Samuel Mbigha was born in
Mbatu in Mezam Division in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. He was born to
Joseph Mbigha and Susana Alieh Mbigha. He grew up in the village and attended
Presbyterian School Nkura and then went to Longla Comprehensive College LCC in
Bamenda for Secondary Education. He later moved to Government High School
Mbengwi and eventually to the University of Yaounde and the University of Buea.
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| Samuel Mbigha |
He attended University between the late eighties and early nineties when
Cameroon was at a cross roads. It was at this moment that the country after
having seen the changing of the single party from the Cameroon National Union
CNU to the Cameroon Peoples’ Democratic Movement CPDM that the country was on
the verge of moving on into multi-partism in a movement that was spear headed
by the Social Democratic Front SDF created on the 26th of May 1990.
It is no surprise that Sam Mbigha participated at the launch of the SDF. He
recalls that this was the first time he was ever detained. Sam Mbigha in the
following interview conducted by Francis Ekongang Nzante Lenjo within the
confines of his Mutengene office, Sam Mbigha runs through most of his life from
when he left university to the present thriving Cameroonian who runs
educational establishments with thousands of young Cameroonians receiving
quality education.
What
are those unforgettable moments in your university life?
I participated in many
activities of “the Parliament” as the students’ movement advocating for change
at the time was called. I eventually also participated in the activities of the
Social Democratic Front SDF in an active manner during the 1992 Presidential
Elections. I witnessed and lived the Ghost Town experience and it was like war.
How
did this experience affect the way you eventually embrace life?
From child hood we grew up
in a turbulent background where we had a lot of rough guys around. We were as such
toughened right from childhood. By the time we left the university it was clear
that there were no jobs for us in this country. People of my generation will
testify that there were no jobs because immediately after that we heard of
Economic Crises, salary cuts in the Public Service and then for a number of
years there were no Public Competitive Examinations. The ENS that was even
launched they told us that instead of writing, we had to compile but documents and
people had to belong to lists. So for those of us who did not belong to any
list and who didn’t have god parents, it was clear that the Cameroonian Public
Service was not for us. We therefore had to carve a way for ourselves.
You
fall in that category of Cameroonians that is referred to as the lost
generation but ironically, you are not lost. You are thriving in the domain of
education. What inspired your move?
Well I think that I was born
a teacher. I discovered my potentials when I was in class five. In the Sunday
school, one day the teacher was not there and they just came and gave me the
documents that is the Bible “the Good News for Modern Man” that I should teach.
There were students there who were in Form three, form two who were in that
same hall but these documents were given to me. I picked it, went to the
passage of that day and read it gave my own interpretation and asked questions
to my own contemporaries and many of them could not answer these questions. All
through my life I have been teaching. Even when I went to the University, I was
offering some part time classes in some evening schools and homes. As small as
I was, I taught in evening schools made up of older people until one of them
was ordering me to get out on the first day he saw me thinking I was one of
them. Since then I have been teaching.
How
did your educational initiative come along?
In effect, I started this
thing in Bamenda specifically at the former CENAJES Campus where I started like
an Evening School and then ran some holiday classes. When I moved, I left it
with one other friend. When I came here, I taught with the Catholic Mission
around the Mongo area and when the Mission didn’t threat me well I decided to
leave and I crossed over to Mutengene. When I arrived here I met a terrible
situation. I was surprised to see children who were in class six class seven at
the time who could not read. I realised there was a problem and felt that I
could do something for these children. That’s exactly how it started. On my
veranda at that time, I gathered the children and just helped them. That is
when I realised that the problem was profound and felt something should be
done. That’s how I started this school.
Can
you identify some of your initiatives today?
For now, we have three
primary schools; Foundation Education Trust Nursery and Primary School
Mutengene. There is a second primary school in Mutengene which is another
campus all together called the Foundation Bilingual Nursery and Primary School.
Thirdly, there is Holy Spring Bilingual Nursery and Primary School Likomba, Tiko.
We also have Foundation Education Trust College which offers the Grammar
(General Education), Commercial Education and the Industrial for both the First
and Second Cycles.
How
do you think you are contributing towards the forward movement of your country
and how do you feel doing what you do?
Any nation or people think
that they want to strive for a brighter future. There is only one thing;
education, education and education. If we are into education and we are sending
out successful students at their end of course examinations, then I think we
are doing it. But I actually think we are doing it more at the level where we
are sending out children not just to have certificates but children who can fit
in the challenging world. They can only fit if their moral base is sound, if
they have aspiration, if they have ambition and they submit themselves. That’s
what we are doing and they have not proved us wrong. We are looking forward to
contributing to nation building through them. The person who will be President
in 2035 is in School today. The Ministers in 2035 are these children we have
with us today. I however have just one worry; the quality of education that we
are giving to these children today. I am afraid it may not lead them to
emergence. This is because we are more interested in giving people certificates
without preparing them for challenges. The multiplicity of General Education
Colleges that are being created everyday is not what this nation needs for
emergence. We need people who can produce with their hands and not people who
will sustain long academic discourses. This is because the issues of tomorrow
have to be resolved with concrete action. If the Chinese could come out from
the third world that they were a few years ago and they are now among the
leading nations in the world it is thanks to Technical Education. If Malaysia
could come out from nowhere to be the leading oil palm producer in the world
then it’s telling us that we should orientate our education towards production.
We
are an Agricultural Nation striving towards increased production and there is
this increased talk of second generation agriculture…
True, we are an agricultural
nation with almost no reasonable school of Agriculture to show for it. How many
schools of Agriculture are found in Cameroon? That’s where our main problem
lies and I appeal to the powers that be to do something about this because if
nothing is done we will not change and our children will keep leaving the
country every day. Go to the airport and you will see so many young
Cameroonians entering the planes and going away. At that same airport you see
Chinese coming out of the plane and entering Cameroon. That is where we are.
What
from your point of view is the best prescription for Cameroon? Are you a political
party associate or do you have an ideology that you think will be helpful
towards pushing Cameroon forward?
I am apolitical. I don’t
militate in any political party. I don’t have a party card for any political
party. Not only because the parties have failed but because of the nature of my
job. I embrace everybody and take them for what they are. I am an educator and
I don’t play politics. I vote since it’s a secret ballot and it ends there. But
if this country has to emerge we need to sit up. The Head of State has ear
marked 2035 as the point of evaluation. He has already set the goals. It is
left for the stake holders to sit on the drawing board and channel all
activities to see how they can lead us to that goal. Unfortunately, our
ministers travel everyday and go all over the world but I don’t know whether
when they are crossing the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea they dump
everything they studied out there into the sea and come back as empty as they
went. We should copy the good example from those who have succeeded. Those sent
on scholarship should have been capable of coming back and propelling this
nation forward. I think we should sit on the drawing board and improve upon the
quality of our education. The present one will not take us far. Those who are
in positions of responsibility should behave like patriots.
What is
your religious background? Are you an atheist, a traditional practitioner or a
Christian?
I am a Christian. I was born into the Presbyterian
Church and I was baptised there. I am a Presbyterian Christian to the
core but I am open minded. I have read the Koran. I have read a bit of Eastern
writings, read a bit about Yoga, a bit of Confucianism but more to widen up and
see how other people look at it. I also strongly believe that God is there.
There
is this tendency for religions to constantly be subjected to divisions on
purely human ideological considerations. This has been observed in the Christendom
and in the Islamic world. Are
you also part of that modern Christian movement that is trying to reunite the
body of Christ?
There is only one God. I
would just take us to the story of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant. The man
who held the tusk gave his definition of the elephant. The man who held the
tail gave his own definition of the elephant. That’s exactly the same way
people have been looking at God. People who have done detailed studies in
religion irrespective of their religious shades talk easily when they meet and
radiate from the same plane. The simple man who doesn’t even know what he is
after goes fighting left and right. They keep chasing the feathers and leaving
the chicken. God is one. It doesn’t matter where you come from if truly you
believe and you are serving God you will always identify with any other person
who is truly serving God. The same fanaticism we have today the Christendom is
the same fanaticism that is found in the Muslim world. At the end of the day,
all these divisions are not to serve God but to serve man. Anybody who serves
God cannot divide in the name of God. It is more of man’s attempt to glorify
himself rather than God. That’s my stand point. Children of God move together
and not in separate ways. Christianity hasn’t got two definitions but one and
no Christian Church should claim to be better than the other for this is
tantamount to missing the point completely.
As long as man lives,
division will always be there because while many are placing God there, or the effigy
of Christ hanging on the cross all the people sitting in that church are not
there for Christ. People come to church for different reasons. Some come to
occupy positions to deep their hands into the offering basket. Others come to
use the Church as a stepping stone for political gains. As long as man puts his
own Agenda before God’s it will not work. Definitely, Ecumenism is the only way
out but we will need the real ecumenists.
As
a people with a cultural identity don’t you think much still has to be done
considering the fact that many misconstrue culture and misrepresent it to be
anti-religious?
A man without culture is
like a man without a soul and if many Cameroonians are a bit lost today it’s
because they let go their main source of being which is their culture. There is
no way a man can function better in a borrowed culture than in his own. Culture
is our language, our food and the way we dress. Because of the Language we
think in a particular way. If you don’t have those things then I don’t see how
you can really move forward without a cultural base. I am a Christian but when
it comes to dancing the Mbagulum I
dance very well and play the instruments. I interact when cultural activities
are involved. In an occasion in the UK a party was organised and the Phillipino,
Malaysians, Indians all came in their traditional attires and room was given to
them to exhibit their various cultures. They did it in dance and many other
ways. Today the whole world is going to China because of Chinese Medicine. Any
person who says culture is backward should do a rethink.
Some of the so called men of God refer to our Traditional
practices as heathenism. They are castigating our culture which is wrong. I saw
a film from one of the tribes in the Northwest in which there is a traditional
house of worship where everybody sat and worshipped in. Nothing evil enters
inside that house. That was a traditional church because it is good intentioned
and for the protection of people and is doing just that. God is there. They are
using just one channel like the Buddhist are using their own channel. Human
Culture is universal and God influences our consciousness.
As
a social being, who is Sam Mbigha?
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