Appointments at UB

By Bate Besong

Unlike the Secretary General of the Academic Staff Union, the francophone Professor, Innocent Futcha, who turned down the irresistible Recteur’s political bribe at the University of Yaounde 1, the entire executive of SYNES Buea chapter; in their blind, self-deceitful ambition, collaborated, in their own irrelevance.

Silence, submission and collaboration have become the order of the day!

APPOINTMENTS AT UB
(For Innocent Futcha, Secrétaire General, Syndicat National des Enseignants du Supérieur, SYNES)

            i

These prisoners who have now

become numbers

in the Gaullist galley

system Where Good is Bad &

Bad is Good.

I speak of yesterday’s undesirable

lecturers, whose

rheumy psyche still

bear the scars of occult-

Cannibalism

in an academy constructed

on the muzzling

of dissident voices;

Where the sword and

the bullet hold unmitigated

sway

and the dead heros of the

Uprising

their memory ulcerated

by the preposterous

fiction of the Abouem à Tchoyi

Commission.

ii

I mourn student-martyrs

whose live-burial

was foetus

for the cemetery-

psychology of a

tricky Wonganga

tongue.

So that we may now

all rise against the

zoologist – assassin

with her predatory

Stupidity

With the most

Sulphurous phrases, write:

Unparallel monster, la terreur!

            iii

Materialistic pursuits

Govern the lives

Of yesteryears trade

Union leaders, Whose

Programmed slave

Consciousness has been,

Wrought;

By the madmen

and specialists of home-

guard psychology

A superflux

Of boundless phlegm

In its corrosive

Opprobrium, already

pollutes;

the estuary

of the campus air.

I write

Against freak messiahs, so that

We may all rise

Against their foulest treachery;

Against their raucous greed.

I write of yesterday’s

Campus philosophers, who

Now, lock themselves up in their cells, inside

Their mbag’ alung hives.

They are happier living with the dead.

Material things have only fleeting value.

I write the obituary of yesterday’s

Campus satellites, let there be!

no more discontent

from that morbid refrigerator

whose brahmins are  now:

Dead cormorants off

A kapok tree

The lapiro-refrain of yesteryears, becomes

amplified ten times and more: SILENCE,

SUBMISSION,  COLLABORATION.

Comments

[Ndim Bernard Ngouche]

BB your mouth leaking attitude made for you
Freinds and enemies alike; in every sphere
Your attack on philistinian mannerism
Made your face dreaded by those who knew

Only you could stand on their toes with no
Qualms offering neither apologies nor
Regrets for your actions; for an actor you
Stood and dramatized all your sermons

Even to those who never wanted to hear you
Your words charmed their ears; making them
To rather appraise than nail you for your
Comments that often are offensive to these

Slots whose intention is to boot lick
Throwing away all that is glamorous for
Filth in order to pick up crums from the
Masters table; as if they can't share in

Meal that is equally theirs as equals
March 8th remaians a day gloomy as doomsday
The students were stunned as if Fako had
Errupted throwing down its molten magma

With so much violence down the vallies
Your pen enabled you to fire your greanades
That burned and charred those thieves whose
Bellies had become packed full of stolen

Goods of the commonwealth eaten graffiti
Spurring the eyes of the critic to snap
Pictures that will help heal him in jail
Forcing him to come to his senses only then