Bate Besong: Sample Tributes from the Literary World

Olabisi Gwamna (Professor of of Communications, Iowa Wesleyan College, Mount Pleasant (USA)

"I used to call him Okigbo’s nephew, and he would laugh, his eyes twinkling through his glasses. Bate Besong was my colleague in the Masters program in the 80’s at the University of Ibadan’s English Department. Even then, more than twenty years ago, Bate’s creativity was unrivaled in the area of poetry, and his excellence sparkled through the twenty eight odd essays those professors made us write."

He explained abstract terminologies encountered in Izevbaye and Okpewho’s lectures in very user-friendly terms, and those of us in that group (which included Jide Ogungbade, Remy Oriaku, Modupe Olaogun and Chinyere Nwahunanya) respected Bate’s powerful and trance-like renditions of some of his then unpublished poems. Not only Cameroon, but the whole of Africa will miss the genius of this sharp witted, humorous alum of good old UI.

May his soul rest in perfect peace.

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Bate Besong gone? Really gone? God! It's such a sad sad sad day for us all, especially for those of us who were his contemporaries at the University of Calabar.This is too much subtraction from the literary community, from the African critical voice. This is impossible!
God...!

Joseph Ushie, Lecturer
Department of English, Faculty of Arts
University of Uyo, Uyo
Uyo, Akwa Ibom, Nigeria

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This news is too heavy! Bate sent me a copy of his last collection of poems and I was always going to write about it and let him know what a wonderful job he was doing. Alas, I am now properly punished. Death has stopped for me.

Nana Wilson-Tagoe
Senior Literature Lecturer,
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

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Although I did not have the privilege of knowing him personally, I am saddened indeed by this tragic loss of a leading literary figure and much-loved personality, as well as of the others with  him, do please convey my heartfelt sympathy to the family, friends, and colleagues.

Professor Ruth Finnegan FBA
Faculty of Social Sciences
The Open University
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA (UK)

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I join the literary and scholarly community in mourning the untimely death of Bate Besong. It is a great loss for his family, for Cameroun, and for all of us. May his family (especially) find solace, and may his soul rest in peace. I wish the same for the families and souls of those who died with him.

Oyekan Owomoyela
Ryan Professor of African Literature
Department of English
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (USA)

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[Bate Besong] was part of the great post-independence intellectual scene in Cameroon for 40 years, knew and spoke with most of the African cultural and intellectual world in west and central Africa. At the least, he was a great inspiration to his students, and the most faithful of warrior to the radical beliefs that generated African independence. And that's a lot to say for someone who lived, as an insurrectionist, under Ahidjo and Biya.

His car was struck by a timber truck at night near Edea. This is the bitter irony: the deforestation of Cameroon takes place, to a large extent, surreptitiously, with trucks filling that road from Yaounde to Douala, at night, making it so dangerous that the American embassy forbids its personnel from driving it at night. Bate would have had his piece to say about that corner of globalization. I ask that we remember him for his courage and inspiration.

Kenneth W. Harrow
Professor of English
Michigan State University

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This is truly sad news that you bring. I never met Besong but I shared the Association of Nigerian Authors' Drama Prize with him in 1992. My deepest condolences to his family and to the families of all the others that died with him.

Isidore Diala

Comments

[Christmas Ebini]

PRAYER AND TRIBUTE TELE-CONFERENCE FOR BATE BESONG, HILARIOUS AMBE, KWANSEN NGWAGWA AND TABE AWOH

We are all still in great shock following the tragic death of our friends and brothers: Dr. Bate Besong, Dr. Hilarious Ambe, Mr. Kwansen Ngwanagwa, and Tabe Awoh. We are mourning them and expressing our shock in different ways. Some are shouting, some are writing, some are just in silent shock etc. etc. The passing of these gentlemen has touched our collective psyche. Many of us are very broken and down. But we must pull ourselves together and include God during our mourning period. We must start taking comfort in the rich memories of these men and what they left of themselves for us and generations to come during their very brief sojourn with us.

To this effect, a Prayer and Tribute Tele-conference will be organized to the honor and memories of Bate Besong, Hilarious Ambe, Kwansen Ngwangwa and Tabe Awoh. This tele-conference will give an opportunity for Cameroonians from all over the world to pray together and collectively ask God to accept the souls of our brothers and grant them eternal rest. It will also be an opportunity for us to thank God for everything: their lives with us, their great works, their families, our own lives, etc. Given the fact that BB was a Boban (like myself), I will contact the Bobans and the UB Alumni Association to help with this Prayer and Tribute Teleconference. I am also calling on all the professional servants of God reading this message to contact me so they can be included in this prayer session.

I know there are people in Cameroon who may want to take part in this conference and it is obvious that they may face the difficulties of expensive cost for their phone minutes. I am requesting that those of us in the USA should volunteer to sponsor at least one person in Cameroon who wants to take part in the teleconference. All it may take is getting a $5 or $10 calling card and connecting them. The dial-in number, date and time of the conference will be made available as soon as I finish arrangement with Boba-USA, UBAA and get a head count of the men and women of God who will be available to participate.

Please note that the tele-conference will be taped and the recording donated to the University of Buea Library.

My condolences to the families of the departed, UB family, CRTV family, the University of Yaounde family and all of us who knew these gentlemen in different/various settings/capacities.

Christmas Ebini
broken

[Christmas Atem Ebini]

AN OPEN LETTER TO BATE BESONG

By Christmas Atem Ebini

Brother B.B., I think the time is ripe for our minds to commune and to flow in intensification of the long and hard fought struggle to chase those iguanas out of town.
B.B., although we have never physically met (though some efforts were made, in vain, by such brothers like Ngwane George, Wamje Christian etc) I can’t help feeling like we’ve lived together minute by minute, day by day, week by week and year by year for a whole century. You see B.B., when you query an ostentatious iguana with Mejame Njikang being the “who”, I understand perfectly well what you mean. Brother Mejame Njikang should sleep him in peace, for the struggle is not his and not even directed at him, for he started out not understanding anything at all and we cannot terribly blame him for that. He is just a victim of a heavy dose of hypnoses from witch doctors. One thing Mejame Njikang achieved is: he was successfully turned the beautiful names he inherited from his lovely parents into code words for a deadly plague.

The virus has eaten deep into the Mejames (forgive me brother, I am not referring to your person but using the opportunity you have provided us to use those two names as code to gain access to something entirely different) so much that the doctors and scientists who must look for cure, are more of the sufferers than the afflicted.

Imagine B.B. that it started from this angle. There is a road now connecting Ekondo Titi to Mundemba. This road was not in the past and traveling in this area was at the dubious benevolence of this blood sucking imperialist whiteman corporation. They could do and undo in the area- like the colonial mess we had and are still going through. You must have heard ofcourse of PAMOL, the bull talks of liquidation. Liquidation in Cameroon means getting a white fellow who would earn millions a month, reducing the pay or laying off of Cameroonian workers, getting a tax break and buying all the expensive modern cars for top executives. Liquidation is becoming a very lucrative business between our unpatriotic leaders and their “refusing to pack their bags” colonial friends.

Then they spoilt the roads with their heavy trucks, not respecting the rain gates. Well we spoke out and we were told by our CPDM “de la Republique” “boots licking” boss that we were not custodians of government’s property. Immediately he dispatched a “good citizen” report against us to his ever waiting to get the “boat rockers” in the capital and he was rewarded for a job well done with a transfer to the OPEC city and we were left with warning letters the ministers for non-respect of hierarchy. Yes, then later we were picked up and we had spent two long weeks, sleeping on bare dirty floors for writing “view points” and which of course later gave birth to “Partners in Prison”.

Things should be clear by now; it is a simple case of “love that never was”. We however predicted “Echoes of Glory” and they told us never in the history of this country. Well we said we shall see and we are seeing. It is a do or die situation now; there is no turning back. Anyway: “View Point” was about the Education Minister’s visit to Mundemba. We were forced to pay 50.000 frs. Cfa each. The language and the approach were authoritative and rude. I told them I won’t pay if they thought they could use such language to tax citizens. I did not pay. The Minister came and went. We got together and wrote “View Point”, a critical analysis of the visit. Our boss again found an occasion to earn some points with the sacrificial lambs. The CPDM administration felt insulted and we had to pay for that. Not long from that came May 26 1990 and pilgrims were pushing down the ugly heavy gates of slavery and opening that ones that led to sweet beautiful path of Freedom, Liberty, Justice and Progress.

Here we are today B.B. We talk of the anglo-phone issue, we talk of the Foumban mess and make arrangements to revisit and correct it. We can tell the CPDM to prepare to go chop…… and we mean it.

It was the turn of the delegate who came to install my new boss. He pretended to make an open working session. I asked him an honest question and he later talked to my boss that he felt insulted for me asking him a question in public. He is still thinking of what to do to me. For all I care, I am waiting for punitive transfer just like the one of my patriotic, outspoken and partner in prison friend, had.

I cannot even teach my students objectively, because certain things I say are judged subversive to the CPDM. Here is a point in case: I set the following question in one of my GCE mock exams: “A country X is ruled by a single political party system. Some citizens say the one party system is not a good system for economic growth of the country. They say without an opposition party the country’s social, economic, ethnic and ethical problems would not be solved. The government of the one party system says the country is not yet ready for an open political system with an opposition. Economically argue for and against the two schools of thought. What are some of the advantages of both systems? Speak freely and openly”.

For this and other things, I got a 13 page letter from my boss with copies sent to the presidency and the ministries, police, delegate, governor, local administrations etc. I was accused for teaching “political economics” and that the government made a mistake in employing me, for if they knew I was going to be against them they would not have employed……………………………………………………………………

(Note: this is a short version of the open letter to BB that I wrote in 1990 while I was head of the economics department at GHS Mundemba. BB has left us too soon and just when we still have so much work to be done. This letter was first published in THE STAR under FRANK TALK

[Andong Akofu]

Actually the events of that dreadful day sent shocks of waves into my spine. Bate Besong, the literary critic, who rode the fiery blazing chariot of societal ills in form of contemporary literature that set the perpetrators of our present regimes most abominable acts into a state of panic and anguish like a disilussioned and poorly equiped medieval army.
And to think that BB has made his last journey with his bossom friend and son, his academic protege Dr Ambe Hilarious heightens Disillusionment. Atleast the son would have stayed on earth, to educate more people on the Besongisms. Does this mean that BB left no trail to continue on his philosophies and literary ideas?
I think the answer lies in the hearts of those thousands of students who have been privileged to be thought by another Africa's Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, or Ngugi Wa Thiongo. If his words actually did stimulate the mind and called for a change, then his legacy must be kept aglow. It is disheartening to think that the Cameroon Anglophone literary village has lost a baobab and an Iroko at the time when literary awareness is on the rise. A genuine intellectual campaign which began with Fonlons ABBIA, then slumbered as a result of the overbearing attitude of the French speaking Cameroonians.
BB your passing away reminds me of Shakespeares extract from Macbeth.
"Out Out Brief Candle
Life's but a walking shadow
A poor player on stage that struts and frets upon the hour..."
You have gone ahed of us but your legacy would forever remain as a source of our inspiration. Dr Ambe, it is sad to think that you went away so fast with your mentor. If the concept of life was fairly proportionate, then it meant you would have had another life after BB to effectively sow your collective wisdom here on earth.
But we are mortals and so cannot question the gods. Maybe you have been called up to other duties of profane literature in the Celestial Academy.

[Ben Jua]

Denial seems to be a natural reaction in the face of news like this. But alas, consciousness still trumps this. Yes BB, short your stay here was. But you leave a large foot print that even time would not erase. Future generations would come to know you just as you knew other literary giants that you never met. This is what mortality is all about. And so in the words of the hymn we can also ask: death where is thy victory where is thy sting?
Thanks for teaching us an invaluable lesson-- that one's inheritance should inherit him!
Thanks for participating in a conversation though understanding your contribution calls for epistemic resources that some of us do not possess. In other words, thanks for raising the bar and unsettling our understanding of truth, thereby preempting it to ossify into dogma.
for now rest comrade, knowing that you fought a good fight. Yes this is the very essence of Requiescat in pace.

[Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta]

Why BB and the entire literary family on the same day? BB's brief legacy left an indelible mark on the sands of time. I now remember with nostalgia, the staging of his Beasts of No Nation when some of the top scarecrows of the kakistocracy in Yaounde unable to bear his unmasking of their deeds sauntered out of the hall in conscientious DISGRACE.It is just unbearbale to know you have gone with several others like a King. I hope you all go to sit at the right hand of God's literary table but we shall deeply miss all of you. May their souls rest in peace. Ngambouk

[Christmas Ebini]

ON MY DYING: A POEM BATE BESONG WOULD WRITE NOW

I leave you
With no regrets
As I see the porter
Of the beautiful gates
A broad smile
On his face
With a bunch of keys
In his broad hands

He is getting ready
To open the bright gate
As I stand looking
Wondering my new fate

Then he looks at me
A look of invitation
This way he says
Through this gate of life
The saints are waiting
On my early coming
And everything is set
For my new christening.

As I leave you
Weep not my departure
For I filled my page
Of the struggle for justice

As I leave you today
Just as I came yesterday
With nothing to leave behind
But the footprints of a struggle

I see those who left earlier
Curious to know how you are
If injustice still exists
As they left behind

I tell them of your struggle
Against the strong forces of evil
That manufacture fear and hate
Against you and your children

As you stay lively behind
Do not give in to the devil
For his forces were long destroyed
Though he pretends to intimidate

Keep on the good fight
For sweet justice and freedom
Till the day your time comes
To join me to fight no more

[wirsiy mary ophilia kemjei]

B.B as we fondly called him in the English world of the University of Buea was a treasure. he was more of a father than a teacher. With him around we knew all was fine. who will listen to our problems when no one seems to do so? who will make us aware of the political stae ot the country? Who will will make us laugh? The questions are unending because Dr. Bate Besong was and is a Dad. May You rest in Peace.

[Oyeniyi Okunoye]

Bate Bisong,
Bate Bisong's contribution was always a significant addition to any discourse, not because he would agree with existing positions but because he had his way of disagreeing and making you see other possibilities of perceiving reality. We all miss him and the passion he displayed for the causes he stood for.Cameroon lost a major voice with his death.His memory should inspire others to stand for the cause he defended.