OPINION: Today’s events at GBHS Etoug-Ebe reveal the brokenness of our Country

By Hans Ngala

As a new week began today, most Cameroonians woke up early enough to start their day, but strangely, some students (who should be the most time-conscious people) for whatever reasons, came late to school at Government Bilingual High School (GBHS) Etoug-Ebe in Yaounde.

Their no-nonsense principal had implemented a tough policy: any late-comers who arrive after morning assembly won’t be allowed on campus.

Today January 22, she implemented the policy, in a bid to instill discipline in the young learners, but they were having none of it. They and their parents, along with some of their parents (according to information reaching CNA), pushed open the gates and in the ensuing stampede, several students were injured. Other sources claimed that some students had died.

The Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) for the area, showed up shortly afterwards and announced that there had been no fatalities, and with the hysteria surrounding the case, it is difficult to confirm whether any student has indeed died.

A source who spoke to CNA said she could confirm a death because her neighbor’s child died. In the midst of the flurry of information, it is very difficult to verify the facts.

However, I believe that school campuses are places of learning and decorum. Places where morals and discipline must be demonstrated in the utmost fashion. One of the ways this discipline is supposed to be manifested, is for students to show up to school on time. There is no denying that some students have to walk long distances to school, others even when they take taxis or bikes, would be unavoidably delayed by the chaotic traffic of Yaounde and wind up late but even so, their actions of vandalizing their principal’s car, are inexcusable.

Cameroonian journalist and scholar, Ashu Nyenty, laments on the events at Etoug-Ebe, stating:

“The level of moral decadence and break down in  discipline in our school system has reached  stratospheric levels.

This is partly because we think of discipline in terms of Western models. It is true, because some teachers nowadays, easily lose their sangfroid (or calm). Encouraging corporal  punishment may lead to fatal consequences, but students in our Cameroonian schools must be punished in one way or another for discipline to be instilled”.

Nyenty goes further to lament the lack of trust between ordinary Cameroonians and their leaders:

“The moral gravity and truthfulness level in society has so eroded and edged that nobody believes anybody anymore. The SDO tells the students that there were no deaths, but the students don’t believe him. The SDO is forced to say “I AM NOT LYING”. What a sight. Here I don’t blame only the students. Our attitude in society has corrupted these students. Social social media sites had even announced as many as 20 deaths. What a calamity. The question is: were they there or was it just hearsay? Do the authors of such alarming posts know the dangers their unsubstantiated stories could represent to parents of students in that school and to the society at large?”

While it is understandable why the authorities would quickly rush to try and contain the situation and prevent it from becoming Cameroon’s Arab Spring moment, it is not difficult to see that the country is teetering on a dangerous precipice.

President Biya in his December 2023 address to the nation, promised a hike in fuel prices, unemployement rates remain high and there is a general discontent with the status quo in Cameroon, which would explain why ordinary people such as commercial bike riders and others who are not students at Etoug-Ebe, were willing to join the students in their demand to enter the campus – in defiance of the school’s principal.

Some have said that those wishing the state ill, are not patriotic Cameroonians, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It is possible to condemn the actions of the students, rather than try to justify them just to please a few people in Yaounde. And it is also possible to ask what the school’s authorities could have done differently. The fact that other students admit that majority of the students were still outside when the gates were closed at the time they ought to be closed, means that the blame can hardly fall on the principal when students clearly failed to keep to time.

The incident also exposed the degradation of moral values in our public schools. If children can descend to such levels as to pelt police officers who were called in to restore order, then it means they ought to be punished. There is no excuse for such behaviour. Tomorrow these same vandals would be leaders and with such behaviour, Heaven knows the kind of leadership they will mete out.

That said, Cameroon has a lot of work to do in fixing the public education system, creating jobs, building confidence in its population and each one of us as Cameroonians must be accountable to the law, not just the weak.

Read also:Stampede at GBHS Etoug-ebe: 21 students injured, SDO promises hell on vandals