The University of Buea this week withdrew a Bachelor and a Masters degree awarded to the so-called Lord Mayor of the Buea City Council in Southern Cameroons after a committee found he had gained admission into the institution using fake GCE O and A level certificates.

Interestingly, Patrick Ekema Esunge, a chartered member of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate also holds a PhD from an American University. The Buea University senate revoked the degrees and confirmed that after a very intensive and productive investigation, Ekema will face legal action from the Ministry of Higher Education.

A message sent to our London editorial desk stated inter alia that the mayor of Buea “Mr. Patrick Ekema now has a birth certificate, marriage certificate, baptism card, GCE O’ level with 4 E grades, a First School Leaving Certificate, a gun license and a driver’s license.”  The Ekema Buea University affair can best be painted using Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels-from a Brobdingnagian to an academic Lilliput.

The Brobdingnagians were giants: they averaged around 60 feet tall, and their lands and animals were correspondingly huge. Gulliver was incredibly vulnerable in this country, which is why it made sense that the satire turned increasingly towards the fragility (and grotesqueness) of the human body. Gulliver stumbled into cow pats and was nearly drowned by a frog. (Mbella Moki) All of these tales were truly dire to him, but to the Brobdingnagian court, they were a laugh riot.

The Lilliputians inhabited the first island Gulliver visited. They all stood about six inches tall, with proportionally tiny buildings and trees and horses. The Lilliputians were ruled by an Emperor who appointed his high court officials according to their skills with rope dancing rather than their actual abilities. In other words, they’re exactly governed according to rational principles. The court of Lilliput like the CPDM crime syndicate mostly seems to spend its time plotting against one another. Gulliver, unfortunately, formed one of the primary targets of these plots. His enormous size made him both expensive and dangerous for the Emperor to keep, so, even though he made himself useful in Lilliput’s wars against Blefuscu, (Ambazonia) Gulliver eventually had to flee the country to avoid having his eyes put out.

A prominent human rights lawyer, Barrister Tambe Tiku first posted fraud accusations, prompting the Biya regime to ask the university to investigate. A report from the same lawyer looking into the case was handed to the press and that forced the university council to invalidate the degrees.

Mayor Ekema has not commented on the situation and nothing has been said by his entourage on whether he intends to challenge the university’s decision. He is yet to admit to any deliberate wrongdoing or deception. But if he fails to put up a resistance, Mola Ekema will become the first highly profiled Southern Cameroonian in the consortium of CPDM crime syndicates under the direction of President Biya to lose his academic credentials.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai