Last month, a report titled “Who wants a partition of the University of Bamenda?" was released detailing issues reported extensively on a document circulating in Bamenda that projects how the University is going to be decentralized.
The document which carried the official seal of the institution, but incidentally was not signed by anyone, suggested that a major decentralization of the university was under way for the year 2018. The decentralization it stated, would see the partitioning of the university to the effect that every division in the region, like is done with a wedding cake, be shared for all to get a piece of it.
When our reporter confronted Tafah Edward Edokat, Vice-Chancellor of UBa, he didn’t only profusely deny knowledge of the document, but vehemently stated that the work of the document was the work of detractors. He qualified it as the handiwork of those who are bent on undermining the smooth-functioning of the university. “There are no plans for now to decentralize the University of Bamenda… Besides, we have more than enough land here in Bambili to host all the faculties of the university.” He said. “How can you be talking of plans to decentralize the University of Bamenda when we were recently in Yaounde to present to the Prime Minister, the structure of all the faculties with seats in Bambili? Get it from me that the information is false and misleading.” Edokat told our reporter by phone.
Well, it’s turning out that he lied. There are new developments in this story and it isn’t looking pretty for the VC. Not too long after his profuse denials that he had nothing to do with the planned partitioning of UBa, Edokat presented to Elites and traditional rulers of Tubah, his vision for the decentralization of the institution.
When the plan was made public, the effects were immediate and not good – abandoned construction projects and unemployment in the municipality. Bambili was almost immediately turned into a ghost town.
When our reporter visited Bambili after the VC’s decentralization white paper made rounds in Bamenda, over 3,000 rooms constructed for students to rent were begging for tenants and 2,501 workers who had been employed in the construction of some 872 houses rendered jobless as investors abandoned construction sites informed by the talk of decentralization.
As the down side of the planned decentralization became evident, the elites of Tubah under the umbrella of Tubah Union for Peace, Progress, Prosperity and Power (TUP4), an organization headed by Peter Abety, quickly summoned a crisis meeting at the Fon of Bambili’s Palace. At the meeting, they were quick to point fingers at the VC as reason for the state of joblessness in the municipality. They were unanimous that the VC must be made to pay for it. They were even the more angered by the fact that the VC who had been invited to the meeting was conspicuously absent.
The Fon of Bambili, Tamukum II, lamented at the meeting on how everything in his fondom and Tubah as a whole, has come to a standstill, thanks, he said, to the meeting the VC convened in which he presented to Tubah Fons and elites his so-called, “University of Bamenda Strategic Development Plan 2014-2028” which spelt out how the University is going to be decentralized.
After the Fon, speakers took turns, complaining that nothing is working in Tubah anymore. Investors, they said, have put their building projects on hold fearing that after the decentralization of UBa, there will be no students to occupy the buildings.
The President of Tubah Landlords’ Association, Stephen Sam, disclosed that since the decree creating the University in 2010, a total of 200 storey buildings and 300 bungalows have already been erected in Bambili and its environs. He said over 150 building sites for prospective storey buildings and bungalows have been abandoned as investors are scared that there would be nobody to occupy the buildings. As a result, he added that over 3000 workers ranging from plumbers, electricians, builders and carpenters among other things, have been rendered jobless and the VC is all to blame.
Peter Abety, in a key note address, warned that the VC must take responsibility.
