Tafah Edokat accused of running University of Bamenda like a village provision store
From Michael Ndi in Bamenda
A tempestuous whirlwind likely to mercilessly uproot
the vice chancellor of the University of Bamenda, UBa, Tafah Edokat Oki Edward is
brewing on the horizon. Fears have reportedly reached alarming proportions even
within Edokat’s camp that ongoing happenings; implicating the UBa vice
chancellor in one way or the other leave him with no chances of weathering the
impending storm.
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| Edokak:Can he weather the storm? |
Foremost, amongst Edokat’s critics are UBa students
who are accusing the vice chancellor of exploitation. Some of the students who
spoke to The Guardian Post on conditions of anonymity claim Edokat had collected
huge sums of money within the past year claiming the money was for students’
union activities. Even though the students claim no money has been used for
students’ affairs, the vice chancellor, they alleged, has ordered the election
of a new student body without first of all giving an account of the funds that
are believed to be in his keeping.
Another of Edokat’s “crimes” is that he has reduced
the University of Bamenda to the University of Oshie. More than 70% of the
non-academic staff, his critics say, are said to hail from his Oshie village of
origin. In addition, the only financial institution permitted to function on
campus is the National Financial Credit, NFC, which is owned by his tribesman
and godfather, Senator Awanga Zacharias. Students of the University of Bamenda,
The Guardian Post gathered, have been conditioned to pay their fees only
through the National Financial Credit.
It is not only students of the University of Bamenda
who are calling for Edokat’s departure for calm to reign in the institution.
Members of the university senate are not only accusing the UBa vice chancellor
of running the state institution like one who owns a village provision store
but also of treating them with exceptional arrogance. The vice chancellor is
said to often bully members of the university senate even in public whenever they
try to raise a finger against his alleged high-handedness and obnoxious policies.
The latest gaffe of the UBa vice chancellor, according
to his critics, is a very controversial professionalization policy he has put
in place. In place of an Arts Faculty which would have absorbed many Anglophone
students, Edokat, who they say rose to where he is thanks to Arts education, is
accused of allocating a lot of space for a medical school with over 90% of the
students being Francophones.
Even though Edokat’s decision to set up a business
school has been widely saluted, his critics believe strongly that the transport
department which is part of the business school is a disguised driving school.
This fear, The Guardian Post gathered, has been given wings by what many say is
the exorbitant fees that is being charged for the business school. The
300.000FCFA students are each charged to pay, critics hold, is the amount
charged for a similar business school by the National Polytechnic Bambui, a
private institution.
Contacted by phone to react to the above allegations
which The Guardian Post gathered have already been forwarded to Yaounde for
investigation and immediate action, Edokat without any waste of time thundered:
“Let my detractors write or say what they like...I have developed a thick
skin.” Pressed on to give at least one clarification, Edokat not only denied
all the above allegations which he qualified as coming from his detractors but
again fired: “The figures are there for everyone to come and see...there is
nothing we are doing here that is not documented.”
Edokat’s crime, many believe, is that he does not hail
from Tubah subdivision, the seat of the University of Bamenda. The alleged
tension in the institution, his supporters and admirers say, are being fanned
by some Tubah elite who have vowed to go to every length until the man from
Oshie in Momo division is rooted out of the institution.
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