Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development

Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development
Author: Tangie Nsoh Fonchingong
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2009
Genre: Cameroon
ISBN: 9956558451

This book deals with the important subject of governance and development. Even more significantly, the book has the merits of critically evaluating the concept of good governance in an African context, identifying the internal factors that impinge on good governance and development, and proposing solutions. It provides empirical evidence on the extent to which inappropriate governing strategies are the main internal obstacle to development in Cameroon. The authors discuss factors contributing to precarious and problematic governance from multidisciplinary perspectives, and demonstrate the extent to which such inadequacies impede positive social change. To promote effective development, the authors argue for the implementation of a good governance strategy that comprises, inter alia: adopting appropriate development strategies; decentralizing administration to make for popular participation and ensure accountability; taking the necessary steps to fight corruption; and ensuring the enforcement of property and cultural rights.

Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development

Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development
Author: Nsoh Fonchingong
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2009-08-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9956715611

This book deals with the important subject of governance and development. Even more significantly, the book has the merits of critically evaluating the concept of good governance in an African context, identifying the internal factors that impinge on good governance and development, and proposing solutions. It provides empirical evidence on the extent to which inappropriate governing strategies are the main internal obstacle to development in Cameroon. The authors discuss factors contributing to precarious and problematic governance from multidisciplinary perspectives, and demonstrate the extent to which such inadequacies impede positive social change. To promote effective development, the authors argue for the implementation of a good governance strategy that comprises, inter alia: adopting appropriate development strategies; decentralizing administration to make for popular participation and ensure accountability; taking the necessary steps to fight corruption; and ensuring the enforcement of property and cultural rights.

Exhumed, Tried and Hanged

Exhumed, Tried and Hanged
Author: Charles Alobwede D'Epie
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2010
Genre: Cameroon
ISBN: 9956616532

Exhumed, Tried and Hanged elucidates the abuse of folk good faith and ignorance by a conceited, ruthless and grasping leadership that sows carnage among the natives of Etambeng, culminating in unprecedented exodus, untold suffering and death of the people in neighbouring villages. Upon the death of the perpetrator the few returnees are made to listen to the gruesome stories of how the aggrieved children of his victims took revenge on his corpse.

A Basket of Flaming Ashes

A Basket of Flaming Ashes
Author: B. Ashuntantang
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2010-07-01
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9956616850

Ashuntantang is an extraordinary weaver of words who showcases vivid pictures that compete with 3D simulation. Her greatest asset is her use of the beautiful traditional Cameroonian anchor that evokes folk tales with its moonlight romance and glory. You feel, laugh, weep, shiver, wonder, and hail the triumphant spirit of the persona as it navigates African postcolonial and global experiences with the melancholy of an exile who is purposeful, strategic, and a lot of fun.

Stranger in his Homeland

Stranger in his Homeland
Author: Linus Asong
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9956716324

Stranger in His Homeland completes the long-awaited trilogy of Linus Asong's fictitious village of Nkokonoko Small Monje, separately treated in The Crown of Thorns and its sequel A Legend of the Dead. However, it leads us back not to events after A Legend of the Dead, but to the crisis that created the passionately exciting The Crown of Thorns. Honest, enthusiastic, arrogant and self-righteous, Antony Nkoaleck, the first graduate of his tribe means well. But his society, entrenched in corruption, sees things differently and therefore judges him according to its own norms. Just one or two errors on Antony's part are enough to cost him his job with the government, the coveted throne of Nkokonoko Small Monje, and finally his life. It is a sad story, strongly reminiscent of Myshkin's fate in Dostoevysky's novel The Idiot, a story in which the Russian novelist vividly shows the inability of any man to bear the burden of moral perfection in an imperfect world.

The Earth Mother

The Earth Mother
Author: Kehbuma Langmia
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 70
Release: 2010
Genre: Bali (African people)
ISBN: 9956616486

"We can only reminisce in this beautiful drama, and hope that while the audience enjoys itself, it is called to sympathize and take a peek at the turbulence that once rocked the peaceful life of a strong traditional society." Lillian Fomunung, University of Tennessee, USA.

Folktales from the Moose of Burkina Faso

Folktales from the Moose of Burkina Faso
Author: Alain-Joseph Sissao
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2010
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9956616559

The Moogo, the region of the Moose known as Mossi in ancient literatureóoccupies the entire central zone of Burkina Faso. It is divided into several kingdoms, the principal one comprising todayís capital of Ouagadougou. Along with the singing griots, the evening storytellers pass on the ancestral word during the evening gatherings where they provide the group with models to follow. The folktale is the most appropriate form for teaching young children to express themselves, to structure their thoughts, and to reason. The tales portraying familiar animals will be reserved for the group of youngest children. The legendary gluttony and foolishness of Mba-KatrÈ, the hyena, in contrast with the cunning and finesse of Mba-So'mba, the hare, will interest above all children from 10 to 12 years of age. The stories describing the origin of things, the reason for various social taboos, the legitimacy of social functions and structures, as well character flaws that need correcting, are reserved as a priority for adolescents.

A Dictionary of Popular Bali Names

A Dictionary of Popular Bali Names
Author: John Koyela Fokwang
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2010
Genre: Bali (African people)
ISBN: 9956616478

A Dictionary of Popular Bali Names is an exceptional minefield of Chamba names, meticulously assembled and expatiated for the curious user. As a pioneer in the field of dictionary-writing in the Cameroon grassfields, Fokwangís third edition counts for more than a regular dictionary. It skilfully combines a short history of the Chamba people in Cameroon as well as ethnographic issues on the naming ritual. John Fokwangís work stands in a class of its own and will serve as reference material for people of Chamba descent and those who favour the use of African names in general. This edition is an exceptionally worthy contribution to the ethnography of the Cameroon grassfields and of course, the growing literature and interest on African names and languages.

Forest Echoes

Forest Echoes
Author: Nol Alembong
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2010-03-01
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9956715778

Forest Echoes is a literary quilt revealing a mature poet bestriding generations as he patches together a people's culture, their philosophy, history, along with their attendant woes into a subtle, sometimes disillusioning even, yet purposeful and poignant whole. Nol Alembong is not afraid to be himself in this work: a scholar, teacher, parent, traditionalist and, above all, an Anglophone-Cameroonian. Whatever the case, these are magisterial and equally influential individual traits that have merged into a united whole in forging this poet's identity and concerns as evident from the thematic panorama of the poems. In "Forest Echoes", the title poem, for example, one encounters a poet who, though steeped in his people's struggles, has been able to stand back, watch and evaluate the effects of the interactions of time, events, and society. It is this ability of his, as an involved yet detached observer, along with the trend of events that have scarred his people's lives, which have yielded the powerful emotions that he has assembled in this thematically lush, historically nostalgic, and overwhelmingly evocative collection." - Dr. Emmanuel Fru Doh

I Spit on their Graves

I Spit on their Graves
Author: Godfrey B. Tangwa
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 9956616265

The essays collected in this volume are, by the depth of their analysis and the breath of their vision, indeed ëNo Trifling Matterí. They are a chronicle of the events in contemporary Cameroonian society, especially as concerns the conduct of public affairs therein. Over and above its relevance for our own time, this chronicle will, in the decades that lie ahead, serve as a rich source of information, opinion and comment which future generations, anxious to understand the making of an era whose impact, positive or negative, is destined to survive long after the longest-living of its principal actors and actresses shall have disappeared from the face of the Earth, will find a great benefit. Rotcod Gobata has, through these essays, lit and placed on a pedestal, a candle whose flame shall never die and whose glow shall serve as a beacon to guide and to inspire generations yet unborn.