George Ngwane

Crusading against the Boko Haramisation of moral rectitude in Cameroon

By Mwalimu George Ngwane

(Being a paper presented at the Book Launch of Sammy Oke Akombi’s book “The Wages of Corruption” in Buea Mountain Hotel on Friday 3rd October 2014).

The book as the title suggests is on corruption.  The book is a mirror of moral rectitude where attitude and aptitude are reflected; it is a courtroom where grief and greed are cross-examined and it is a classroom where human conscience and sexual perversion are taught.  The author, like a seasoned Hausa butcher has in 13 short stories and in 128 pages exposed the putrescent bones and putrid meat of a once robust cow that has been killed by her own “nganakors”.  The stories are simple in style yet serious in message; pregnant with soul-searching rhetoric questions, subtle in tone but satirical in content.  The author does not pretend to be prescriptive of the solutions to corruption.  He has left that with politicians who are having a field day with slogans, prison sentences and National Anti-corruption corrupt Commissions.  The author instead engages the reader in a graphic narrative journey that lays bare the bends and bumps of a corrupt-riddled road.  Yes, after reading the book you may be tempted to say we have heard this before but the author’s compelling stream of consciousness, his use of mind games, intrigues and suspense leaves the reader with the question “Why do we choose the vicious rather than the virtuous path to society’s renewal?” Self-examination, Introspection and Collective catharsis are bound to be your therapy to the author’s diagnosis. 

Showcasing West Cameroonian Icons (1961-1972)

The West Cameroon State that existed within the Federal Structure of Cameroon was the product of the Reunification birth between Southern Cameroon (British) and La Republique du Cameroon (French) in October 1961. Indeed the West Cameroon state with some of the trappings of nationhood had her facets of national life steered by men and women of vision and respect; people whose sterling qualities in their professions and passions made them icons in the pantheon of West Cameroon.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Reunification, Dibussi Tande, Mwalimu George Ngwane, Njomo Kevin and Dr. George Atem have published for the purpose of memory and history, a 24 page Compendium (magazine) of role models who under the West Cameroon state exhibited exemplary leadership qualities and excelled in their various occupations as influential statespersons. Identifying the most influential role models some forty years ago in the defunct West Cameroon state has not been an easy task. But after much debate, brain racking and scientific research, this is the choice of four seasoned political observers, cultural archivists and erudite researchers with a special bent on those who made a positive difference in West Cameroon between 1961 and 1972.

The African Book Industry – Challenges and Changes

By Mwalimu George Ngwane

"If Education is the road out of poverty, then books are the wheels needed for the journey" - Richard Crabbe, (Ghanaian Publisher)

Preface
Books represent the mirror of every society; they showcase the immortal lore and mores of a people, they act as a publicity stunt for a nation since they go beyond the atavistic modes of cultural folklore.

The book sector in Africa poses some great concerns that necessitate a clinical diagnosis of its state and future. This diagnosis is of particular import because a man-made book famine is systemically gaining currency in Africa’s cultural landscape.

Anatomy of the Writer in Politics

By Mwalimu George Ngwane

The ultimate mission of every writer is to liberate both the minds of the oppressed and the oppressors in order to cultivate a harmonious society. How this mission is attained may be a subject of controversy, but make no mistake about it, the message for every credible writer is the same; it is the style that may make the difference. Whenever power mongers become lost in the journey of personality cult, when the politician’s ship is drowning in the ocean of dictatorship, it is the writer who serves as the compass pointing the ship of state to the shores of sanity. The social role of the writer has not only been a desire to lodge a claim for artistic leadership but to lay emphasis on democratic entitlement.

In Cameroon, the Writer is either Ignored or Humiliated - Mwalimu George Ngwane

In the interview below conducted by Manjoh Priscilla Musoh (MPM) as part of a fulfilment of her academic research in the University of Potsdam, Germany, Mwalimu George Ngwane expresses his fears and hopes on Anglophone writing and the role of the writer as a development agent in Cameroon’s fledging democracy and nation building. The interview was made available to Eden newspaper courtesy of the writer.

Manjoh Priscilla Musoh (MPM): Who in your own opinion is an Anglophone Cameroon Writer?

Prisoner of Conscience

By George Ngwane

Take away my intellectual chain and let me speak
Get me away from this cultural drain and let me be
Break away my economic shackle and let me eat
Free me from my political mannacle and let me live

Let met speak the words of wisdom to
a people that are in a political bondage
Let me be a soldier in the army of
the people that are in a cultural crusade
Let me also eat the bread from the table
which my sweat and toil have made
Let me live the life that I ought to live
to give my children a love that won't fade

I shall speak, for in the beginning there was the word
I shall be for in the creator's image, I was born
I shall eat even if man does not depend on bread alone
I shall live until when God shall call me home

Originally published in Bate Besong (Or the Symbol of Anglophone Hope, 1993

Mongo Beti: the writer-gadfly

BellagioPublishingNetwork Newsletter Issue No 30, May 2002, pp 20-21

George Ngwane

[The Cameroonian-born writer Alexandre Biyidi Awala, alias Mongo Beti, died in October 2001. He was one of the key Francophone African writers of the post-war and independence era. Educated in Catholic mission and public schools in Yaoundé and later in France, where he studied literature and lived for most of his life, Beti's early writing reflected the tensions in colonialism and the social dislocation and disorientation in the lives of the colonised, western educated and independent African.