In an exclusive interview he granted The SUN, Ngomo says the University of Buea has lost a lot as a result of the Anglophone Crisis and will not want discussions on the subject to distract the institution from achieving its goals.

Quizzed whether or not the Anglophone crisis is a taboo subject at the University of Buea, especially after the termination of the contract of Law Instructor Agbor Nkongho for setting a question on the crisis, Vice-Chancellor Ngomo said:

“No! It is not a taboo subject here. However, it is the wrong place for it; it should not be debated here. There is an institution meant for such a debate, it’s the Parliament! It should be in the think-tank of political parties. The University here has a mission statement; teach, train, research and carry out outreach activities. Discussions on the Anglophone crisis to us are a distraction; they prevent us from achieving our goals.”

Ngomo says since the crisis started in 2016, the University of Buea has recorded enormous losses.

His words:  “Maybe I should take you into some of the losses of this University: We had a budget of FCFA 400 million to construct the administrative and Pedagogic Block of the HTTTC Kumba, we’ve not been able to do that. The first contractor was killed here in Bomaka, we tried to launch again but contractors refused to take the contract.

“Also, we had a contract with ENEO to train their sub-contractors (College of Technology) but the ENEO officials refused to come because of insecurity. They asked us to rather delocalise the training to Douala. Imagine the loss in training capacity, the loss in finances!

“Again, we submitted for the African Centre for Excellence Grant by the World Bank. The University of Buea was the lone winner. In November of 2018, I flew here with Prof. Ekane to Accra to defend the application; we sat in the panel and gave evidence from 9am-5pm. But the panellists always had in their mind the insecurity out here. They were supposed to come here and inspect our infrastructure but they refused to come in the last minute, citing security problem. That was going to be an 8million dollar project (FCFA 4billion)! It was going to bring an extensive development to this University, we were going to use one quarter of that money to put physical infrastructure…it was cancelled!

“So, the fight we have now is how to insulate this University from all those who don’t believe that a University environment or kids of a particular age should not be soaked into an outside crisis, to keep the University focused on its mission. We have a lot of outreach activities to carry on. I want to tell you that in terms of the quality of our graduates, this University struggles to maintain that quality.

“For example, after the crisis in 2017, in terms of coverage in courses, we decided the courses must be covered to an appreciable level as dictated by the exigencies of quality assurance. So we invited students back here and added about two weeks to some courses and that’s why we closed in November! Another University would have just gone ahead to rush over everything.

“Why am I saying this? Because we hear the kind of paradoxical remarks people make outside because their children are here. Why do you think this University is highly solicited? Because it’s best in medicines…why do many students continue to choose this University in spite of the crisis, is what marvels Higher Education. We have been first in the National Clinical Exam for the past successive four years. At some point, they thought there was something going and they sent other people but discovered that the students were well trained. I’m very passionate about quality in this university!”

The Vice-Chancellor says the University of Buea has divorced with its ugly past, that of being in the news for the wrong reasons.

Hear him: “I thought I should make these remarks because there some very unhealthy and demeaning insinuations from some media houses and social platforms and so on. Indeed, I hear some people talk about indicators and I know what indicator they are referring to! The indicator they are referring to is that that the University of Buea is no longer in the news for the wrong reason (s). That the number of strikes has reduced or no longer are existent since I took over and they surprised!

“A major indicator of the performance of Buea University was the number of strike perhaps a year and since they are no longer seeing that, and the University is quiet, there must be nothing happening there! What I have succeeded in doing is to cut off/diminish the effects of those very troublesome elements within the University community, who have admired and enjoyed the University’s acrimonious past and want to maintain it because to them that’s the type of publicity they want this University to have.

“We on our part want to maintain the place of this University despite the crisis; we want to expand the number of course, were it not for funding, we would have added civil and other engineering. By the time I came here, the Faculty of Engineering was going to train 1,000 Council Staff and renewable energy; those were stalled by this crisis. We were going to start training on the development of fish ponds with Prof. Oben and a Professor from Ibadan, but he stopped coming with the intensity of the crisis. So, no matter how interesting your projects may be, you cannot implement them because of the crisis. So the best we can do is to ensure that the University is functioning and is responding to its mission.

“That notwithstanding, when I came here, the population of this University was not as it is, it had been reduced by the crisis but I told myself and proposed to the University Senate to remove the idea of not admitting students without a pass in Ordinary Level English, for the students were cheating themselves; that has been a remarkable and impactful decision which the Senate took to increase the intake.

“We are soon going to complete the Technology Building; in fact that’s what is encouraging us to expand in that field, though conditioned on funding. Nonetheless, with the expansion of decentralisation, we need to have more civil engineers animating infrastructure construction in councils; we need to train their staff.”

Responding to claims that the morale of staff is at its lowest because their emoluments are not being paid, Ngomo said they are doing their best to keep the staff more than motivated, the challenges notwithstanding.

He said: “Let me put it this way. In 2018, the fourth quarter of subvention of all 8 State Universities was not paid. This University thrives on government subvention, and so we have a bad luck of unpaid emoluments. That obviously frustrates teachers, but you should look at that within the context of the diminution in revenue of the state. This is visible to everybody! Also last year, officials from taxation were here for an auditing of 2014, 2015 and 2016 and they charged the University FCFA 486 million of unpaid taxes from wrongly calculated taxes by the University, according to them. So I fought back and the fight just ended a few weeks ago. We had to implore the Minister that should the University pay that amount, it will not be able to survive. At the end of the day, the Minister of Finance nullified the penalties and so the University is paying monthly FCFA 10 million and something to taxation, from its subvention.

“That’s why I don’t give much regard to people who stay out at a distance and criticise this University. We have the responsibility to ensure that this University responds to its mandate, we are not going to be distracted by people who are making allusion to benefits which are not their salary. What about those outside who are thriving on their own?”