Limbe Fisheries School: Beyond the scramble

On Monday 25 November 2014 this newspaper ran a lead story on its front page of edition no. 879 with the headline “Who Controls Limbe Fisheries School?” In the kicker we highlighted the scramble for this Spanish golden donation to the people of Cameron between the University of Buea, University of Douala and the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry.

We stated the facts of the story as we got them from the field and reserved commenting to a later day. We did so not because it was not necessary for us to comment and give the supporting evidence for which of the contending sides was reasonably justified to host the school.

But as the squabbling rages on, it is becoming more and more necessary for us to revisit what many people are beginning to term the Limbe fisheries school imbroglio.

First, the school is still in a state of limbus infantum; it is not opened and the beautiful site and buildings are beginning to suffer from disuse. The Spanish gift is becoming a poisoned chalice, not serving the people who gave it and the people for whom it is meant.

Without claiming to have been the only major newspaper albeit the first to draw national attention to this quagmire, we are happy and even bolstered by the fact that the custodians of the traditions of the people of South West, who are also the main auxiliaries of the administration have waded into this saga.

In a 10-point strongly worded and beautifully presented “Motion of gratitude and support to H.E. President Paul Biya, Head of State”, the traditional rulers have urged the Head of State to “ensure the functioning of the Limbe Maritime and Fisheries Institute as an integral part of the Department of Animal and Fisheries Science of the University of Buea.”

The motion of support signed by no mean personalities of this nation in the persons of His Majesty Nfon Senator Victor Mukete and His Majesty Muri Fritz Gerald Nasako, President and Secretary General respectively of the South West Chiefs Conference, SWECC, comes to reinforce this generally held view.

Commonsense does not give room for the current banal and vindictive politicking linked to the opening of this school. This school is a higher institution of academic learning based in a region where the government has decidedly and very strategically placed a university which is the highest institute of academic learning anywhere in the world.

So it makes commonsense, economic and political sense that this institute meant to advance the academic and professional skills of young Cameroonians and others who might come in from outside is sited and integrated within the holistic academic environment created by the state at the University of Buea.

It borders on politics of destabilisation, politics of hate if any right-thinking person would expect that a similar academic institution some 80 km away located in another geopolitical environment would come and take control of an institution within the radius of another academic institution –barely some 30 km away.

This cacophony as reported in our edition of Monday 25 November 2014 still raises its ugly head between the Universities of Bamenda and Dschang respectively over the College of Agriculture in Bambili, Bamenda and Cooperative College in Bamenda.

The Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry, MINEPIA’s claim to ownership of the Limbe fisheries school draws strength from the now anachronistic assumption that the corresponding ministerial department automatically owns and runs that institution.

Such is the case with the Ministry of Public Service running the National Advanced School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications with the schools of post and telecommunications and the Ministry of Public Works running the National Polytechnic and the schools of public works.

The academic and professional shortcomings of this setup are better exemplified by the dilemma that graduates of these institutions face when they are sent parking from serving in public institutions. Sooner than later they find out that they are neither academics nor technocrats given the fact that a technocrat, or better still, a professional is worth his or her salt when he or she combines a sound academic grounding with technical skills that are partly gained on the job.

Graduates from these ministry-listed institutions think more about what the minister says and the positions in the ministries than uphold professional ethics that benefit the country.

On the contrary, graduates who emerge having been properly immersed in academics become strategic thinkers and not glorified clerks taking orders without thinking. This is where, we think, the Limbe fisheries school/institute finds a meaningful expression in the ambits of a university department of aquaculture.

Recent effort by ENAM to partner with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for its graduates to professionalise their performance and graduate with a Masters in Public Administration is a stitch in time. But this commendable effort would be more beneficial for the country and for individual students if ENAM ceases to be part of the ministry and becomes an integral part of the university.

An earlier commendation also goes to the integration of the then schools of agriculture and forestry into the University of Dschang and the Advanced School of Mass Communication, ASMAC, and the International Relations Institute, IRIC, into the universities of Yaounde.

What we are saying in essence is that we should permanently move our institutions which are meant to produce professionals from political environments and influences.

Without mincing words, the scramble to take over the Limbe fisheries school by both the University of Douala and MINEPIA is unnecessary, undevelopmental and an exercise in futility hampering nation building. It is null and void and to borrow from President Paul Biya “sans objet”. Let’s not forget that the same ministry looks up to these universities for its future technocrats.

We are therefore grateful that SWECC and other progressive, developmental and patriotic institutions have joined us to urge the powers that be not to waste time and allow politicking to derail a technically and professionally reasoned option of integrating this institution into University of Buea. It is our contention therefore that the integration of this institution to the University of Buea saddles within the ambits of our national policy of integration and regionally balanced development.