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Written in simple and straightforward language, Environmental Problems in the Bakossi Landscape is a practical handbook of knowledge and skills needed to be more efficient in sensitising and taking practical steps to address environmental problems. Although the handbook focuses on the seven environmental problems of the Bakossi Landscape, its depth and breadth of analysis and the deliberate attempt at not making it too site-specific in the discussion of the problems makes it equally useful for Environmental Clubs of schools in other areas, as well as other community educators interested in environmental issues or environmental education. The ultimate aim of the book is in assisting all and sundry make the world a better place by being more sensitive to the needs, sensibilities and sensitivities of the environment.

The story of how the poems in this collection survived an inferno at the University of Ibadan will have to be told someday in a full-bodied narrative. Mostly written by 1995, the poems constitute an emotional biography, or a loose personal chronicle of events and contemplations occurring in a particularly fiery period in the author's life. Often the products of extreme inner excoriations, they remain germane to a reading of his subsequent philosophical transitions and current commitments. The reader of Shadrach and Other Poems will readily detect, and enjoy, the springs from which the themes of the verses flow from candid intimate reflections that underscore their authenticity to specifically public and numinous encounters that suggest the boundlessness of their source. The Shadrach idea - a telling image of trial - is the poet's choice of a redeeming metaphor that indicates the triumph of the human spirit over temporal setbacks and its indictment of forces falsely proclaiming their permanence. In this way, Oka Obono reminds us that humour, gravity and imagination are indispensable to us as we make peace with chance and providence in an uncertain world. He throws open the experience of a convoluted journey, and invites us to recollect our own histories within its subterranean passages. This is the charm of these poems. The material will resonate with readers who have been in varying kinds of 'ontological crucibles'. They will endorse the redemption waiting at the end of every tunnel - even if that came through the 'labyrinth of a promised furnace'.

This is the story of two Cameroonian asylum seekers desperately seeking a foothold in Germany. Baco and Stoney go to a night club. They meet Tina, a German lady. Baco dances with her and they exchange telephone numbers. Days later, Baco and Tina catch up with each other. Love and opportunism are in the air. Who is pretending and who is genuine? Will Stoney who proposes marriage to Margeret, another German lady, be an ideal husband? Where does Nicoline, the girl from Cameroon, fit in the jigsaw of love and pretence? Who is who and what is what in this thriller? Find out for yourself.

This is the fascinating story of a young girl from a very poor family who raised her head high and raised the dignity of women through her own personal and determined effort. She did not yield to the victimizations of corrupt minds, nor to the temptations of apathy and pessimistic thinking; rather she saw everything optimistically and through many hardships achieved her lifeís ambitions.

This novel re-visions history through narrative fiction: the history of his people that has long been silenced and distorted as a colonial strategy, the history of an African community at the crossroads. Asobo-Ntsi, the stubborn yet proud Fon of Nyen, is faced with some challenges amongst which are: his seven- and nine-man council that is not happy with his dictatorship and tax laws, a disgruntled quarter that attempts to secede, and also, the encroaching colonialist, Nwuoupang, with his church and administration. How Asobo-Ntsi handles these challenges is expressed powerfully and movingly with great narrative artistry that absorbs the reader and keeps him/her enthralled to the end.

L'Evadé de K... derives from a true story. The story begins with a flash back showing the hero in jail. Cegalo, an adolescent, lives in a difficult family. His father is a kind of headsman unable to educate his son. He strongly believes in the virtue of violence as a means of educating. The son ends up in delinquency. Robbery of tourists, especially white men is his favourite activity. After a hold-up, he is arrested and kept in custody. Unable to control him, the prison authorities decide to send him to the famous Prison of K...This prison is the most secure of the country and nobody has ever escaped from it. In order to survive, many prisoners are condemned to eat all that they can find, even mice. The law in that jungle is "kill before you are killed". During a nightmare, his late grandmother appears and orders him to return to his village. It's the beginning of a fantastic and dreadful adventure. He decides to escape from the Prison of K... He succeeds and after covering 300 km on foot, disguised as a mad man to avoid policemen. His aim is quite simple. He wants to return to jail in order to be judged normally, according to the new penal procedure code in force. He kidnaps the Senior Divisional Officer, the Attorney at law and the prison chief and returns to the cell. After the judgement, he is set free. He reconciles with his parents and above all finds Rosy, his childhood love.

In beautifully constructed verse, JK Bannavti's Leopard Watch tells the story of a Fon who out of greed and veiled impiety devastates the land over which he rules. The Fon, The King of Bamkov is in a perpetual state of slumber while an illusive beast drives terror into the heart of the kingdom, killing children as well as cattle. Neither the cries of the people nor pressure from the notables seems to have any effect on him. The population of the clan diminishes daily while the Fon sleeps, snores, and drools in the day, and growls, chews, and laps in the night. When finally the notables join the youth vigilante group to hunt down the beast, they come face to face with the devourer who narrowly escapes. A day later, one of the notables, Gwei, in a drunken state encounters and kills the leopard at night as he returns from the market. Amidst jubilation and in honor of Gwei the Fon collapses off his horse and dies. His carcass lies in the same state as that of the dead leopard.

Contemporary Bali Nyonga is a rapidly growing town of over 80,000 in habitants, sixteen kilometres southwest of Bamenda, the capital of the North West region, Cameroon. If Cameroon has been aptly referred to in many circles as Africa in miniature, then Bali Nyonga, since its founding in the mid 19th century is emblematic of this so-called 'multicultural' region. This book is about change in Bali Nyonga, but it is also about change in a typical postcolonial African setting grappling with a challenging new world reality. It aims to provide cutting-edge analyses of cultural change in Bali as well as inspire a new kind of scholarship in the Cameroon Grasslands - championed by indigenous intellectuals. The contributors to this volume come from diverse academic backgrounds and as will be evident in the various chapters, their disciplinary perspectives have largely shaped their approaches to the topics under study. Hence, this book draws on anthropological, theological, literary and media studies perspective.

Life in Safang could not have been more idyllic for Ngoma and Shaka, his elder sister. Under the wings of an attendant and storytelling mother, they didn't miss the father they hadn't known. Later on, in the alluvial valleys of Bonfuma and the lands beyond, Ngoma experiences the thrills and challenges of schooling and being schooled. Adolescents will appreciate his stories and struggles as he tries to reconcile his village roots with the desire for a modern education. He has special relationships with his grandfather, stepfather and teachers, and becomes captain of the college football team. But growing up with a sister does not make him understand the subtleties and complexities of girls. Whether Collette or Camille, they seem to be two sides of the same coin. Ngoma successfully manoeuvres between the two, without the slightest crisis, for a while. He seeks balance between God and girls, work and pleasure, learning and mischief. While life can be well salted, it can also be bitter. Jealousy rises and he discovers who matters and who doesn't. His life brings together the bearableness and unbearableness of belonging, of being in love and being free, of...

In this juvenalia, his first collection of poems, Francis Nyamnjoh takes the reader back in time, even as the past catches up with the present, to show how unchanging and even painful life can be. Accordingly, the poems celebrate, mourn, ridicule, lambast, and lament, thereby highlighting Nyamnjoh's characteristic fascination with the plight of the person in society, a picture which reaffirms his already established role as the conscience of spaces, especially those African.

This is an original and innovative study of mobile phones in Africa from a theological perspective. The First and the Second Special Assemblies for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, held in Rome in 1994 and 2009 respectively, made an urgent appeal to the Church in Africa to employ various media forms of social communications for evangelization and the promotion of justice and peace. Evidently, electronic media are now increasingly used for evangelization across Africa. The proliferation of the mobile phone in Africa is a most welcome development to this end. On the basis of a thorough review of the growing literature on the mobile phone and the cultures it inspires, Goliama highlights the ambivalent nature of mobile cultures for the Roman Catholic Church's evangelization mission in Africa. He argues not only for the continued merits of face-to-face communication for the Church's pastoral approach in the African context. He points to how this could be enriched by a creative appropriation of the mobile phone as a tool for theological engagement, in its capacity to shape cultures in ways amenable to the construction of a Cell phone Ecclesiology. Such emergent mobile cultural values include the tendency of mobile users to transcend social divides, to promote social interconnectedness, and to privilege the question 'where are you?'. This informed and well articulated exploration of Cell phone Ecclesiology is thus envisaged to aid the Church in Africa to wrestle more effectively with challenges that diminish human life and promote instead qualities that are life-affirming to all categories of people in the Church and society.

Laughing Store is just what we need in times of troubles and uncertainties such as these. A book of humour from an acclaimed master of laughter, it lifts our hearts and raises our spirits. Jokes that touch about every domain of existence - from sex to religion, from births to deaths, from politics to the beer parlour, from the courtroom to the hospital. And most important of all, conceived in the supremely original Cameroonian flavour of jokes.

This book was first published as a two-part essay in 1965 and 1967 in ABBIA - Cameroon Cultural Review - under the title 'Idea of Culture'. Its main argument is that indigenous Africans cultures must be the foundation on which the modern African cultural structure should be raised; the soil into which the new seed should be sown; the stem into which the new scion should be grafted; the sap that should enliven the entire organism. This culture, the object of imperialist mockery and rejected, needs rehabilitation. However, such rehabilitation of African culture cannot be a mere archaeological enterprise. It will not answer to dig up the past and live it as it was. Not only is African culture not without its imperfections, times change and African culture must adapt itself, at every turn, to the changing times. In restoring African culture, it is imperative to steer clear of two extremes: on the one hand, the imperialist arrogance which declared everything African as only fit for the scrap-heap and the dust-bin, and, on the other hand, the overly enthusiastic and rather naive tendency to laud every aspect of African culture as if it were the quintessence of human achievement.

Poet Mbuh Tennu Mbuh is a lecturer in the English Department, University of YaoundÈ I. A pioneer member of the Anglophone Cameroon Writers Association (ACWA) and a Fulbright and Commonwealth Scholar, Tennu holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham. He is author of a novel, In the Shadow of My Country.

This volume, from an Africa perspective, examines the relationship between ethnicity and citizenship within the framework of nation-state. Its objective and scope engage relational aspects of political integration, awaken public conscience, and motivate civic engagement. It provides a platform that could be considered prerequisite for political transformation. Such a framework is indispensable not only for challenging the politics of exclusion and marginalization, but also for reconstructing fractured social relationships. The test of its validity and relevancy is not whether it accounts for particular traditions, but whether it provides a framework through which we can comprehend the dynamics of ethnic identities as an avenue for promoting participatory governance and democratic accountability. An interdisciplinary study of this kind brings forth practical and theoretical contributions to the evolving concepts of ethnicity and citizenship.

Shadows, as the title insinuates, splits open and lays bare the frightening vision of humanity, the heart of man depressed, a veritable inferno in which there is little to be enjoyed and everything to be endured, as all is vanity, a gnawing emptiness. Nothing is but what it seems. Simple but without being simplistic, there is in the damp climate of Doh's poetry broken promises, displaced emotional centres, a pervading sense of doom, of impending disaster, and a total helplessness reminiscent of Plato's proverbial mythical cave in which all reality is but shadow, devoid of substance, with the observer chained to the walls of his feelings, beliefs, and unfulfilled ambitions. The second section, 'Celebration', is, however, a source of warmth, of light, the sun's rays in an otherwise damp and and dark collection.

This collection of poems spans a wide range of themes and subjects, including culture, politics, socio-economics, environment, and human rights. The poems are a reflection of Ekpe Inyang's close contact with and passionate observation of society, as well as his generous sharing of life experiences and personal philosophy. Ekpe's poetic journey started in 1992, and some of the poems in this collection have been published in national and internal newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and journals.

Sing Love 101 a collection of 101 love poems in which this wordsmith worth his words brings together the good, the bad and the ugly of human love experiences. The poems are glossed with the simplicity of a sweet gentle breeze that caresses the reader's heart like that blowing across his childhood rice fields in the summer. The poet highlights 'Love' as 'the Dream' none should let die.

Since the mid-1980s, there has been much federalism talk in Cameroon where federation (said to have been created in Foumban in 1961) had supposedly been 'overwhelmingly' rejected in 1972 by Cameroonians. 'Confusioncracy' is the one good term that could conveniently explain it. Written with the trilogy of criticism, provocation, and construction in mind, this book aims at reconstructing a new and vigorous society in Cameroon that ensures respect for fundamental human rights and certain basic shared values. Much as the book centres on the Anglophone Problem; it is principally about human rights and their excessive violations - the direct result of the absence of separation of powers and constitutionalism. It largely condemns Cameroon's government for incessantly singing democracy and rule of law at the same time as it is massively torturing and wantonly killing citizens that dare to question the confusion. While sharing the position that a state like Cameroon must be seen to ensure that its laws and other practices accord with its international commitments, the book nonetheless strives to apportion the blame for Cameroon's human rights catastrophe accordingly; showing how the English-speaking minority itself, generally speaking, contributes to a large extent in propping up the dictatorship that is oppressing not only that minority but Cameroonians at large. The book challenges Cameroon to assume a leadership role in uniting Africans through meaningful federalization rather than further splitting them into incapable mini-states on the challenging world stage.

In this carefully thought-through anthology, Bole Butake brings Cameroonian poets of different generations, gender, regions, backgrounds and interests into conversation not only among themselves but more especially with poets from other parts of Africa and the world. This is a testament on the universality of poetry. It is an invitation for those in tune with poetry to reaffirm its magic and to spread the warmth of its embrace in celebration of a common and boundless humanity.