Prof Dorothy Njeuma says UB’s Anglo-Saxon status is being forgotten

As Cameroon’s first Anglo-Saxon university prepares to celebrate its 30th anniversary this week, the institution’s pioneer Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dorothy Limunga Njeuma, believes its Anglo-Saxon origins should not be forgotten.

The 30th anniversary of the University of Buea will be celebrated on campus this May 25-27 under the them: “University of Buea: Impacting the future together through innovative solutions”.

Prof Njeuma, who is now on retirement, traces the institution’s Anglo-Saxon origins in a documentary the University released recently.

She says President Paul Biya transformed the Buea University Centre into a full-time university in a 1992 decree following intense agitations by English-speaking Cameroonians on the need for an Anglo-Saxon university.

“The University of Buea grew out of a very loud agitation for an institution of tertiary education that could be a continuation of what English-speaking students had at primary and secondary levels. That was in 1991 at the University of Yaounde at the time where English-speaking students were agitating for a university that will better suit their background.

“And the strikes became so agitated that the President of the Republic, President Paul Biya, as a solution, signed the decree in February 1992 to transform the University centres of Buea and Ngoundere into universities. The University of Buea was to be styled in the English-speaking tradition and the University of Ngoundere in the French-speaking tradition. Many people have forgotten that. And the decree of 1992 has been shelved to the background. So we see many texts now on university activities without mention of that decree,” Prof Njeuma said.

Having trained tens of thousands of Cameroonians, the University of Buea remained Cameroon’s only Anglo-Saxon university until 2010, when the University of Bamenda was created.

Debates about UB’s Anglo-Saxon status being depleted surfaced in 2021 after elites of Akonolinga Subdivision in the Centre Region met with the institution’s current Vice Chancellor asking for an extension of UB’s education and research activities to the community.

Sensing that this request meant the creation of an annex campus of UB in a French speaking area, Chiefs of the Southwest Region resisted the suggestion in a release, fearing it will defeat UB’s Anglo-Saxon status.