the University of Buea (UB) in the South West Region of Anglophone Cameroon, which turned out to be particularly dramatic, resulting in the death of a few students and several injured. The UB

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set up in 1993 in the wake of higher education reforms and based on the Anglo-Saxon educational system, is the country’s only English-speaking university. The Presidential Decree establishing the UB raised Anglophone hopes that their university was going to enjoy a large measure of academic freedom and autonomy and would be endowed with a democratic management style. However, it soon turned out that the UB was not going to be any different from the other newly established universities that continued to be modelled on the Francophone university system with its excessive centralisation, authoritarian management style and political control (Jua & Nyamnjoh 2002; Awasom 2005). Given the fact that by the time the UB opened, the Anglophone region had become a hotbed of rebellion against the ruling regime (Takougang & Krieger 1998; Konings & Nyamnjoh 2003), the government was not keen to keep to the terms of the decree establishing the UB, preferring authoritarian to democratic governance so as to ensure political control and loyalty to the regime. Evidence is provided in this book that most of the UB students’ demands during the 2005 strike were similar to those of students in other Cameroonian and African universities, namely an improvement in their living and study conditions and the introduction of a democratic culture in the universities and society as a whole. What was peculiar to their strike actions, however, was their protest against the alleged marginalisation of Anglophones in general and Anglophone students in particular in the Francophone-dominated post-colonial state (Konings & Nyamnjoh 2003). Konings (2005) has argued that Anglophone University students have tended to be more militant than their Francophone counterparts since reunification in 1961, feeling more marginalised and oppressed because of their Anglophone identity. They have actually played a vanguard role in the Anglophone struggle for the preservation of the Anglo-Saxon educational system and the creation of an English-language university. They also became strong supporters of the Anglophone clamour for autonomy either in the form of a return to the federal state or outright secession. Similar to many other African countries, the 2005 UB student strike was marked by a high degree of violence. One reason for this was the regular failure of university and government officials to take students seriously and create effective channels of communication and negotiation. Many officials are suspicious of student unions and are hesitant about allowing students to unionise. In these circumstances, the use of violence is for students often the

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