Please Help Me Unravel This Mystery!

Kehbuma Langmia, Ph.D. (Bowie State University)

I have finally had words to express my thoughts on the passing of Dr. Bate Besong, Dr. Hilarious Ambe and Ni Tom Gwangwa'a Kwasen. The death of these literary personalities in their own ways have had a great toll in me and will continue for a long time to come.

From Left to right: Bate Besong, Hilarious Ambe and Kwansen Gwangwa

The seeds of acting and critical evaluation of art, culture and literature were sown on me in CPC Bali by Bate Besong. My very first major appearance on CRTV was when Ni Tom Gwangwa'a directed me to perform like the Fons in the North West while playing the role of Odewale in Ola Rotimi's THE GODS ARE NOT TO BLAME. I stayed with Dr. Hilarious  Ambe on my very first major conference in Bayreuth,Germany in 2000 where I had the privilege to screen my first film "Riding towards the sunset".

So all these three personalities have been instrumental in making me what I am today if at all I am anything. Does it even matter? This is why tears alone cannot heal me. That is why I need your help. I need  you to help me unravel the often quoted and often reapeated phrase " Life is a mystery". If yes what next? If no show me the the key.

Bate Besong writes in his dreams, married with four children; Ni Tom Gwangwa'a produces, directs and teaches TV drama at the Yaounde University, married with four little kids. Hilarious teaches theater and popular culture at Buea university, unmarried,just got his Ph.D two years ago. Tell me what is going to happen with their precipitated departure, certainly not premeditated. Even if it was, was that premeditation meant for their bodies to be dismembered on the road beyond recognition? Please help me unravel this mystery.

The vacumm that these people have left will not be filled anytime soon. Ni Tom was the renowned producer/director of programs at CRTV. Bate Besong remains the only articulate literary voice of anglophone Cameroon. I tremble for our collective destiny in a country that has failed to protect its cultural icons. Just simple road improvements!!!!! I gnash my teeth and rip my heart asunder when intellectuals in our country are not only grieving for their meager salaries but grieving
for the unknown.

Does this validate brain drain? I chuckle and laugh at myself. When will hope for the Cameroonian inteligentia be rekindled? Just back from the country, colleagues, mentors, former students and lonely  professors like Drs. Bole Butake and Babila Mutia lamented the plight of Cameroonian students in this day and age. Now  their talented professors are perishing like the beauty of the
flower that only glows in the morning only to wither at dusk.

I fear for all of us. That is why I need your help. But what kind of help will you give me - A hug? Prayer? Love? - that will make me to unravel the mystery of life? Give me a break. Let me cry internally and externally. Oh yes! Let me have this ceasless nightmares and hallucinations about the passing of my friends and colleagues in the academia until the chicken come to roost.

Dr. Kehbuma Langmia
in dried tears.

Comments

[ydedlaexpress]

How many Ministers and their families need to be causalities and Statistics on the YAOUNDE/DOUALA Highway before CHANGE can occur??
RIP< RIP Dr. Bate Besong, Dr. Hilarious Ambe, Kwasen Gwangwa, and Tabe Awoh have joined the statistics with respect to the number of innocent souls dead along the YDE/DLA road. They will be missed by all who came in contact with them or their continued effort to educate the masses. It is HIGH TIME as we move into the next elections to DEMAND from PAUL BIYA and the TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT wider-lane-roads for our safety as Cameroonians who constantly travel on these busy highways. HEAD ON COLLISION is the number ONE killer on our major highways in Cameroon. Voters need to STEP UP and DEMAND CHANGE for every life counts not just the ones who fly on helicopters named after our great mountains and lakes.
GOD will take good care of these dearly departed, for the meant good to society.

[Agborballa Nkongho]

Words alone cannot describe the shock about the news of your death. I got a call from Peter Elad (Dante) of Greeat Soppo informing me about your death. The reasan he called me was to let me know that my mentor, teacher and role model; the writer as an obasinjom warrior/ political tiger is no more. I could not believe what he told me since a few days ago I was having a conversation with Barrister Taku in Freetown Sierra Leone as to how to assist in the forthcoming book launch since it was impossible because of the nature of our jobs to be in Buea for the launching. Thus, I was taken aback this morning when I got news of your death. When I got the tragic news, I took a walk down memory lane and I could see you teaching us Elechi Amadi's The Concubine with the famous words "Death is a bad reaper, always harvesting the unripe fruits". Your death is a classic example of what Amadi was describing in the Concubine.
BB, you may have gone but your good work will never die. You left a legacy for posterity. As a teacher and mentor you did not only inspire me but other aspiring and ambitious young men and women; Teh Che (RIP), Gwanvalla Francis, Stephen Ojong, JK, Fai Gamal (RIP), Matumbwambo, BB Junior, Bell Emmanuel, Katy Ebot, Fon Erick, Epanty Rene, Canute, Peter Elad alias Dante etc etc. You were a genuine scholar and Intellectual in the Fonlonian sense of the term. Your were a mentor per excellence, a big brother, a teacher and an academic role model. My dream of geting into academia was due to the fact that I had someone like you to look upon as role model.
I will miss the intellectual arguments we use to have at Olivier and Intellectual Spot with the likes of Wache, Ngwane, Kimbeng, Chanoh, TT, Teh Che (RIP), Kikefomo Mbulai, Canute etc etc.
I am trying to reach Barrister Taku and Mr. George Ngwane so that we can think of creating a Bate Besong Society.
Adios il professore,
Rest in Perfect Peace BB

Barrister Nkongho F. AgborBalla
Special Court for Sierra Leone

[bita'a menye jean-hugues]

IT is with grezt sadness that i learned the tragic death of Dr Bate Besongn Dr Hilarious Ambe and Kwasen Gwangwa'a. In a country that is constantly shaken to its very roots, he represented and will as long as we will have the will, the voice of reason, the icon of the real literature that Cameroon will be proud of someday. He was my teacher at the university of and his teachings were always a moment of delight and enlightenment. FOR a man whose joy was to speak to his students and write, he inspired me the art of poetry and the essence of literature. I use to compare him to my late fellow brother Mongo BETI. I ADDRESS TO HIS FAMILY MY CONDOLEANCES. He has become a spirit and i pray his sprit will continue to enlighten and foster all the persons who believe in him. His legacy to us is this country we love and we must fight as he fought.

[Godlove Ngufor]

Surely, man that is born of a woman is but for a few days and full of trouble. He blossoms like a flower then withers away, like a passing shadow he quickly disappears.
I am completely speechless. These were surely pillars in the poetic hall of fame of our nation and beyond. I got acquainted with this accomplished artist through my sister, Emelda Samba nee Ngufor and even had the privilege of acting with Dr. Hilarious Ambe in Bayreuth, Germany a couple of years ago in an African theater workshop. This is a great loss to our nation, but more so, to their families. May God sustain and strengthen them in this our of pain. Secret things belong to God.

[Fru Eric]

At times one get confuse in life not knowing where he is going.There are moments that one turn to ask so many questions about life.
Presently,i am really speechless,i am unable to cry nor to laugh.
The burden is now very heavy for me to bear.
Where is the world leading us to.Great intellectuals dieing prematuraly.
Great men disappearing like ice exposed to the sun light.
BB,a legent of our time.
There is nothing we can do,that really is the ugliest part of life.
We have to accept the things we can not change.There is one thing in life that we are not certain about.That is when death will come.
My sincere condolence to UB to entire family members of the deceased.
Take heart,for such is life.Only God knows why.

[CHIY ERNEST D.]

WELL,DR.BATE BESONG WAS A GOOD MAN BUT AS THE SAYING GOES GOOD THINGS NEVER LAST,WE CAN NOW SEE IT ALL.AS FOR DR HILARIOUS AMBE ,YOU WERE A CHILD TO DR BESONG , I BY THIS SAY THAT YOU ARE ALL MATHYRS OF THIS GENERATION .BUT WHILE GOING PLEASE KNOW THAT U HAVE LEFT A VACUUM THAT WILL BE HARD TO FILL IN THIS OUR COUNTRY.PLEASE MAY THE ANCESTORS OF THIS COUNTRY ACCEPT U IN THIER LAND WITH PEACE,DO REMEMBER TO SEND US MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE POEPLE TO CONTINUE WHERE U ENDED.......................................
ADIEU ADIEU